The Orange Seller's Wife !!

Well it’s not everyday that you get smitten by an orange seller's wife. That explained my surprise when Aamir told me about his first crush (of the year 1998 A.D.).This guy is hopeless, or else how do you explain falling for an orange seller's wife of all the people, I mean whatever happened to your neighbor’s wife and unless they are out of town you don’t really need to look further. I know I am being harsh on Aamir.Sometimes even I have sneaked a peek at the maid that comes to my neighbor's place but that has never been a voluntary act. Tell me, can you help it if you are ogling at your neighbor’s wife and the maid comes on the scene. Collateral bliss if you ask me.

"Are you even listening", Aamir almost threw the words at me. I knew I had to give in then to listening to his useless pursuit but the thought of free oranges kind of hooked me."Begin", I said in a tone that was more excited than concerned.

"It all started the day I walked in to what would be my school for the next two years”, he began in a tone reminiscent of those boring translated Discovery wild life docus.However I tried to focus and let him ramble, I wanted the wife thing to come soon. I kept wondering if I was giving myself away by the eagerness in me. I was no good at simulations. I knew it the day the maid refused to clean my room anymore. It was a minor embarrassment of sorts for the entire family. They could have fired the maid but it was far better to swallow the bitter pill than to look for a new maid and on top of it there was never a surety, with me around, that it wouldn't happen again. It was sheer insult for me and I was really sad for quite a few days before the neighbor’s wife returned from her mother's place and her daughter started her yoga sessions again. Life was back to its lechery, ogle-y self.

"Hey, I missed whatever you said in the past two minutes or so”, I said apologetically. He didn’t seem too annoyed and did a parrot soon enough. I will shift over to his first person account because otherwise I would keep rolling back now and again to my own exploits. So here it goes: Aamir’s account of his exploits::

Entering the very school's co-ed compound was a bliss. Where else do you get to see girls all around you and I mean get to stare at them without being stared at? Studying in an all boys' school for 14 years sure had taken its toll. I felt like a kid in a sweet shop except that I realized that they still were not free. I was moving about dazed and somehow managed to reach the class after encountering "endless curves".Everything was so symmetrical.I immediately hated the edgy school I had left behind The moment I entered it, everyone turned around to look at me. Well I know I am smart but this was too much. “Avoid having your foot in the mouth fella, it would split you into two”, came this "wisecrack" from a guy who looked like King Kong just had an image makeover for the better. Then I realized that my plastered left leg was hogging more attention than me all the while. Anticlimax, right when it was not needed.

I moved on to a seat which stood at the last and was obscured from everyone's view and as I sat down, I realized, "hey I need to move on quickly and obviously not literally”. Sitting as a back bencher in an unknown world of strange people made me real edgy. I knew I had left all my reputations behind me and now I needed to recreate and even reinvent, what with the female angle being introduced. So, I took a stock of the situation and penned down my arsenals. The list wasn't big but it was something.

1:I was smart(Doubtful...only I knew that)
2:I had a high merit(It isn't out of this world) after a few enquiries I knew it was NOTHING
3:I could be the new thing here, after all people always want a change.(But they want a change for the better)
4: My English was good (prerequisites are not weapons)
5:I had a sense of humor(Ok agreed, but will the girls get it, I don’t know)
6: All the above mentioned strengths have to be seen in the "darkness" of almost the other half of humanity i.e. the girls.

That’s the trouble being a pessimist, your strengths sound like your neighbor’s .I read the list again and again trying to add something to it .I thought of adding the fact that I was an absolute ace at Ludo but my modesty got the better of me and I stopped at the existing list. Points 4 and 5 seemed to be the ideal props then for my calculated assault on that unknown citadel and I proceeded to give my hopes a push.

Since I was so intent on this whole thing ,probably the universe conspired to take me further.Well, not exactly the Universe but a really "smart" chemistry teacher who in her debut catwalk before me looked like one of those who are smugly satisfied with their life and insist on telling others how to live theirs fully.Still, she was a welcome change from the previous paan spewing teacher of mine who would read a newspaper wrapped Kama Sutra in class (I still feel he could have atleast shown the cover to us).

