My New Place

I am moving into a new house this decade end. It’s a little duplex, an independent two-bedroom house, not far from where I stay currently. At 900 sq feet plot area, it’s rather modest, but those with a propensity to exclaim “so cute” won’t find many reasons to hold the complement back.

There’s just about enough parking place for my little car in the front; then there is a hall, followed by stairs that lead up to a bedroom on the first floor which opens up to the terrace where I shall be spending mornings brushing teeth, and evenings, laying on a bean bag. The stairs are followed by a small kitchen and a room which opens up to a backyard that can accommodate four coffins in a two by two file.

I will finally un-wrap my television and put it in the hall, thereby ending nearly six years of forced abstinence. I am also going to fulfill the ambition of having a pet-fish. The fish-bowl too goes in hall. Somewhere in Bangalore there exists a fish yet to be christened Deember (While chatting with a friend about how different this December is, the “c” was missed and the result was immediately recognized to be an apt name for a squirrel).

Kitchen will have the usual things along with the only matchbox I have ever bought in Bangalore, six years ago. The matchsticks are still crisp, fully capable of burning, and have somehow mastered the art of reproduction inside the box.

The ground floor bedroom (the one with the creepy backyard), will be my supposedly-absurd-thoughts-room. It will have books and my personal laptop, but no internet connection or any timepiece. The room will largely be empty and devoid of any physical clutter.

After immense considerations, the internet connection goes to the first floor bedroom which will be my otherwise-normal-bedroom. (Wi-fi is not an option since the supposedly-absurd-thoughts-room must remain sacred). I didn’t check the attached bathroom of the first floor bedroom because by the time I was taken upstairs on the visit, I knew I was going to take the house, no matter what existed beyond the bathroom door. Besides, it’s too embarrassing to check the bathrooms in a house still inhabited by others. And the one of ground-floor had all things expected of a bathroom.

The current occupant (a colleague) and those in the know, emphasize the benefits of specially arranged security in the locality. At this stage of my life, security is the least of my concerns, but I still mention it when describing the place to friends/acquaintances and they nod their heads approvingly.

I kind of feel guilty towards the current place for being so eager to move out of it. This was my second house in the city. I have become so indifferent and condensing towards this place that I calculated the total rent I paid for the place. It’s nearly three hundred thousand.

All waiters in the area can predict my orders. The car-cleaner, maid and dhobi know me enough to look at me with pity. That’s one thing I got going for me. I am prone to be pitied upon, regardless of how I might be placed in various spheres. It’s an evolutionary trait perhaps.

There are quite a few schools in my current locality. I will miss watching poor kids rushing to school, mugging up on exam days; my daily dose of schadenfreude with a bit of nostalgia thrown in.

As I will move into the new place, I am bound to discover some drawbacks. The rain might be too noisy, there could be big fat rats (or even small ones), some new construction might begin in the area causing noise and dust, and so on and so forth. One negative that I have gauged already is that the neighborhood offers no chance of amusement or adventure.

My first house (in Gurgaon) allowed for hearing to the next-door twenty-something accusing his father of discouraging him at different stages in his life and the examples he used to cite were funny and deserve an entire blog-post.

We were thrown out of our next house from a posh apartment in Gurgaon because boys staying in the room next door used to make porn. We saw neither the porn, nor the actors. They were caught later on and the news was covered on Aaj-tak. Following that, Society Council pushed all the bachelors out.

We shifted to a nearby Society which employed a swimming pool supervisor with erratic timings. Our apartment didn’t offer the view to the pool. If the boys in the neighboring building, which offered the view to the pool, were out smoking in balcony, we used to infer (almost always correctly) that the pool is open.

Later I moved to Bangalore and have been staying on my own since then. My first house in Bangalore had three college going girls on the floor above. One fine day in March years ago, four girls knocked on my door and drenched me. We played Holi. They invited me to come along and I politely refused.

The next house, which is the current one, has pink walls, pink basin, pink tiles and pink toilet-seat. I was summoned to police station once when I had a drink-party with loud music on the terrace. The matter was solved “amicably”. And there are a few pretty faces around this place.

But the future house, on first inspection, offers nothing promising. The current occupant assured me that there is little to worry about and everyone is peaceful and all the houses have families with kids.

I will find solace in my supposedly-absurd-thoughts-room. And in Deember.

Trip Home

Lull is a funny word. And that’s what this place has been going through for a long while now. I have forgotten how to structure a post to the level this blog has been used to so far. Staccato shall be the norm in whatever drivel that follows.

