contact lens

Every morning, before I go anywhere, I put one little transparent thing into each eye, to help clear up the world.
Now I know the trouble is with my eyes; I used to think the world was being vague on purpose.

the brave man is terrified of kangaroos.
the designer wears pret sometimes.
the salt-and-pepper professor who says to his students, Your Comments?, says to his wife, oh just shut up.
the historian didn't know his great-grandfather died in the War.
the person of intense feeling is indifferent to cacti.
the witty cartoonist doesn't like it when people poke fun at his thinning hair. but he laughs.
the Jat hulk giggles.
the house is painted every spring, but only on the front and sides.
the modern woman has a soft smile while she watches a cooing baby.
he realises one day that they've always done what his pliant housewife wanted.
on the banks of the jealously protected flowing river, one night every year they have a discoparty, and everyone has fun and throws in plastic cups with little splashes and bottles which sink, sparkling green in the watery light, to the bottom.

When he woke up the first time and thought, he got it all figured out.
Lots of things licked and the machine began to run smoothly, with only those things clinking that ought to clink, and nothing clanking at all.
When he got up and went to school and learnt his alphabets and words and numbers, he tucked them in at the tips of his tongue and his fingers, and pressed them in securely. From that salubrious spot, they flowed freely and surely to the top of his class, and then near-top in school. When he wanted to study, he studied, when he didn't study, he nearly failed. he didn't mind those times, because he had not-studied on purpose. once there had been an awesome football match that he couldn't dream of missing, the other time, he just hadn't felt like it. altogether, he escaped in good shape, became games captain and loved it, minded a bit at missing school captain, but got over it. Went out with this girl because he thought she was really pretty, and then gave it up because she was a pain. Kept a photograph, though.
Went to a good college for a course it wasn't good for. He'd also got through an unknown college with better faculty, but he thought he'd learn more here. He didn't learn as much as the hype had said he would, but he did learn quite a bit. Joined the debate group. Enjoyed it thoroughly. Taught them all table tennis, one by one. They used to do this thing of parrying arguments simultaneously with their shots. They won a lot. Made friends, laughed, drank, smoked, ate. Did pretty well generally. He got into trouble once about climbing on the roof, they thought it was an attempt to infiltrate the girls' hostel, but it was just an attempt to climb on the roof. If they'd had time, they'd have raised a chuddy on the flagpole. They did the next time, but it fell off before morning, so nothing happened.
He got a job in journalism, mostly field reporting. Then he moved to advertising, not in the creative department, but in finance. Rose in the company at the ordinary pace. Rented a flat with a good view out of two windows. Had a bike, but only took it out for the weekend trips, with friends or alone, to those 4-hour-drive places. Sometimes he took his girlfriend, mostly when it was hill-stations. It's nice to have a love-interest in the hills. Beside the sea, you're never alone like that.
Married at twenty nine, this sensible, pretty girl who liked him, and their families got along too. They had two kids in five years, two girls who both resembled his family- they had the medium length, straight nose, and determined chin.
It all went off well. Very well. People liked him. Even if he disagreed with them, he didn't come back pleading for forgiveness. If he said he was sorry, it was honest and unembarassed and a handshake always sealed it. When he got to love his woman, it was with honest appreciation and without a surfeit of emotion. When, twenty two years later, she died, he was sad but not crotchety. When, at fifty, director of the company, he retired, he wished he could have become M.D., but knew he'd have had to be in Creative at some point for that. Creative people with even a few months of Finance and Management could aspire to it, but the others couldn't aspire to it at all. All else could be picked up, but with creativity you either had it or you didn't.
He had four years of grandkids and adjusting to a world in which he represented the past. He refused to stop being active, drank and smoked as he hadn't done all his useful years, ate lots of good food and died of a heart attack. He didn't mind, I think. He knew what he was doing. From all I ever saw of him, I'd say he wouldn't mind.

No smoke without fire, no smoke without fire. Haha.
Miss Marple always said so, and Miss Marple is always right.
She said that people have a sense about these things. They're not right about the particulars, but they get the general picture, and well.
And she was right.

Is the reverse also true ? Jane Austen contends so. She says half of love is vanity- you are so delighted that someone should love you, that out of gratitude you go and love them as well. But that ought not to be love in the strictly correct sense. It ought to be falling in love with love. But is there a difference. Does it matter, the object of the love, at all ? Or is love merely another way of relating to yourself ? Jung said so- he said something to the effect that the partner a person chose was a projection of the unexpressed side of their personality.
Ah well. Who knows.