"Hey,another country,you might as well hoist your flag there in your corner",said an animated Mrs. Singh,obviously delighted by her comment and the laughs it raised in the class.Its kind of bad when ,everytime people turn around to look at you ,they are laughing at you."I did try to hoist it mam early morning but fell down and broke my leg",I said, raising my plastered left leg to her.The class again reverberated in laughter,I hoped this time at her.I could see her unease on getting her hard earned invincible reputation biting dust infront of the whole class by a new student, of all the people.She icily ordered me to sit on the first and middle desk of the middle row in the class (height of ec-centre-icity) and went away saying she wouldn't be taking the class that day.

Well, I guessed I had gained some kind of a ground in that class. Suddenly, everyone was looking at me, the limping fellow, who not only dared to take on Mrs. Singh but also did a one up on her. For me, coming from a school that encouraged healthy repartees between students and teachers in class, this was trifles. I felt some elation rising within me. I knew weapon number 5 would work after all. I moved to my new seat and saw this average looking girl that would be sitting on my right.” Not bad for a start”, I said to myself as I sat down next to her but all the time,
intently hoping that the seat to my left houses some Marilyn Monroe at least.

I asked Rimy(that was her name), in a very casual way, as to who would be sitting to my left. "Farah”, she replied,” she went for her Biology class and I guess she has been delayed”. I almost managed to catch the "is she sexy?" question by the skin of my teeth. I hope she didn't notice it coming out.” You were good with your answer to Mrs. Singh but be careful, no one stays happy here and answers Mrs. Singh like that at the same time", she said with a smile. It was the first smile that I ever got from a girl. I could feel the heat in my ears. "Shit, they must have gone red again”, I thought. Well, Rimy wasn't exactly average if you leave out her morose expression and a deadpan look plus hair that looked like burnt Maggy, she was quite good looking. Who says a smile cannot change opinions?

Pretty satisfied with the developments of the day till then I went out of the class to take a walk/view and kept my fingers crossed for how Farah would be. I suddenly had to balk and gape. There is something about seeing an awesome girl that makes you even forget having her for dinner, I mean taking her out for dinner. There she was, in all her splendor, her open hair all over the place. She was looking at a file she held in her hand even as she walked avoiding all the stares she was getting from me and fellow perverts. She must have walked this corridor an awful lot of times, I thought, the way she could maneuver past me without even looking at me (ok, at least my huge left leg). I did take a long drag to soak that heavenly persona in me. She seemed familiar. She looked a lot like Tabu. Now a lot of people don’t know Tabu because she works in only meaningful films which have no takers in India. I wanted to see how she would look when she would laugh at my jokes, how she would look when we would go hand-in-hand for a stroll with a lot of our kids playing around. For that moment, I wished she were Farah.


Ok I know it sounds filmy but I cannot help it. The moment I returned to the class after completing the stroll which was uneventful after that heavenly sighting, I saw her sitting on the seat to my left. I believed in the law of averages and now I was sure that after 12 years of abstemious existence, perhaps my time had come.

I went to her gaping and stood in front of her. Now, how the hell would a girl like that expect such a hunk to sit right next to her? I think this is why she asked "where is that ghost you just saw?" with her eyes splitting like the tyre of my cycle once did when it was bit to death by an attention seeking dog. "What is the matter with you?” she asked again. I got jolted out of my reverie and said "I want to get in”. I knew I had majorly goofed up. I should keep the truths to myself. Someone once said "you only speak truth when you are in love and hence fall out of it”. I shuddered at the noble thought.

"Hey, it’s his seat, between us”, said Rimy with a wink to Farah. I am glad she said it for me because I was totally tongue tied. What else do you say after you have said the truth? Farah stood up and made way for me. I dragged myself clumsily to my seat in the middle. As I breathed properly after a long time I smelt something strange. I inhaled again and inferred it was the amalgamation of two "intoxicating" perfumes residing on my neighboring heavenly bodies. I don't know what it is with girls and perfume. The whole school was reeking with an assortment of perfumes/deos. I wasn't sure and for once I missed the tranquilitycalmness and the natural atmosphere of my school.

