sheer inertia

every word that i think of as the first word to begin the first sentence of a first paragaraph seems cliched. if not cliched, then it seems utterly useless, or else if everything fails it seems un-necessary.......................................................................................................................................

short story

the chicken and the duck

softly kneaded into the senses was the taste of honey
she put her tongue to it cautiously
exploding in a fury of rain drenched skin

hands that sought another's
lips that craved another's
chocolate and vanilla rum truffles

senses tested beyond their limit
all other deviations shut down one by one
until sunlight poured in through the cobwebbed window panes



a small corner of the room was lit up
she sat there gazing into her soul
as he lay sleeping, content and caressed by spent love from last night

of love and other demons...

“Jesus won’t save you.”
“No. Momma He will.”
“He won’t because you have sinned. He will save you only if He loves you.”
“Momma, Jesus loves everybody; sinners, even me.”

Telling isn’t it? Little children scared by their parents into submission to the world of religion that the child doesn’t understand, more often than not, the parent doesn’t. God has to love us sinners more than the saints for we need him the most. He shall have to put faith in us, for we need most forgiveness. He shall have to pay more attention to us, for we need Him.

The little novel by Marquez talks of good, of evil, of love, of passion, of deceit, of gods that Christian religion doesn’t understand, of madness, of solitary sorrow, of debauched misgivings, of addictions, of the eternal human caprice to want to reach a place where morality can be left at the doorstep and deep breaths in the arms of the forbidden beloved shall not be looked upon with a disapproving eye.

The little girl Sierva Maria found peace in the lies that she told her European parents, in the songs she sang for the African housemaids, in the arms of the priest Cayetano Delaura in the cold dreary prison cell of the convent, in the moment when she knew that it was her last breath. The priest was doomed by his education and direction in life when it was confronted with the bounteous beauty of life. Vows of celibacy are just so trite. Love is what steps out of the hackneyed path. The Marquis’ love for the mad woman, Abrenuncio’s love of horses, the Bishop’s love of the motherland… the Abbess’ love for herself all lead to but one path.

Madness, solitude, anger, tantrums, love, sex, drugs are all sedatives that set humans on the track of domesticity. Some hide these afflictions better than others. Others hide their illicit affairs. Each act of pure physical love gets mired in terms of adultery or prostitution. Each act of romantic love is an act of cheating. We sinners need God most. God needs us sinners the most. Ours is the symbiotic relationship.

Walk in, flit out, sift through, take stock, have some recourse, make demands, let go, hang on… where does it all lead us? Nowhere to go, nowhere to hide; look for kindred spirits, look for redemption, look for those arms that never was for us in the first place. He doesn’t exist. If he does, he loves someone else. He wants someone else. He lies in bed with you but he sleeps with her. You sleep with someone else. You’re all alone. You’re on your own. You drink, you forget, you see someone else.

When was the last time you woke up to someone you expected to wake up next to??

here's the look see

okay people, unless you're absolutely sure you won't throw up, don't open this link. these are pictures of me right before i was stitched up in the operation theatre. it's bloody and gory. my sincere apologies for ruining your day..

http://picasaweb.google.co.in/xanjukta/GraphicPhotosIMSorryIfTheyDisturbYou?authkey=2NkOVp9HfhI

silkworm

nimble hands sewed up tattered pieces of skin for a good many hours. the story started as we froze like deer in the headlights of the oncoming vehicle or did the grand plan start before that. did i know anything while i cleaned up my room and made space for puru's stuff in my cupboard. did anyone have an inkling? did someone laugh in the great big blue sky or wherever the halleluiah strumming lute carrying angels park their white fluffy clouds??

frankly speaking for some strange reason i can't seem to relate to people who've come and told me if only you'd waited for some time... i'd rather get on with my life (i mean work, marriage. books, music etc) i mean i just wanna laugh. there are just so many corny jokes and one liners that come into my edema'ed brain, and i say then aloud, but it's no fun laughing at yourself unless you can manage a good racous laugh yourself. otherwise, people feel a little uncomfortable and odd at laughing at a smashed up woman. i mean god!! they're quite polite, aren't they?