Miss Marple, but Christie's dead now, so that's no help.

There was a dead lizard in the bathroom today. In the corner, under the door.
I noticed it because of the ants. The swarms of ants around it, jealously covering it up, wholly devouring it. Climbing on top of each other to get to that dry, white underbelly facing upwards, hungry, red.
I stared at it. I couldn't stop. I stared at it and then I backed out of the loo and tried to avoid looking at it again. Nausea rose at the thought of it lying there, sickening, yellow-green thing, tail a stub, eyes hidden beneath the mound of scavengers cleaning it up.
Why is this important ? There are lizards by the hundreds here, they all have to die sometime, and the ants... i know that this happens. Like when there are dead animals in the road. But it isn't when they're just dead that it's horrible, even though they smell, and shrivel and stiffen in positions of pain. It's when they're crushed, or mutilated in some way that I cringe inside, and shiver and hurt.
Would it be better to die unsullied than to live mutilated ? I think so. But then, I have no experience of dying.

the conversation after.

We shouldn't be here. We should be at home, glued to our television screens like the rest of humanity.

The blasts in Baghdad ?

The floods in Bihar.

Typhoons in Bangladesh.

Hurricanes in north America.

Civil war in Rwanda.

In large parts of Africa.

What else ?

Someone got raped in the Capital.

Someone is always being raped in the Capital. No offence to the deeply disturbed victim, but Delhi seems to be quite the place for those getting raped.

And those doing the raping.

O yes, those too.

And we should be home, appendages to the television screens.

Definitely, extensions of them that we are... This isn't it. What is it ?

What is something someone said today.

Alright, so many specifics down, just a few more to go...

Someone said it was time in the Harry-met-Sally saga for us to be... falling for each other.

Who was it ? Irrelevant, but who ?

Some girl. I don't remember her too well. The point was, she said it, but she more than meant it, she meant it as though she was the spokesperson for public opinion in general.

Yes, well, she might be.

But…

Hm ?

It isn’t… true.

Not for me, either, you don’t have to look all apprehensive.

Phew. But you to me was the more unlikely, anyway.

Another weird complex ? But then, I am the hotter one, yes…

And the more modest one-

I knew you were going to say that. You really have to think of something new.

Are you trying to divert the conversation ?

Not really. I’d only have to do that if I was uncomfortable, wouldn’t I ?

Oh, I don’t know…

Again with the noone-can-see-into-another-person’s-head thing? You know me inside out. Don’t quibble about it. You do.

…

And now you’re trying to change the topic. Now it’s my turn to wonder…

No, I don’t have feelings for you, O swollen-headed-one. And I was trying to explain, but I sort of messed it up badly, because… there wasn’t any reason.

Why not, you mean ?

Yes.

Well… actually. The gap in surface attributes, of course… just kidding, kidding…

Seriously, can you think of anything?

N…no.

So then how do you explain ?

I don’t. The people who need to know, understand.

Yes, but sometimes, you- well, not you, I. I’ve got to explain this to other people. Explain that I’m not in love with you, and why. Silly thing to have to explain, and more difficult than I expected…

Yes, but get on with it. You want my opinion on what you should say ? I’d still say nothing. But, if you must…

No, I just realized… that someone’s already mentioned it.

Who ?

He. He mentioned it one evening when we were sitting out in a slight, cool drizzle and a thin breeze blowing, and we were talking about idols…

Hm…?

…And he said that the two things were separate, this surface admiration, and the feeling. He said that he could think a girl beautiful, but it didn’t change what he thought of her, or felt about her, one inch.

So is it three separate things, then ? Admiration, for surface attributes, liking, and love ?

Yes, I think so. Lovely, simple way to put it, wasn’t it ? And he said he’d never seen the point behind people idolizing others for what they were. For something they were without effort, naturally. For one thing, it wasn’t to their credit that they should, for example, have some great natural skill at acting. And at the same time, by admiring what they were, you were setting yourself up for an unnecessary and, necessarily disadvantageous comparison, why am I this and not the other ? It makes no sense. You are what you are. Admire someone for the effort they have put in to learn something, acquire some information, some better methods of doing things. That’s something they’ve done, and it’s fair to judge them on that.

Listen, you…

Hm…. What ?