“Screw her”, was Vakil’s only reaction when I told him about the crush, the cigarette smoke coming out of his mouth with a thrust as if to accentuate his feelings.I wasn’t surprised by his reaction.Only a week since we met and I knew that he had the same reaction for everything.He loved screwing up everything.His term papers,relationship with teachers and friends(he lost them as rapidly as he gained them),his image in school and at home and his new ricketty Hero Shakti( it looks like a mobike and moves with a lot of noise and smoke..for the uninitiated).I found Vakil interesting.Atleast there was someone who was willing to crib with me.Unlike a lot of other things, cribbing can be self destructive when indulged in alone.What drew me to him initially was his odd name.Actually Vakil was not his actual name but he preferred being called that.I once asked for the reason and got a reply I should have known.”Screw you !”.

Sitting under the shade of the old tin roof of our abondaned canteen, I felt a bit heroic playing truant in my Computer Lab, something Vakil did with exemplary consistency.Smoking a flavor of Wills, he would listen to anyone till so far as his cigarette got sponsored.So, here I was with the third cigarette I bought for him from my “punctured-tyre-crisis” money and I wasn’t willing to let him off with just a simple ‘screw her’.
....more to come

War...huh!!

War.
What is it good for?
Absolutely everything.

Smoke them out or better still, roast them. Believe me; you would love the meat of a smoked child. You think it’s inhuman? No, it is not. The child never had a life anyway. It is always better to taste good to someone than to live the life of a destitute. I do feel sorry sometimes. I never meant to kill the entire family. Honestly, I had nothing against them but who knows one of them might have been a terrorist or be one someday. The child would have certainly grown up to be one if I had left him alive. I am not sure if I saw innocence in his eyes. It’s not possible to look for such sentiments from up here with the smoke of my cigar all around me. I am not here to judge, I am but here to kill.

After all, this is not life. This is WAR.

It is not a child's play. It never was. It has to be fought and won at any cost that it might entail. I am here to decimate this country that my country has declared war upon. My job is easy. It helps not being on the hapless side. I just have to sit back in this fighter of mine which beeps whenever it sees enemies on ground and aims at them too. I just have to decide if the target has to be shot but nevertheless I almost always shoot. I know that the kid running with anti aircraft gun won’t be able to fire at me but still he makes for good target practice. If you can kill a kid you will surely not miss the grown up enemy.

There goes another bunch of these pesky kids. They invited death by standing huddled together. Let me see what they were up to; surely something hideous and against my country. Oops, I made a mistake. It was a school and those kids were praying. Surely the most stupid thing to do. How can you pray when a war is going on? You can only kill like I do. I can see signs of life down there. Probably someone is still alive. Darn! it will be all there in the news that schoolchildren got killed but I needn’t worry. My President will take care of it just as he did for other schools, hospitals, hotels and what not. He is really working hard justifying our fear of an unknown enemy and in an unknown land.

A spasm of unease takes over me. There is probably something wrong with the pressure inside the cabin. Yes, I am sure it’s not my conscience. It’s as clean as the landscape that I razed below. After all you don’t come to war armed with your conscience, you come armed with weapons.

Ten hours later, I get the news that I destroyed a school that was housing a considerable number of our enemies who were using schoolchildren as their shield. It also said how I tried to save the kids but could not. I was the hero of the moment. My President did it again and even better this time. Well, time to relax and savor the moment.

As I lay down, I feel that sharp spasm again. It’s not my conscience I’m sure.

All those who favour war,let that be your epitaph.

Marked Sheet

I have it in my hands
I look at it perplexed.
I know they gave such marks,
knowingly to get me vexed.

It tells all what I’m bad at.
It speaks of all that’s vice.
I wish that for just once
it also said I’m nice.

My low marks don’t bother me
for I never cared for them.
I do, but, care for people
who would want to know
but won't know about my teachers
or the person at the helm.

I remember the first time
that I faltered and for
no reason got a TAG.
I should have known at that time
that I was destined to lag.