i've been meaning to write for a long time now. just haven't had the time, and now i've all the time in the world. at least for a few days. (boy! Am i bored out of my wits?) i've contemplated on smell for now. with a smashed nose nothing much works in the olfactory department. i couldn't smell the three day old dried and caked blood in my fingers. nor the fact that i've not brushed for the last three days. what to say of the fresh smell of shampoo that emanated from my head wash today. i can't smell his breath, i can't smell his skin, i can't smell his love. i can only see everything. and i'm scared to soak it all in cos i may start crying being so overwhelmed, which i can't afford cos i can't blow my bloody broken nose.

spread open the anus of a cadaver. a sudden whiff of smell shall burst and shock you. i call it 'the final fart'. what of the teeming masses all around? what should i call that?

systems are down

i always thought that there would be a defining moment which i'd recognise, which would characterise me or bring to light my possible place... all i find is one day blending into the insignificant other.. is it cowardice to kill oneself or is it an act of courage? i can't seem to find the answer.. is that the only philosophical question left?? whether or not to live!!!

resurrection...or is it?

The burgeoning of an idea seems so very momentous to the generator that he/she gets carried away in the multiple variants of its expression and implementation. There is never the thought that it might just be a personal matter. People wash it, cook it, clean it, bake it, fry it, ornament it and put it out to dry where the winds of the rest of the human minds may see it, touch it, sense it, feel it, taste it, smell it and revel in it…or just as well criticize and pan it.

Well an idea is just that. There is nothing original, momentous or extraordinary about it. Everyone has them. Everyone constructs them. Everyone discards them. There’s nothing grand about having one of them, a million of them or having none at all. It’s all very simple. Life is just the way it is. Each day merges into each night, which in turn merges into the next morning.

We strive so hard to make ourselves indispensable to the ones we love, to the ones we aid, to the ones at our mercy, to the ones whose mercy we rely on, to every goddamn person, thing or event we think is of value. It is all in vain. There is no place for immortality. We can’t live on in the lives of our children… they can’t search for meaning in our lives, or even answers. We each seek our own answers. What we need are the really good questions… Or are they just fanciful ideas?

birth

bag and baggage

A saga of 16 days, 12 places, 25 people, 70 pieces of luggage, 9 railway stations, 2 nuclear power stations, 15 PowerPoint presentations, 11 odd ‘official’ dinners, 8 ‘call on’s, 1 governor, 1 DGP, 5 IGPs, countless policemen, 4 boat rides, umpteen buses, 2 very good cups of coffee, numerous cuppa tea, 1 tea garden, 5 sea fronts, under nourished egos, varied interests, shopping, temples, elephants, liaison officers, good and bad hotel rooms, museums, palaces, coolies, trolleys, digicams, rains, idlis, dosas, south Indian version of laccha paranthas, curd rice, banana chips, AC 2-tier coaches, unwashed clothes (which were washed yesterday, my room looked like a dhobi ghat), 8 novels (Naipaul, Amis, Torday, Anita Nair, Tharoor, Calvino…etc.), 1 book of essays (The Moronic Inferno), cell phones on roaming and fatigue.

DISCLAIMER: The following account has been censored for a UA rating. Reader discretion is still recommended. Please read between the lines for the expletives that have been erased, emotions that have been obliterated, feeling have been un-disclosed, information kept secret and do remember that all views expressed belong inordinately to yours truly and do not in any way reflect opinions of any canine, feline, bovine, rodent, human, organizational or governmental set up.

Rats scurry along in the gutters under the railway tracks oblivious t the people on the platforms. People who are inhaling the putrid smell of fermenting urine and excreta left by travelers like proof of their fetid existences. “Ah! Once upon a time, I was in Gwalior. Of course, I should know. Ask the scum I crapped there!”

No, this is not an invective about the things going wrong with India on the eve of the 60th anniversary of independence. But this is true of the railway stations in India, barring Malgudi, perhaps because it’s imaginary. It must be said though in 60 years the babudom has moved from the teeming compartments that Gandhi traveled to the AC 2-tier where even vendors do not venture. The isolated steel frame, the Ambassadocracy has moved on to Mercdom! This is a tirade of much miniscule a proportion. This is about my life in the past one month.

