Strange disconnection

It was noon. I took a train to go somewhere. I got down at a station and followed the hoard of people that got down from it. The people walked slowly for some distance and entered a dingy room with an old door. I reached for the knob, turned it and went in. The hoard of people had started to walk up a flight of stairs. From where I stood, I could see the flight of stairs led to a room made with walls of aluminum sheets. The people entered this room. I followed them. But by the time I began up the stairs the room shrank to the size of small box that could fit a 26" tv. It stayed at the level of my chest, so I bent down to see where the people had gone. And I wondered where they went or how they could fit in. As I was wondering about this, an old man spoke from behind. He had a white beard that reached his chest and white hair that reached his shoulder and had a fatherly expression. He said to another person in the room, "Lagta hai isne kabre dekh lee. (It seems she has seen the tombs.)"

These words sent a chill down my spine and I felt like I was in a parallel world of some kind from where I must escape! A woman to whom the man had spoken to, came forward looking at my expression and held my hand. She was in her mid forties and had a calm expression on her face. She brought my hand up to look at it. It had a small book with hard-bound back and thick card board pages. She took the book, held it under a lamp, and flipped the pages. She stopped at a page, tore it, and gave it to me saying, "This is your key, say Palayan* four times, you will escape." I stared at the piece of cardboard in my hand. It had a picture on it with the words P-Palayan.

I held on to it tightly, ran out of from there, and reached a road that forked into two. At the fork was a large green patch. A long time had passed since I reached there. I sat there with a Macbook and watched funny videos. The escape seemed forgotten. The clock at the top-right corner made me realize how much time I'd wasted there instead of escaping. Clutching the piece of paper tightly, I decided to shut down the laptop and say the word that'd help me escape. I switched off the machine, it felt like a minute but the machine did not shut down. It showed a progress bar to denote the time left to shut down. The bar had just started to fill - 10% complete. The progress bar crawled to the other end. I was now anxious. If I couldn't escape now, it would be never. But something told me this thing had to shut down. The more time the Mac took to shut down, the the hazier its interface became. I could see the color of the mouse through my hand. My hands were getting translucent and the grass beside me less greener like it was made of mist that slowly disintegrated.

I realized lying horizontal that I had to only open my eyes to escape, But what if, that wasn't the case? What if I lay trapped inside forever? I just had to say the words and get it over with. The Mac now remained only a sheer film of white... This was sheer stupidity I thought, just open your eyes and get it over with. But that's not how its supposed to work, she had said, say the word four times, and escape. Just when the grass was a sheer shade of light green, I shouted, Palayan, Palayan, Palayan, Palayan!

I was staring at the ceiling and the fan that ran at its usual speed. The TV, just as I had left it when I switched it off the other night. I took a long hard look at the room which was a hazy view since I didn't have my specs on. I didn't have the courage to open the hand that was closed in a tight fist. Daringly, I opened it, and found....nothing.

I breathed heavily, turned on my side, and still groggy, drifted off...

*Palayan in hindi means Flight.

life choices..

Life always comes in the form of choices..

Some good, some bad..not necessarily the truth, but from my own perspective. Then I tend to think why cant you get everything in life? SOmetimes i just wish we had a mixer where we can mix all the good traits of our choices...life would be perfect that way wouldn't it?

but it would also be boring. there would be no excitement in life..everything would be the same. coz you know the same characteristics would repeat everytime. probably, then i would be bored of those same things i once liked...

Funny how life is. Or, funny how funny I have made life..

Mumbai Locals anyone??