I guess it’s all my fault
I was unbridled when they said”halt”.
I hated the sacred classroom,
I hated its confine.
I hated the whole system
because the mind, it could not refine.

Someone said “learn the system
and try to beat the odds”.
So I took the advise ,
for a battle had to be won.
Alas, I kept searching for the ‘system’
But failed to find one.

'Monitor'y Concerns

How my eyes burn!!
Wish I could use them
turn by turn.

Staring so long,
is it a life gone wrong?
It stares back!
With a smirk, it says
“Whatever you do, you lose this race”

Day in and day out
I come back to this hideout.
I don’t have a choice.
I may get paid but
I don’t have a voice.

From the time I wake up
till the time I collapse.
There is nothing humane
it’s all a digital mishap.

Somehow I reconcile,
drop ideas of exile.
I get cheerful again
thinking my worries were in vain,

I come back to my ‘work’,
but know there will be no succour
as I sit down resigned
and switch on the Monitor.

Deprived Creator

Imagine Manoj Night Shyamalan watching his own movie 'Sixth Sense’. Do you think he would be as thrilled as you were when the story turned on its head in the end? No matter whatever he does Shyamalan would always be deprived of that thrill that engulfed millions of people around the world.This is not to take away the joy of watching your own creation come alive on the screen. However, it does raise a question.

Is not the creator deprived of his or her own excellence?

This question is not something limited to any particular genre. Imagine a poet or a story writer going through innumerable drafts before coming out with a poem or a story. Would he be able to relish it as much as someone who reads it for the first time? He probably reads it so many times already during writing it that there is no looking forward to reading it again. It is similar to not laughing at a joke that you make up yourself because you know when exactly the catalyst for laughter comes.

Would it not then be good if a creator could forget everything about what he created and is able to enjoy his own creation just as the others do? I am not saying that he does not get the recognition due to him. What I ask for is a selective amnesia that will go a long way in helping the creator. I know it sounds a bit absurd. Perhaps the artists are much beyond their art and therefore they might not even not like their own creation if such a thing were to happen.

Even though artists might disagree with the idea of forgetting about their creations, considering the way human beings have deteriorated mentally as well as morally, it wouldn't be surprising if God himself would want to forget His own creation.

My own Halo

My own halo blinds me
What brings me complete freedom
is the approach that binds me

The applause would never be gone
but disturbing thoughts my mind spawns.
In search for everything in front of me....
I can never retrieve what I left behind me.

I never realized the agony would be endless
when I traded my peace for success.
Will that dawn ever come?
when far removed from this scum
I would be innocence in my own right
and dance about in the cool sunlight
of the rising sun that was once mine.

Forgive me if I was proud,
if I trampled on the vulnerable
to rise above the crowd.
Forgive me if I thought
I could be what I wanted to
without letting things happen
the way YOU wanted to

Forgive me if I thought
I had too less to lose
It was because
I put my head more than my heart to use

Now that I have the halo
it scathes my heart and drills a hole.
I got over losing everyone
but now I lost my soul.

I sit alone with my halo
I caress and talk to it.
Its heat burns my hand
and dries my throat.
I sit like this waiting,
hoping the ordeal would end.
And I keep asking myself
“Can a halo be a friend?”

The fascinating FOUR play

Weekends have long ceased to surprise me because they always bring the same kind of boredom. It would have had been better if one boredom could be different from the other. It would at least ensure that boredom never spawned itself. However this weekend I found a way to get around this inevitable boredom by deciding to attend the play "Ismat Manto Haazir Hain".This play was not exactly the talk of the town but it did get some kind of a promotion in Radio City among the usual trash it dishes out and a small space on a prominent newspaper and luckily my boredom had ensured that on that lazy Saturday, I somehow came across that ad.