Okay, it’s kinda cool to be a 27 year old Indian woman and claim to have lobbed a grenade. No, silly, not in Lal Chowk but at the BSF range in Indore. However once all the madness of raids, cordon and search ops got over; we were herded to Tekanpur where we saw Inspector Beethoven at work. Not a Great Dane, the great Labrador that sniffs out explosives and narcotic contraband. Then soon it was time to take the GT Express from Gwalior to Chennai. I had about two hours to kill, one hour cos we had a “buffer” time to account for traffic rush (haha!) and the other cos the train was late. Therefore I observed the rats.

Then followed a crazy mad rush to keep appointments with governors, IGs, DGs, first woman police station in India, Coastal police station, temples before closing time, slow buses (nobody in Tamil Nadu seemed to know how much time it takes to get somewhere, every time we were told it’ll take 3 hours it took us harrowing five!), Cochin Port Trust etc etc etc ad nauseum. What I failed to understand, very starkly if I may say so was at Mahabalipuram: 30 minutes to see all the architecture of the stone carved temples minus the “Five rathas” (lack of time you see), but a two hour lunch at the Taj (not that I’m complaining too much cos I feasted on squid). This went on.

Wherever we went there were also PowerPoint presentations ready and waiting for us. The worst was at Cochin, where we reached by a slow and arduous train at 7:30 pm, changed and reached the Port Trust at 8:30 pm only to be served tea along with what I now believe to be the seminal contribution of Microsoft to Indian bureaucracy. Seriously, walking into the still-being-constructed-light water reactor-way-out-of-timeline was an experience of a lifetime. The same cannot be said of the PowerPoint presentation on the stages and history of nuclear power generation in India.

Food was another issue. I don’t want to see another idli, dosa or a serving of curd rice for a long time to come. Nor do I want the smell of coconut oil in my dal or what they called the sambaar for us “the outsiders”. The appam and mutton stew at Cochin though was to die for, as was the cold cream pie aboard a naval vessel at Cochin. Methinks Cochin was the best part of the trip: the boat ride to the mouth of the river, where it meets the sea, the visit to the Dutch palace at Mattancherry and the Jewish Quarters with its synagogue where I was afraid to step on the blue china floor tiles.

Ooty was miserably cold and wet. Mysore palace was to use Lutyen’s words ‘garish’ and over top. Bangalore was overcrowded and claustrophobic with its traffic and concrete jungle, yet we managed to reach the train station with a buffer of two hours beating the traffic, oh! Lucky us! Kanya Kumari was absolutely delightful as was Madurai with us finally having some time, graciously accorded by the hosts, to visit the cities treats and eyesores alike. Ah, yes! I was in Pondicherry also, which was another hit, run, touch and go visit.

What did I learn? When you’re on the other side of the fence remember not to do this to your juniors in the service.

P.S.: for some pics check www.picasaweb.google.co.uk/xanjukta/BharatDarshan

talk to the hand...

i've been here before but never with such intensity... do people understand what i mean?

untitled

save the world???

earth, the Raven haired beauty

smelt of freshly cut grass,

or, was it her perfume?

whatever! Let it pass.

fallow, barren, infertile,

she's been called too many names

still she empties her womb

never playing too many games

"Die you cock sucking mother fucker", he shouted

as he pulled the trigger

many died, some maimed, all was over,

or do you want me to give a numerical figure?

lizard king (with all due apologies)

Disclaimer: I'm willing to face the flak!! Bring it on!!

Interesting Story: The photographer is auctioning this tiara, so make your bids.. best one so far is "two shwarmas from maroush" with ""extra"" GARLIC.. and psst.. the photographer is a pig!! Personally, the Human Rights Watch is helping the help throw off his proletariat shackles and sue the m(b)astard

Boring Truth: Let me give you the background... a friend of mine took a picture of his officeboy with a cheap tiara stolen from a baniya wedding bash.. it has a flashing lights... Okay, truth, he found the tiara at a club next to a cheap ass pineapple cake that said "Happy Birthday, Mrs. Bunty"...