You know, you’re talking about him an awful lot. And with this oddly soft voice… Are you sure… you don’t… you know,…

Oh shut up. That’s the way he talks. Softly and reflectively. And I’m not in love with him, I just like him. And why… you’re voice changed slightly there, and your face… Why do you care ?

He is so beautiful. A beautiful man. That almost aquiline nose, that perfect profile, the bright black eyes amidst the brown, brown skin; straight shoulders, tall. How beautiful even there on the street corner, slouched, sitting on the curb, waiting for me. I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, this is one of those- those tryst-descriptions, things you don't need to know, that most lovers seem to need to tell. Believe me, when it happens to me, I won't be telling a soul. It's too private, that stuff.
This is my friend. My best friend.
And now you are sceptical. We do moonlight, in a way. This is how we meet, meeting to talk sitting on a not-so-busy corner of a bustling street, quietly. I'm pausing here, amidst the crowd, to finish telling you this, finish explaining, before I go to sit near him, because then we cannot be interrupted. And before that, you've got to know.
Why ? Because they're all wondering. Wondering how long we'll keep this up, before we go the hollywood way, and end up just one more sheepishly grinning and surreptitiously PDA-ing pair. We aren't going to. I wanted to tell you. Sorry if I let you down, but I suppose I believed those movies at some point too. Until it just didn't happen to me.
It's happened to a lot of people, about him. Girls gather in corners to sigh as he passes. I couldn't talk in front of him initially. He seemed so complete, finished, with al the friends he needed, all the world he had room for. What was I going to give him that he didn't have? But it wasn't about that at all, as it turned out.
Cut to the stuff, you're saying now. We're both of us in a hurry, and I want to pass my judgement on your future before both of us get late. Alright.
We talked. Talked in between everything else happening, not really a significant first talk or anything, we weren't realy very interested anyway. Not much in common. And there were lots of more interesting people around for both of us. Talked again in a rickshaw going somewhere in a bunch, and then some other times. I listened, mostly, not comfortable enough to talk. I think I must be a good listener. At some point, we began to stop each other in the hallways to narrate incidents. Barely ever talked no the phone, though- never enough balance. I don't remember the exact timeline, something and then something else, and then something else. Eventually it came to where we are now.
Feelings ? Comfort. Not that perfect understanding where neither of us have to explain anything. I explain what I mean when I'm being vague, and he tells me I'm being an ass. He explains what he means when he's being hi-fi, and he tells me I'm being an ass. But we do understand each other, in this odd way. He understands the face I have on when I'm getting into character. I understand when he doesn't want to talk, and why. I understand that he's a child in some of the most annoying ways possible. He understands that sometimes I feel all lost and rescue-me, and gives me the lack of encouragement that I need. We're children and teenagers and adults together, but hardly ever the same thing at the same time. But when our moods coincide, I can remember every word of every conversation, and they all glow.
I can't fall in love with him. Not ever. And I can't explain why. There's no reason- no incompatibility, no issues of any kind. When other women talk of him possessively, I don't care. He's mine more than he is his girlfriend's even, as of now. She's new. He's going to tell me about her, he's texting her now. I'm certain he's going to tell me, and at length. He's looking at me, and his face is funnily besotted, and yet, still in command of hs sense of humour, which saves him, and will save me this evening.
I don't know if I've explained, in my messed-up, roundabout way. I might have; if not, I will later. I'd love to be in love with him, but he's too close, slipping right under my radar. My radar is on, by the way. If you know anyone interesting, let me know. See you in a bit.

Sitting in a poetry reading.
All the lovely pristine poetry
Going right over my head,
Like butterflies.
And I, watching it, smiling,
Listening to the little fluttery sounds,
The pretty pastel shades,
The crassly familiar sunset backdrops,
The whole shemozzle.
I, in the midst of all that,
Unsuitably clad in plain t-shirt and jeans-
A nice green colour, but sadly plain,
Smiling at the thought of how silly
A hot guy would look in a green-blazer-brown-pants uniform,
Amidst a gathering smiling at the aesthetic sensibilities expressed in the use of the word 'bubbles' in the third line of the fifth verse.