So the whole of Saturday was spent on acquiring the tickets for it. I had missed it when it came to Delhi but this time I was determined to put my salary to some good use. I then had to persuade a friend to come along by painting a rosy picture of the entire thing so much so that for once I was afraid about how the play actually would be. It was going to be a first time watch for me and as for my friend; he absolutely had no interest in theatre till then. So that made him a bit apprehensive. What, however, would comfort me time and again was that effortless smile of Naseer on the pamphlet I held in my hand. I knew he could not falter. I wished he were acting too in the play but all the same, both of us were excited enough by that time to lose our way twice on the way to Chowdiah(I am still trying to pronounce it correctly) Memorial.

We entered the premises much before the play was about to begin and immediately felt like complete outsiders in a place covered by people oozing with art. There is something about these "arty" people that makes them so distinguishable. It is their dressing sense. Almost everyone of their commune dresses up in one or the other kind of a "kurta" over a pair of jeans whose degree of deterioration would be inversely proportional to their ages. I tried to comfort my friend who was quite piqued by their attire because everyone looked the same. I think he was having problem singling out people for a second sighting.

Anyways, the signal for the start was given and people started trooping inside the hall in an Indian file. The good thing about theatre I guess must be the fact that unlike cinema halls, if you pay less, you get the balcony seat. However since there was a free seating for a change, we got to sit at a decent distance from the stage. The play started with a brilliant narration about what was about to unfold before us. The narration was in flawless Urdu and the mellisonant flow of it ensured that we were in for a comfortable evening. Sometimes, however, I would miss the subtle nuances because the meanings would get beyond me. I kicked myself for putting off learning Urdu for so long (long enough to see my first play).

We were told about the two great Urdu authors, Saadat Hasan Manto and Ismat Chughtai, and how they paid the price of being ahead of their times. The play contained four short stories, one by Manto titled 'Bu'(odour) and the other titled 'Lihaaf' (The Quilt) by Ismat Chughtai. These were the stories for which both writers were accused of obscenity in mid 1940s and faced trial in Lahore High Court which was humorously captured by another of the short story by Ismat titled 'Un Byaahtaon Ke Naam' (In the name of those married women) which formed the third story of the play while the fourth story was 'Titwal Ka Kutta' (The dog of Titwal) by Manto.

The play started off with 'Bu' which was mostly narration and that too by a single artist. Now, both of us were a bit surprised because our notion of a play was a that of a lot of people on the stage with a proper conversation flow between them. I strained to see the faces of art connoisseurs in the dark to look out for any signs of surprise on their faces but it was dark and all I could see were a few faces lit up by the light of their cell phones. However, I again turned myself to the engrossing play which was being led forward brilliantly by the only person present on the stage. I found the light effects brilliant and I kept wondering if they were effectively blending with the emotional content of the story or highlighting it. The play was about the recollection of a young and extremely handsome man of varied sexual experiences about a rainy night and his escapade with a rustic girl. The encounter between the young man and the girl was described in quite an uninhibited way and I could see why daggers would have been raised against it. However, not for even once ,did I find the story getting 'obscene' for which the author was charged .It always seemed to be "poetry in motion' to me though as I said before, the Urdu did get to me in that I would get the idea but miss the nuances probably.

The story highlighted how the artificiality of the protagonist's wife, depicted by the sweet smelling scent of 'henna' used by her, failed to ignite his passion and paled into insignificance in front of the so called 'bu' of the rustic girl who according to him, never tried to be anything special for him. She was just herself and somehow he admitted he could not get her aroma out of her mind and it continued to haunt him each and every second of his life. The play ended with this candid confession and received a deserved thunderous applause. The play was flawless and totally engaged everyone's undivided attention. There were a few mobile phones ringing in the midst of the play in spite of the pleadings for them to be switched off, but then I guess if you have costly mobile phones, there couldn't have been a better time and way to showcase them.


The second play was 'Titwal ka Kutta' which was about a dog that keeps roaming about from an Indian military position to the opposite one of Pakistan. It was a scathingly dark satire on the mindlessness of war. The plight of the dog which was being shooed from one post to another while guns were aimed on it was pitiable. The way in which the tone of the story would change from that of humor to sorrow was exceptional and raised quite goose bumps. This was evident in the scene when the first bullet blasts one of its legs. The play ends with one of the sides declaring it a martyr and the other as an enemy. It was touching to the core and in the manner of the previous play was single-handedly managed by a single actor who did a wonderful job.

