All The Little Things

The scab hasn’t healed yet. K shall borrow The Most Beautiful Analogy from P. The wounds are still fresh and ghastly, like the dagger sank in last night. The clamor of hope drowns out the prudence, or whatever of it remains. K digs his nails into the thick brown scab and peels it off gently. The wound is frighteningly ugly. Hope kills. K’s tear glands are eager to jerk off. K watches the blood drip down and spatter. You’d expect the blood to be blood red, but K’s blood is darker, thanks to H and all the sins.

K hung his head in shame, for his lack of heart and guts to speak the truth. He only hoped that, someday, he would be forgiven. “For all the pain that I'm causing, I'm sorry,” said K.

K would like to think that it happened one warm summer night, on a dramatic trip outside an old church in Colaba… or standing in the Andheri station, bathed in sweat and feeling alone in the crowd … alternatively, it could’ve been the first time K stepped into The Loo With Green Tiles, hand in hand and Torch in hand... it could also be the silly telephone bill under a starlit sky in The Land Of Dangerous Snakes, Frog Tikka and Worm Fry, leading to the first flare of orange. It could also be The Scribbling On The Sand during The Beginning, or the fire-lit drunken death dance with random people on the shores of the Arabian Sea.

K likes his instincts… perhaps a little too much. Regret is smoother than having to deal with the perpetual haggle of hope.

It could be the night K met 4 strangers from another school on the train… or the cold night in the mountains when he fought with The Mad Georgian. Maybe their paths were destined to clash. K beat out 99 others to get out of the black hole which was so rotten that even creativity couldn’t escape. K was Darwin’s pick. However, like in a poem, Darwin’s pick got fucked by Darwin.

It could be traced back to the time when flocking to the dirty beach was cool and K knew every other guy worth knowing at the beach, including guys from other schools. The seeds were sown stealthily, as the bunch of kids grew up on their own precious La Poderosas.

Some hormone tells K that boys don’t cry. Almost all of K’s happiness and pain could be traced to a bunch of innocuous hormones. The fundamentals are gorgeously simple, like kicking the ball into the goal.

It could be traced to a million silly decisions made, words said and unsaid and some inconspicuous muscles, all of which dissolve away like the dreams from last night.

The pain is unbearable. No, not the blood or the wound, but the torturously morbid muck-path back. K listens to a trippy old song and slithers into a dream.

The Curious Child Turns 23

Growing up as a curious child, I always wanted to become a porn star. I didn’t feel such envy towards cricketers or pilots or canonized nuns. Physics entered later on; but like most things, a few years down, it didn’t matter.

I turned 23 last week. 23 on 23 July. My dad called me on June 23, and I had to convince him that my birthday was a month later. Anyway, he still insists that it’s June 23.

The Story Of Amaresh’s Birthday

My parents (and everybody else) wanted me to go to the most academically inclined tambrahm school in the vicinity, so they took me to this school in Mylapore, Madras called P.S. Senior. The Principal was named Alamelu. She was a bitch (I give people the chance of change). She used to remind me of the pumpkins with paintings of demonic faces hanging outside new homes, to ward off evil spirits and jealousy, and to welcome goodness and blah blah… well, I guess it worked in 1987.

Anyway, somebody took me to the school for admission, and they said that I had to be born in June to be eligible to join the school. So they dragged me out a month earlier than reality and went back to Alamelu with a June 23 fudged somewhere. Then Alamelu’s peanut brain worked out that I had to be born in the first week of June 1984 for my brain to be sufficiently larger than her’s to take on the rigor and torture that lay ahead in that school. So they went back to the fudging board and back to Alamelu with June 3. Thus began school. That’s the end of that story. Unless you want to know the story of how I overcame my 7 week handicap and scored 95 in the math exam.

Back to the other story… well, it’s over really… my dad simply has the dates mixed up and insists that I was out by June 23 1984.

Oh, and while we’re still on education, I’m into my final year of formal education. It’s apt that after 20 years of relentless torment, the education system finally decided to give me a year off. [The Wasted Year]

On my birthday, I counted 3 people who live in my institute who wished me the most beautiful birthday of my life on orkut, and then walked past me outside the mess like I didn’t exist.

So yeah, it’s been 23 years.

Harijan

|June 15 2007 | Kalka Village, Parvati Valley, Himachal|

Everyone’s in fits of laughter when Jeevan’s around. He’s from the Thakur caste. This funny chap wearing jeans which was torn everywhere and without a zip, from the Harijan caste, visited us while we were having brunch. Jeevan explained that local people won’t visit their restaurant if they see Harijans entering the kitchen. The other restaurants don’t let them inside. Jeevan said he needs to do the same. Jeevan pulled down Leemu’s loosely worn tracks. Everyone laughs. Jeevan, Leemu, Sonu and me.

Jeevan says the government gives 50,000 to every upper caste guy (like Jeevan, Leemu & Sonu) who marries a lower caste woman (like guy-with-jeans-torn-everywhere-and-no-zip’s sister). Of course, he would then become a Harijan and would be outcast by the upper caste, including his close friends, whose loosely worn pants he once pulled down.