So I went home for two weeks to celebrate Diwali. Supreme confidence with a false sense of control, in combination with a strong tendency towards judicious procrastination, ensured that I was yet again the last man to check-in thereby having to settler for the middle seat in the last row of the plane. Sandwiched between two adult males, one of whom carried a one and a half year old kid with a strange mythological name, the meaning of which he shall be obliged to explain for the rest of his life to those who enquire, I resigned to two more hours of discomfort to this three decade old body. The father was very careful in the beginning of the journey to keep the baby and himself within the domain he has paid for; by the time the pilot announced the landing, expressing the practiced gratitude, a ritual as unnecessary as the safety instructions, the kid’s shoes were resting on my lap. I pretended to ignore the inconvenience and kept my eyes closed throughout the journey.

On the eve of Diwali, when mom was finishing the pooja, I finally finished reading Lolita for the second time. Scared by the noise of crackers, a street-dog rushed in our house and trembled till well past midnight in the passage. I thought of taking its picture and uploading it on facebook with the title “Dog in Distress” (haa haa). But I was in throes of laziness which was furthered by illness (such a demeaning way to be reminded of mortality).

There was another interesting subject which I didn’t click. Three female models, one with a seductive expression, one in black mini, and the third in a dress typical of mid nineties, adorned a packet of crackers called ‘Priya’s Chakkar”. The cover should be acknowledged as a remarkable piece of diligence if all of those three models were named Priya in real life.

The place where that dog trembled in fear all night once used to be home to a stray cat, which, despite being pitch black, managed to give birth to white little kittens. When I was nine, mom told me to take those kittens to a park about three kilometers from our place. Chores, more often than not, aren’t as easy and straightforward as they sound. Catching and putting those kittens in a bag while their mother was out, gathering food, wasn’t really the hardest challenge as I had perceived before beginning to execute the task. Having done with that triviality with ease, as I walked on the road to the park, I was surrounded by the most ferocious dogs of the kind found only in small towns (dogs in Bangalore have been reported to be shooed away effortlessly by cats on more than one occasion).

The dogs had smelled and heard the little kittens. And their number increased with every turn I took. The knowledge that those dogs aren’t after me, but the kittens, gave me the courage to keep walking. However, after a while the dogs began jumping and growling greedily. Before the situation could turn graver, I opened the gates of a big bunglow , emptied the bag full of kittens, quickly closed the gate and returned back home, leaving the hounds barking on top of their voice in front of the house. To this day my eyes search for white cats whenever I pass by that house. Mother cat meowed around our house for the whole day and then left the place for good.

The journey back to Bangalore found me again on a middle seat of an Air India flight. The muffins they serve on Air-India flight are worth all the risk and nuisance. The gentleman on my left snorted regularly and so made me listen to some good music on the in-flight radio programs. Being forced to sit with seat-belts tied around the waist, while the air-hostess walks and shuts the overhead cabins with great difficulty with her nail-polished tender hands, never fails to make me feel helpless and guilty and yet I find the situation sexy in a way.

So the trip ended and it’s great to be back sleeping on the most comfortable bed in the world.

My Jazz Album

In a bid to up the cool-quotient I’ve taken to jazz these days. Have come to realize that jazz is an interest that will need a bit more cultivation. Listening to the numbers on “Smooth Jazz” on 91.9 FM, I couldn’t help wondering, sometimes, at the connection between the title and the music, especially when there are no words in the song. Of course when there are words, it’s straightforward and apparently I am yet to go beyond the straightforwardness in jazz.

I acknowledge that I have a lot to learn and understand. However, the possibility of naming such songs whimsically led me to create a jazz album of my own. I’ve tried to keep up with the contemporary themes and hence you’ll sense an inclination towards the matters of heart. Following are the songs with brief introductions:

1. Your Imperfect Teeth: Tune for a lad in love who finds his object of desire to be perfect, almost though.

2. Did You Sneeze On My Hanky : Let’s face it; we breathe in a devious world. No one, I repeat, no one, can be trusted; especially with your handkerchiefs.

3. One And Two And One And Jump : The song lacks universal appeal. It’s an expression against the guys who go to aerobics class near the park I go for my weekly jog. Douche bags.

4. Promise You Won’t Chew My Red Rose Again: A haunting melody of repeated attempts at unrequited love. Set to be a critics' favorite.

5. There Is No Fork Either: Melancholic psychedelic rhythm set to bring nerds closer to jazz and putting fear of God in ill mannered butlers.