Apolo'guise'

What is the point of picking up a fight if you've got to apologize later... Fights can be fought out in two ways. One with a swift stroke and another with a long drawn out extended series of bouts. A good fight is one no doubt which can settle scores really quickly and effectively and once and for all... Sock the guy’s face and you’re done. Never have to see the person again. This is possible only if the other is a stranger or a passing acquaintance, who doesn’t really matter much in your life. This is the best fight ever. But imagine having one of these fights with someone you know well, someone you’ll have to see for an extended period of time in your life, anything between six months to a lifetime. Then either the two of you are intelligent enough to never talk to each other ever again. Take care that the two of you never cross paths again. At least there’d be some peace in your life. The fight would be an act complete in itself.
But in case you keep running into him either out your own volition or out of his will ’cos he wants to niggle you, then what happens to your life? Ruinous hell where everyday you fight a bit, win a bit, lose a bit, increase blood pressure, remain under constant stress…in short you hardly have much of a life. In this case humans walk into the realm of the second form of battles. The wars of attrition that drag on for long with no rhyme or reason and which have no clear conclusions... This is harmful in the long run, but most human antagonism gets manifest only in this nature. Look at Palestine-Israel; or the two Koreas…or at your squabbling parents... Perhaps both sides want to increment the misery in their lives as well with the other person's lives. Well, who am I to judge that? To each his own…
As for me, I prefer the first split-second decisive act. One slap, one punch, one whack and it’s all over. I guess I’ve had the advantage of that until now because of my age. Growing up, not too many people remain important, a feeling that increases as and when one shifts schools, colleges or universities. Most of your friends will shift out to jobs and other diverse fields. So how does it matter if you fight with them?
Another thing entirely; if you’re in a job and the i@!$#s around you are either your colleagues or your trainers. If you dislike anyone, just ignore and wash them from your head… A better thing to do in the long run because you’ll need some help from them later in life. And by any chance if you’ve opened your mouth and said something which led to a heated exchange, you’re done for. Be prepared for the protracted time consuming sequence to follow. Sharpen your knives. Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer.

Between a cow and ‘chunnu munnu te papa di gaddi’

Ai hai… have you seen the traffic in India? I’ve been around…if you know what I mean… And I’ve seen a lot of this country. Rather I’ve narrowly skidded, swerved, survived the roads, actually what plies on the roads. From flashy Mercs at the Bombay Gymkhana to gaudy Beemers at Taj Land’s End, from bassy Hummers in Koregoan to monstrous Volvos on the Ahmedabad-Vadodara highway, from raddiwalah trucks at Azadpur mandi to gannewalah tractors on the Ambala-Karnal turning, from rickety autos near Charminar to polluting state transport buses before CNG revolutionized Delhi, from zooming motorbikes with young boys ogling at college going girls in Kanpur to slow scooters weighed down by a fat father, fatter mother and two plump children in the streets of Karolbagh...I seen it all!

Holy cow! I guess that’s in tradition with my cultural ethos… or is it an expletive?? Did I just swear, mother of god!!! Forgive me father for I have sinned, but I’d like to shoot some of these cows that amble along the road with no thought of the past, present or future and just as suddenly park their arse in the middle of the road, while the vehicles careen, attempting not to bump into each other, screeching to a halt. No one’s loud about it, but each driver at this point of time is cursing all the cows to kingdom come, like there’s no tomorrow. Who let the cows out? Who? Who? Who?

Another question… who issued driving licenses to some of these drivers? Positively nasty, they don’t know when to use the indicators, when to honk and they seem to be driving with one foot on the brakes. In the night the road is a sea of blinking red lights in front of you and a floodlit stadium behind you. It’s a miracle that you get home safe and sound, in one piece, for you’ve been driving with your eyes closed for a long time dodging the full beam headlights, courtesy the fellow motorists. Scream, shout, tear your hair out, nothing works it’s a madhouse out there. Like playing dodgeball, driving in the streets in India is more an art of finding empty spaces and maneuvering the car there and then looking for the next spot. Of course, traffic jams are a different ball game altogether. If you haven’t been in one, you’ve seen nothing of India. And if you haven’t been in one, read no further, ’cos there’s no way you can read about it and get a feel for it. It’s one of those things in life that have to be experienced.

I’ll tell you anyway. You seem to be the persevering type. That reminds me, perseverance is a virtue on the roads. Especially during jams! It’s what restrains you from giving in to your dark side, slitting your own throat, strangulating the driver in front of you, breaking a couple of windshields and shoving the jaw down the throat of the lady who’s on the phone and not moving an inch when the jam has somewhat cleared out. Perseverance and patience and the simple sane knowledge that if you did any of the above mentioned acts you’d have to deal with the cops…and you don’t want that!