7:57 ST, 7:43 PL

first three compartment ladies or a whole Ladies special

Overflowing locals

Little kids reaching handles

Jalad local

Dheemi local

Check-your-weight-for-5-bucks machines

Handicapped compartment with silent movies

Fragrant fisher women

Hurried home-work completion

Huge lugguage compartments

Windows show sketchy apartments

Stylish women with laptops

Bollywood music or hiphop

Innocent hands with comics

Sales calls on naive lips

Glaring women with stepped-on sarees

Lone policeman for scenes with scaries

Incredibly incomprehensible announcements for incredibly fast trains

Almost-everything-sells-here agents for harbour-line slow trains

Work-from-home-starting-salary-15000! ads

Diversified jaats in Matrimonial ads

Sleepy heads on compartment walls

Sale hangars with smiley balls

Departure enquiry from fellow companion

Reserving seats to avoid exhaustion

Artificial jewelery that comes cheap

Soggy palak that lies in a heap

Women busy with crochet or knitting

Others fighting or teeth gritting

Medical students with fat books

Engineering students with math looks!

Teenage girls with high-pitched chatter

Quiet aunties who've felt better

Later hours are not so loud

Dying down with thinning crowds

Empty trains with lights shut-out

Last run for its night-out

The assault on my senses

Yes, lately, my senses have been bruised and battered. The visual ones will be dead if I continue taking the assault any more.

It may sound funny when you hear it, but the daily Hindi soaps inflict this torture on me everyday (and I allow it to!).

I felt a new generation of soaps was coming up which would create awareness among the people about social issues. I was hopeful. But I was wrong. One such hope was the story of a slum child whose life was others’ leftovers. The story started well. But bloody went on the same track that others had so successfully used to glue unsuspecting housewives (no offence meant). The protagonist – the slum child – has a best friend – a rich kid – who longs for a friend. They both grow up continuing to be (supposedly) best friends.

The storywriter (I dunno who does this, I’m just giving a name) at this point I feel was completely out of his creativity (or maybe came under some other pressure). This I say because after bravely exploring the little nuances of a friendship so strange yet so true, the age-old formula of a love triangle (of all the things!) is used. And that too with the help of such feeble characters, that I can’t help but feel disgusted at their acting and dialog delivery. The protagonist of all the people lisps so heavily that I fail to suppress the irritation I feel when I hear it. That can still be ignored, if the behavior of the character was not a transverse wave with such deep crests and troughs. Sometimes, the character is so silent, that she can gulp all insult, humiliation and anger. And sometimes, she is so hyper and melodramatic (not to forget the stammering) that I feel like throwing a flowerpot at her! I don’t understand why all the death scenes need to have one hyper-ventilating female screeching at the top of her fricking voice! It’s just so unnatural; I mean you just can’t use the excuse that ‘this serial does not in any way depict real life people’. Also each expression is lengthened to 100 times the time it takes to actually show it. And the three-time-turning-of-the-head is a standing joke among my friends and family :D (well, they don’t do it so often now, but it just doesn’t feel complete without mentioning it :P )

I feel it was the serial maker’s strategy to stretch the episode to a full 30 mins, oh wait, let me rephrase, 25 mins. Because the remaining 5 mins (just a guess) are given to ads. Still, the actual story advances in a record 20 mins :P Because 5 more mins are used in the characters advancing in slow-mo and giving each other cold looks. J

Its amazing how after having so many complaints about these serials I manage to tolerate an episode. I think it’s the fun I get from evaluating and analyzing and sometimes ridiculing these stories that I enjoy. I feel, like the yin and yang, there are two types of soaps. First– the inspiring and feel-good types and second – the pathetically-scripted-so-stretched-that-a-rubber-band-would-be-ashamed types. Balance I guess. :D

Anyway, as they say:

All descriptions used in this post are fictional. Any resemblance to serials pathetic or good is purely coincidental. J

Goa in a few words...

happy

colorful

cheerful

vibrant

energetic

laser lights

fireworks

chilled-out

laid-back

coconut trees

sparkling waters

round pebbles

rocky beaches

sandy beaches

clear waters

shopping

firangs more than indians ;)

bike rides

cab rides

parties

Curlies

Artjuna cafe

hammocks

prawns vindaloo

spicy chicken curry

chai in tall glass

beans

banana pancakes

music

cancelled trains

busy buses