Noise

Mother is shouting.
Her eyes are big, and very black, though they are actually brown. Her hair is flying up because of the fan, but also because when you are angry, your hair is supposed to do this, so that people can tell. My hair is too short to stand up, but that's okay because I don't get angry. The skin on her face is all scrunched up onto her forehead, and her mouth is stretched very big and wide so that the words can come out properly, and loudly, both sideways and upways. Her ears are turning red from the shouting, since she's closest to it. Her fingers are digging into the sides of her stomach. It must be hurting her, but maybe she wants it to so that the other pain in her head that makes her shout so loudly will go away.
She's shouting at auntyfromnumberfourteen, who came over to give us biscuits she baked. Every time aunty comes to give us biscuits, she stays to tea for a long time and eats half of them. And the rest of them get soggy and soft because they sat on the plate too long, and mother doesn't let me eat them. this time, mother is doing all the talking, though. But the biscuits are getting cold anyway. Maybe I can wriggle there and get them. Pintu is crouching in a corner of his room, upstairs, holding his ears. I never need to hold my ears. I can't hear anything. Maybe he'll feel better if he has a biscuit.



Mother is crying. Her mouth is stretched only long now, she's saying confused things. She's holding the sides of her head very hard, as though she does not want to hear anything again, ever. She's standing by the bed, and the phone is lying on the floor, but she hasn't switched it off and the little red light is blinking very fast, ever since it hit the wall and then the bedfoot. Now the little red glass box in which she keeps all her pretty things is blinking like the phone light because mother is holding it in front of the lamp, and her hands are shaking. And now it's flying across the room to the wall, and it hits, and it breaks into small pieces, all lying on the floor glinting sadly, among little bits of the pretty things. Ma's chest and stomach are breathing big and shaking, she looks very sad. Her hair is all flat now, but all messy and tangled. She's closed her eyes and sitting-lying on the sofa, and two lines of tears are coming and dripping down her face, like the tap in the bathroom which doesn't stop, however tightly you close it. Maybe I should ask her whether aunty has been bad, or somebody else. But it might be rude. Father says that you shouldn't ever, ever be rude, even if you don't mean to be. But Father isn't here to ask her nicely. Father hasn't come back from his work. I hope he brings me a nicer book this time- he's two days later than normal. Maybe Pintu can phone Sara aunty about mother, and ask her to come. And maybe if I hug mother she'll feel better. She likes it when we go close to her, and Pintu also likes it. Maybe he can hug her. I don't want to, because it makes me feel squirmy and hurts inside and I want to run away. But you should do things you don't like for people you do like. It said so in some book. I hope mother's ok. Maybe she'll fall asleep like that. And then she'll be happy again. Her face will become all straight and smooth, and her mouth will open very small-ly, and Pintu won't have to cover his ears any more.



Mother is dead. The aunty from school who talks in sign language told me, and she is staying here today, to tell me what all the aunties and uncles are saying. She said she'll tell me what it means when everybody goes away again. Mother's room is empty, but it's very clean, and all the clothes that lie around and her smell are not there. I don't think mother is coming back. Like Father said he wasn't, that night when we asked him what to do because Mother was crying so much. Aunty said he might come back now, but I don't think so, because he said that gentlemen never go back on their word and he said he was a gentleman, and he never gave us his word that he would keep coming home, we just always thought he would, because he did, and he did give us his word about this. Sara aunty is also staying here now, because someone has to give all the people dressed in white some tea and talk to them. We have new clothes for the funeral tomorrow, but this time we have to sit in front, so I'll be able to see what all those people say to the long box. But now I don't much want to know about it any more, and I don't want to sit in front, and I don't want all these white people in the house. And the lady doesn't understand our secret jam-and-cereal sign, and everybody cries a lot and I'm feeling hungry and Pintu isn't letting me into his room. I think I know what noise sounds like now. This hungry, angry feeling, where nobody understands anything, and everybody is all confused and sad and talking to hear something they can understand. Now I want to sit in a corner with my hands on the sides of my head, pressing, pressing, till my head hurts outside so that it won't hurt inside anymore.

college.

A hundred other people-
Look exactly like me.
Walk exactly like me.
Speak exactly like me.
Think exactly like me ?

The same Fabindia kurtas.
The same dangling earrings.
The same Janpath chappals.
The same drawling talk
With the same curse-punctuation.
The same drinking parties.
The same gossip about the same people.
The same songs on the guitar
In late afternoon out on the lawns.
The same life ?


But
The same late night aloneness
When I wonder what the hell?
The same annoyance when the
Same old classic songs are strummed and sung
In the same old college way?
The same shrinking, shivering doubt
In stabbing moments on a busy day
When I wonder- What if I'm not ?
The same long hunger of
Wanting to be - ?