Imagine a hot June afternoon, blazing sun that hurts the eyes (in fact it seems like the eyes have melted)… you are at a crossroad and there’s a flashy sedan in front of you. You can see the driver; she’s on the phone and applying lipstick at the same time. Next to you is a fat pot bellied man in a small dinky car; he’s so fat that the steering wheel seems to be performing a gastric bypass surgery. Sweat pouring down in rivulets down your neck, despite the air conditioning in the car. You forgot to bring your own music, so you elected to listen to the radio instead. But that was a very bad choice because the RJ is shouting banal inanities now about audience who’ve written to her about the nature of her mellifluous voice. You think ‘are they crazy? This is the most irritating voice you’ve ever heard. Does her beau stuff cotton in his ears?’ The light is green, but the lady on the phone refuses to budge and the fat man just burped. Small mercies that your car is all boarded up, but you can almost smell the acrid fumes of his puri aloo bhajji breakfast.

Surely, you’ve got to be kidding if you don’t understand what I mean when I say that traffic in India is a whole world in itself. And you’re lucky if you can survive it with a few homicidal tendencies peppered with delusions of nuking the whole place. That’s just the normal mode here.

funny....

so what does freud have to say about this.... very oral or what??????

Toe-jam

Disclaimer: All characters, situations and humor in this piece are fictional. Any resemblance noted is purely incidental. All views expressed belong inordinately to yours truly and do not in any way reflect opinions of any canine, feline, bovine, rodent, human, organizational or governmental set up.

Let’s call a spade a spade. Outdoor is not easy-peasy by any stretch of crazy imagination. It is a series of back breaking, bicep enlarging, quadriceps hurting, knee spraining, ligament tearing, wrist fracturing, and shin shattering exercises. Constructed in such a way that it faintly disguises the essence of medieval torture at its core, this recipe has running, marching (in quick step and dheere chaal), horse riding, swimming, arms drill (salami shastra, bagal shastra etc ad nauseum), rope climbing, yoga bending, aerobics, push ups, chin ups, sit ups as its ingredients. All of these activities have specific procedures that have to be strictly adhered to. And all the salami I was conversant with was of a different nature, taste wise.

A hundred and one mostly out of shape bodies, are churned, wrung, chopped, sautéed, fried, baked, stuffed, sieved, curried, spiced, pressure cooked, boiled, steamed and cooked into a strange smorgasbord that, I’m not surprised, no one wants to sample. This assorted amalgam of human fat, muscle and bone bathed, fed and uniformed ends up indoors to the tune of discussions pertaining to law, procedures, prisons, bullet injuries, leadership, knife wounds, dowry deaths, sincerity, honesty, integrity and competencies. Let’s call a spade a spade. Indoor is not easy-peasy by any stretch of crazy imagination. Not when twelve hundred marks are at stake.

Let’s call a spade a spade. There’s nothing that can be done. The 2nd of November means the 2nd of November and it will come only after the months of March, April, May, June, July, August, September and October are over. So how does one sustain and retain the self in the face of such a hard hitting schedule? (Well, the ones really badly hit go to the hospital. However, they have, since the last two weekends been made to realize the folly of their ways. Ask anyone who has had PT and Drill classes on a Sunday…you’ll know what I mean!) The rest, who have kept in the various shades of pink of their health yawn, sigh and doze indoors and shuffle, drag, pant outdoors and thus forth cancel dates on the calendar.

Yet, you ask, how does one keep sane? Oh dear! That’s a wrong question to ask, lil’un! You see sanity has nothing to do here. As the weeks have gone by, I have been privy to the progression/regression of quite a few of my colleagues. Be it the lanky ‘Godfather’, one of the Kerala brothers, who has done everything from nostril flaring like a horse to a staccato ek-dab-ek which still persists while he runs the cross country forever looking for cover behind tiny rocks and shallow ditches. Best thing though is that we’ve arranged a rather elaborate method of saluting, and that keeps me going every morning. The second part in the Kerala brothers’ series is an earnest ‘banana’ youngster who is diligently attempting to learn Hindi and grow a respectable moustache at the same time. He is quite aware of his limitations on both counts though.