The third play was 'Lihaaf'. It was about a young girl's experiences at her aunt's place who had taken to alternative pastures(notably her maid) after being totally cold shouldered by her husband, a rich man, with a 'harem' of young boys. The style of presentation again was narration combined with acting out the parts of the various characters which were being talked about. Heeba Shah was brilliant in her portrayal of the young girl and her plights on coming face to face with a perplexing trauma of living with an aunt who, according to her, was more dangerous than all males in the world combined.

The last play was 'Un Byaahtaon Ke Naam' (In the name of those married women) and was a satirical description of the days when both Manto and Ismat were called for trial in Lahore Court.This play brought together all the previous artists on the stage.It therefore had the amalgamated excellence of all the artists who had by then managed to enthrall us single-handedly.The play ends with Manto being accused of obscenity and he laments his life and says it's a miserable existence because he is not even being cursed in a correct manner.

The play ends on this note with a nazm by Faiz Ahmed Faiz sung brilliantly by Rekha Bharadwaj.I kept hoping that Naseeruddin Shah would come at the end of it but that did not happen. All in all, it was a memorable evening for us and we were glad that we made our theatre debut by watching something as great as that. I just wish there were more takers for theatre today which is an absolutely strong medium of expression but is being neglected by all and sundry who are blindly rushing to the charms of senseless movies that promise much but deliver nothing.

The Hallowed HOLLOW

It’s all about pretensions. As the author of a "self-help" book says "You can fake anything" so why be anything?

The concept of personality getting molded by the prevailing social setup is as old as your neighborhood aunt, archaic but un-admitted. Touch back to the times when we were really our own selves and not acting it out to be pleasant to some and agreeable to others. Someone, who used to dope beyond sanity, once said that "trying to be someone else is a waste of the person you are”. I know quoting Curt Cobain wouldn’t exactly sway opinions but what I want to emphasize is that although his life may have been a mess (surely not the songs), he said these words of wisdom when he probably had just one fifth of his senses alive.

We were innocent when we were kids, when we were still coming to terms with our sensibilities, when all that we cared for was being inquisitive even at the cost of a few laughs at our expense. In fact we laughed with the world when it laughed at us and hence changed that laughter to love .Do you think it happens now? If it did you wouldn’t have thought twice before raising your hand to ask that seemingly innocuous question in class. This is the only reason why we have been reduced to students who ask only those questions whose answers we already know. We have stopped putting out our finger to the fire not for the fear of being burnt but for the fear of being laughed at.

We created an image for ourselves as we grew up but since then we have not been able to extricate ourselves out of it. At some point in life, we refused to portray what we were and instead superimposed on us the tag of what we would always have wanted to be. We refused to identify us with us .We judged ourselves on the basis of the evaluations, sometimes demanding, of others but missed something that was so obvious i.e. the limitation of the evaluation to be better than the evaluator. So ,in this way we shaped ourselves not on thoughts but on thinkers and ended being the oh-so-confused that we are today. No wonder we have always felt on the leash, in a cage, made by us and in front of an audience chosen by us and we have been performing the same old acts and trying to elicit the same old applause to the extent that now everything has become predictable even to our minds benumbed as they have always been.

Those who have been able to realize it have tried to break open the self imposed shackles. They are the ones who have been enlightened. As for the rest they are still competing to get more applause than the person in the next cage and are busy laughing at the attempts of those who want to get away from this "happy world”.

Even as I write this, I realize I am in more than countable ways one among those inside the cages. Just knowing that I am in a predictable existence doesn’t make me different till I make a sincere attempt to get out of it. Try and get out of this painted-rosy world of yours. Try and be your real self, try to break free. If you get time help others escape too from this artificiality, after all you too would want to increase your number.

Do meet me when you escape.We all strived for like-minded people all our lives .It would therefore be the greatest travesty if we flee to a brave new world and still don't meet.

Till we meet, as they say "Keep up the 'Good Act' ".