Maybe not.
Maybe so, but maybe no.
And that, there, might be the difference.

impressions

There are impressions, and there are impressions.
I wonder which ones matter, after all.
A boy, who speaks with a funny accent, and wears street-dude clothes,
Has read more books than anyone I know,
Or perhaps than most of them put together.
Another, with a earring in one ear, from a goon school,
Is awfully cool- going to be a philo professor,
And wilfully flunked a year of computer science to do it.
I've never wanted anything that much.
A highly religious one, who listens to no "secular" music
Can play any instrument I can name
But reads no music.
It's all in his head.
The girls surprise me less.
Maybe girls surprise me less.
Annoy me more.
Competition?
One annoying one references Balzac and Virginia Woolf
Before I've registered the question,
But has no sense,
Or spice, or Something.

But the thing, the thing, the thing is
I don't know whether when I see them-
First thing in the morning
Or twenty years later at reunion-
I wonder which impression will matter, will have mattered.

But that is, of course, my problem, not theirs.

Walk down a street in Delhi
-it depends which street-
And either there's no one for miles
Except some swanky car swooshing past,
Or every passer, in his hurry, shoves you.
I wonder if I will have to learn
This push around or leave alone
Philosophy to live here,
Or whether it will come naturally.

confused, confused, angry, angry.confused and angry.confusedly angry.but what is there to be angry for?why angry ?you need a therapist.no, i don't need a therapist.therapists are for borderline nutcases.i am not a borderline nutcase.i am a borderline angry person.i am a person teetering on the edge of yelling.of telling everybody to go jump in a well.of just yelling.like they said on Sheep in the Big City,-not Mad Scientist, Angry, Angry Scientist.I'm a sheep in the big city.but which big city ?all big cities. and small towns and everywhere at all.but do sheep get angry ?sure, why shouldn't sheep get angry.admittedly, they never look angry,but then.but then, neither do i, right ?apart from the flat expressionlessness of the face-which could be anything-and the positive-ish inflexionlessness of the voice -which means nothing in particular-it doesn't show. angry doesn't show. like a pressure cooker. but even that's got to go whee sometimes, right ? that's got to let off the hot, spewing, vicious steam.
"so i'll go 'round to the corner store, mate, and if i see a bloody indian, i'll beat 'im up."

their world, in their words.

Mad, mad, mad.

It's all mad.

The weather is mad.

One minute it shrieks in fury and sweeps across the sky.

The next minute it is still and watching. Glowering.

There is a mad noise inside my head.

A grey noise.

A fey noise.

A sound that isn't a sound, but it's taking up the space.

It's eating up the space with its greyness, and leaving everything muddled up inside.

And the people outside are all mad.

They are charging up and down the road with

Applications, supplications,

Held like battering-rams.

They are massing in crowds on the street

Massing like flies in grey-black circles

Sullenly threatening,

Buzzing about nothing

Under the hot sun,

Under the trickling, prickling hot.

And I am here,

Watching them from the barred window

And I am angry at them and angry for them.

My mind twitching, buzzing,

and I want to sweep this angering clutter away

Sweep it off the table to bash, crash, smash it.

I wanted to, before the buzzing, their buzzing

Grew louder and grew

Out of a drone and into a hum,

And fashionably crossed arms

And leaning to one side with straight black hair hanging,

And the mouths forming words and the circles forming lines,

And glazed eyes fading into bright.

And then I just cared nothing for them,

And did nothing.

Who is mad here ? Me ? Them ?

Who knows ?

Who cares ?

moon and girl

The little girl looks up with wide, sorrowing eyes.
“Moon, I…”
Pauses, looks down.
Nervously pokes the earth with a shoe-tip.
Anguish overpowers all else,
Pours out, with hot spilling tears,
Into the night air,
Words stumbling over each other in the rush.
Moon above, glowing white,
Cocks his head to one side
And looks on, with a slight frown.
Voice hoarse from talking and crying,
Peters out.
Pleading, “Well ?”
Implacable, cool, with a level gaze,
He looks down-
-Briefly, then at a poet languishing
In a garden three miles away,
Exchanges a knowing glance with a solitary palm tree,
And then looks further away.

She smiles softly up at him.
“Moon, you are my only friend.”
And goes in, satisfied.