Then there is Bhai, who is bummed about going to the hills, actually he spent most of his time here calculating his cadre. Alternately, every week, he was either happy or sad…but as he’s put it best: “it’s all in the mind”. Did I mention, he could be a great playwright and director? To bhai ka cadre aa gaya, aur bhai ko running bhi aa gayi, bas swimming baki hai! Undoubtedly the best runner in our batch, Dulari, is another person who goes to great lengths to maintain aerodynamics. I guess, that is why he doesn’t cut his nails too often, to slice through air…slackers take note. This is a gem of a coaching trick. “O teri”, I can hear Mr. Shin. Too bad, you can’t transplant Maharaja’s. “Jis din meri shin thik ho gayi na…” He threatens… But then he has another strategy planned out with Motey: “End tak expose nahi karenge. Bas last mein position exchange kar lenge.” I’m not sure which way the wind shall blow, but I’m hoping by the last 10 km marathon, we’ll find out. Motey, we’re not quite sure if he was in the Island police or was he at the hands of the Island police. His dexterous digits can not merely sketch but also flick wallets, watches, pens… He’s lost weight, a new name is in order, hmmm… lemme think…

Oh! Mandeepjee ke bare mein kuch nahi likkha to woh na bura maan jayenge.. sorry jee! His biggest issue is changing clothes for that means changing his head gear. Strangely though, he has been asked to wear the turban and not the helmet for horse riding. May be he should swim the same way!

Bringing up the rear are two really unforgettable persons… One Lieutenant Tangri Kebab who keeps us droolingly enthralled with the sight of his muscled thighs and laughing at his aerobic antics. Peeche ka salute is his patented move as is the demo UAC. Any one caught copying shall be punished under Section 30 of LSW Act 2007. “Kitne chakkar lagana hai for writing this?” The other Dr. D, or D Buddha as some people call him. He is the masterful composer and lyricist of famous songs like “Jaane kyon log drill karte hai”, “Drill na kiya to kya kiya”, “Drill se laga le dil”, “Just chin up, chin up”. These numbers can be heard on the lips of everyone who thinks he or she’s not tone deaf and in the minds of the very few who know they are. We think a dedicated radio channel for the two of them should do splendidly, if not, perhaps a recording studio could be arranged. Such talent should not be made to leave the country without a trace.

Let’s call a spade a spade. These people are fun to be with. They make the troubles of the routine quite bearable. Whatever be the cause of this training, whatever it is that I have to achieve here in terms of the profession or the career, methinks life should be great with these guys around…

The Incredible Weight of Being

Being here that is the premier training institute for police officers of India amidst a hundred people, all apparently the intellectual crème de la crème of the country this year… this batch will soon be replaced by another. The circle of life has a new meaning with the UPSC selection process, yet people refuse to face the truth and hang on to notions of superiority. The real person gives way to fresh blood. Perhaps that is why the country goes nowhere!

Whoa!!! Hold on before you think that this is a subjective vent of anger disguised as an objective analysis of people around me. Where is my sense of humor? I vaguely recall a jocular answer to this query. It was something like – “look at the guy she’s with… She definitely has a sense of humor!” Ok, I’m rubbing it in, but it’s too late to mention that now.

Enough digress; I shall get to the subject related to the incredible weight of being here…in this place…with these people. I have been asked to put on 10 kilos on my frame (for the love of god, I don’t know where I’ll be able to put that). I’m one of the few here who’s on this side of the fence. Where the grass is greener, people have been asked to reduce their weight anything between 1 to 14 kilos… However there are weightier issues. For example the kind of food available and the nature and manner in which it is consumed. Often it is the fear of the body giving way that ensures that we all stuff our faces every time we see food. Hence the efforts at reduction have been met with utter failure. Wherever I see the pants have only become tighter, and they’d like to think those are muscles… Looks like most are broadening their horizons.

Over and above this, there is further burden imposed upon us in the name of attempting to maneuver this girth on the PT field, the gym, the games field, the parade ground, the aerobics class, the yoga mats and the climbing rope. The only ground (quite literally I tell you) where this comes in handy is the WT and the firing range where cushions are handy. At least it doesn’t hurt everywhere and every time the bone contacts with the hard earth. Places I’m hurt are unmentionable, unnamable and unpardonable. Sigh!!