6. Petty Coats: A rendition that forces the listener to contemplate the lack of fashion scene in the downtrodden blocks of the society.

7. Don’t You Marry That Monkey, My Baby : A misleading title, granted. This is not a song for the jealous or disowned. Au contraire, it’s about a discerning father trying to put sense in the smitten daughter’s head.

8. Wash Wash Wash : The only song with lyrics in it. It goes “Wash Wash ,Wash Wash Wash,..” in a feeble feminine voice that seems to be fading away, but never does so . Partial inspired by Macbeth, this song is expected to be popular in a niche audience, the over qualified housewives.

9. The Man With Concrete Ambitions : A dedication to the solid men of the society, the men with square heads on squarer shoulders. Let me tell you this: Jazz is all about improvisation. But this tune is tailored to leave no scope for hocus-pocus.

10. Your Almost Always Covered Body Parts: One can sense the perversion with a concern for hygiene and regular toilet habits in the title. The tune is bound to be popular in bands that play in baraats.

11. Ain’t Got No Damn To Give No More: A pinch of blithe and rebel in the beats. Targeted towards teenagers and middle aged men alike. Acid-Jazz at its best.

12. Hazards Of Broken Heart: A sad soft song. Guaranteed to leave a lump in a few throats by the time saxophone kicks in. The tritest of the lot, but done with elegance.

13. Nibbling The Sibling: The piece that pushes the album from the clutches of ordinary to the realms of grandeur. Limits of jazz are flirted in this surrealistic rigmarole of incest, gore and cannibalism.

Things a man endures every morning

The Restaurant

I picked up the menu card. The first page said ‘For Gents’. A bit odd, but you never know with these upscale restaurants.

“Can I have My Youth Back?”

“A bit late for it, sir. We don’t serve it after 5 PM.”

“How about My Fair Lady?”

“Out of stock, sir. We don’t compromise on quality and all the good ones are taken.”

“Can I have It All?”

“I am afraid, you flipped over to ‘For Ladies’ page, sir.”

“Oh right. Well, I’ll have two of What He Is Having."

“We can’t serve two of that, sir; defeats the purpose.”

“To hell with this menu. Why don’t you being me any salad and we just get over with it.”

“The Food-section is upstairs, sir.”

“And what section is this?”

“Silly Desires”

“But why do you list the items as dishes?”

“Sir, it’s a clever signifier for wishes.”

“I wish I had never come here.”

“Sir, before you leave, here is something for you. It’s the most recommended dessert from our menu.”

“What is it called?”

“Sir, Be Careful What You Wish For”

The Usual

So this guy walks into this pub. With swagger and all.

Looks around. Three chicks drinking. None good enough for him.

Goes straight to the bar.

“The usual.” He says checking his watch. It’s 4:58 PM.

Bartender gives him the glass with a nod of bitter familiarity.

He empties the glass in a single gulp and walks out. No payment needed.

Checks the watch again. Has the smile of a conquerer.

5PM is always the right time to have your fifth glass of water.

Unborn

Before she died, she had one last look at the sky. She has been sleeping since then, only to keep waking in another dream.

Now she found herself on an island with no trees and three crystals. The crystals were the shiniest she had ever seen.

“Do you like them?” said a voice which came from nowhere.

The sparkles told her that she wasn’t in a dream. Nothing so pure can be untrue.

“They were sons of the same mother.” the voice continued.

“Sorry??” she mumbled, uncertainly.

“I’ll explain. What was Newton’s greatest accomplishment?”

“Calculus? Laws of motion?”

The voice smirked.

“No, child. Newton became ‘The Theory of Relativity’.”

“So, the dead turn into theories or crystals?”

“Yes, they do, into ideas, into events, into all things that are beyond the realms of meek, the living beings. Mona Lisa, the Ninth Symphony, Zero; each one of them came into existence after centuries of suffering of the dead. ”

“What about the beginning, when there was no one to die?”

“No creation is free of the guilt of destruction.”

“Then who died for Big Bang? Was it God?”

“A force more potent.”

“What was it?”

“Loneliness.”

Even the waves paused for a moment.

“Nothing else explodes with such magnificence.”

And then the voice disappeared. And the crystals melted into tears and were stolen by the momentary breeze before the sand could swallow them, leaving her alone on the island of melancholy, till the day she turns herself into lyrics, yet unsung.

(My entry to the contest here . 250 words-limit and the story must be based on the image above. The contest is still open July 28.)