Yet I trudge, plod, dredge and drag myself on each day. Every morning I wake up to the sound of the bugler. He blasts off at an unearthly hour, though of late methinks he has a cold or a sore throat. He begins with a clear sound, short and smart bursts in the right pitch, but within 5 seconds it peters off towards utter flaccidity leaving my mind in splits. We have been instructed not to crack up publicly, audibly or visibly.

As I giggle, chuckle, mumble in my mind, my body stands in the midday sun in this god forsaken piece of Government property, my face and forearms tanned to king‘black’dom come, my scalp dripping each and every gram of salt available in the body along with every bit of the 70% water that I’m made of. One can actually feel the strength ebbing out as the tickled-with-rivulets-of-sweat quadriceps muscles refuse to obey commands of savdhan or vishram. One more thing…I’m learning to incorporate nomenclature like glutes into my regular vocabulary… Man, let’s just call it the ass!

Though the way everything seems to be going, I’ll be lucky to leave this place with my humor intact if not the femur or the humerus. Though the incredible weight of being here may achieve exactly this, I’d rather leave with what I came in… and, maybe a few rope burns!

The Underground Man

"Notes from Underground" by F. Dostoevsky... I started reading this book because it intrigued me... okay, the person who gave me the book piqued my curiosity too…(just a little bit, though).. Well now I could go on and write about me...but I guess I shall desist from narcissistic contemplations and write about the Underground Man (UM) who harangues about his condition and position in his society. I'm not sure if I can call it his society, because it doesn't exist anywhere else but in his head. He berates this society, he hates it, he believes that he is despised because he is vile and asocial. Yet all along his display of detached anger, he stops now and then, turns volte face on that particular point of his argument. He deliberately tries to take the reader elsewhere. He wants to show the reader that he is an equal turncoat as the UM himself. That is why he pauses with the 180 degree turn only to hear the reader go ‘yeah’ in his mind. Then, the UM wants the reader to also realize that he agrees with the opposite. Quite the opposite! What the UM needs is love, unconditional and accepting all his flaws. All he attempted to do was have relationships with people without having a relationship actually. Maybe he was scared of any little loss that may accrue because there could be always an end to any relationship. Towards the last 30 odd pages of the book, his real self comes to light. He has met the whore but he shames her with his cruel words.

I finished reading the book in the morning today and I am very sad. I didn’t want to let go of the UM. Perhaps because of the compassion in me, but then the book could have been written so that the reader may feel compassion… (You see, I don’t trust the UM or Dostoevsky anymore!) if the latter is the case then I have once again been taken for a ride… slimy bugger…that coot Dosto! Anyway, the UM fell in love with the whore Liza, and he realized it after he was cruel to her. For four days, he remained suspended in love for her. It bordered on the brink of madness. He desperately wanted for he to love him. She does and she comes over to his place to let him know. She is not entirely without shame. Aware, actually of her own status and life so far, she ventures to speak with enormous trepidation. However her hesitant attempts are met with violence on his part. At first he lets her see through to his loneliness, she does and soothes him as he cries upon her breast, bawling like a child. As things lead from one to the other, and time goes on, the UM wants to test her again. After she is dressed, just before she leaves, he presses five rubles in her palm. What he tried was not a test of whether she loves him or not, but whether he could be loved at all. She did not understand him, how could she, when he (who had read so much) could not even do so himself. His act, yes, undoubtedly cruel, seemed vicious to her. Needlessly vicious!! She leaves the house and he turns to see the crumpled note lying next to the couch.

Of course he realizes! Of course he is crushed! Of course he never sees her again! Of course he goes underground to write his harangue! Of course he is lonely! Of course she could never come back or understand him!

He wanted her to save him from him.
She wanted him to save her from her.

None understood the other. None helped the other. None loved the other. None saw beyond his or her self. They both lost, not just the other, but the opportunity to know themselves. The only one chance at passion available for the two of them, yet they squandered it away in an idiotic move at maintaining their egos in the face of social mores and their own unique though commonplace adjustments to them.

ENDNOTE: Dostoevsky should have carried on writing in this style...simple, incisive and provocative. This book was not a success, and so he meandered into the other style of writing evident in the "Brothers... or "Crime...