The secret element in black and white pictures is the lack of colour. Don't roll your eyes just yet. Give me a second.
Photographs are meant to capture, for posterity, a particular moment. But looking over that moment afterwards, colour photos don't leave any room for nostalgia to play out its bit. In a b&w, we can imagine the near-white dress as being a cloudy cream chiffon, and the greyish face as being a beautiful golden-brown. Our imagination does the Photoshop-ing. And the imagination, no matter whose it is, is good at that sort of thing. Better, I dare say, than Adobe.
A colour photo is horribly real. Who on earth wants to remember that first date as the itchy, hot, awkward, altogether silly thing it was ? They looked nice, in the dress and the suit, they had their best smiles on, everything else we can imagine into place.

Globalisation is a funny thing.

It gives us Italian seasoning from Fabindia, and Assam tea from Twinings Of London.

He wasn't born of his own will. But then, nobody is. Some two people, for one reason or another, reach into the recesses of the world waiting for life, and pulled out a baby, squawling and resisting into the world, so they could grow up with it. Then they sent it to school, decided where he would go, what he would do. When he reached teenage, he found out that he didn't have to do all those things, and promptly didn't. Just like everyone else. But he didn't feel strongly about it, and in this atleast he was a bit different. He didn't care at all, he stopped caring when at 14 they told him he couldn't go out for something- it was something as small as a movie or dinner- and instead of saying I will go, like some healthy competitive spirit, he said Not like it Matters, like a defeatist loser instead. Right then, they could've told you what he was going to turn out as. His parents could've known if they'd just been looking, but Are you Smarter Than A Fifth-Grader was on. He didn't stop asking after that, like the Buddha or something, but when the answer was yes, he went unexcitedly, and when the answer was no, he stayed, also unexcitedly, maybe even slightly glum, at first.
As days went by, they decided his asking for less and less things meant that he was turning into one of those anti-social types and repressing his natural self, so they started sending him out perforce to do things, meet people, socialize. He didn't say anything, he just went. Went quietly and came back quietly, hardly anyone noticing him, noone remembering him. He didn't know how to socialize. If someone had told him what to do exactly and when, he might have. They let him wing it, and he didn't. He just felt tired all the time, weary of everything, weary of not caring and of feeling bad that he did not care, and bad that it hurt people around him, and sad all the time. weary of everything. At school he had a friend or two. They talked of things, avoided talking about themselves much because they thought it might repulse each other. They needn't have feared it, they couldn't have talked of themselves even had they wanted to- they wouldn't have known what to say. And it wasn't as though there was much anyway. The days rolled by, the clouds rolled by, the cars rolled by, each having as little effect on his consciousness as a bad metaphor on someone taking dope. Far from mattering, he probably didn't even notice.
He applied to college because everyone went to college. He tried for the best because his parents were normal, nice, competitive people. They wanted him to do the best he could. He wanteda girlfriend. From what he'd heard of them, he thought one might understand his problem and snap him out of it. He didn't get one, maybe because of the antisocial thing, maybe because he didn't know any who'd ever noticed him, maybe because there was something else wrong. Aura or some shit like that. Anyway, he didn't get one, so he just sat around hoping that like in the movies, one might fall on his head or in front of a car nearby when he was walking on the street. None ever did. He thought that might be because the people who got together that way were completely incompatible and didn't want to meet each other in any way whatsoever. They were telling Love that they could handle their own lives, thank you, and it had to prove them wrong, two at one go. He, on the other hand, was begging Love to interfere. Or Hormones, at least. He'd admitted their power, so they had no more use for him. Ironic. He did go to college. You find all sorts of freaks at college, he'd heard. He went out with four that he'd seen giving him looks. He did things, tried things that were supposed to be fun. They weren't, but he didn't care about that either. All of his girlfriends broke up with him because they thought him cold and unfeeling, though he was ok in every other way. They just couldn't see inside his head. He studied pretty well, passed out, got a standard job. His parents were terribly proud of him. They stuck up their noses at the doom-prophets. He met another girl. This one loved him without wanting to get inside his head. He married her because she loved him, because she insisted and overcame his scruples. He tried adventure sports. Travelled. Was involved in a bad road accident which he didn't engineer, although later some people wondered. He went to work every day, came home at seven every night, she made lunch, he made dinner, they got their own breakfasts. He cleaned, she shopped. They worked it all out. One July morning, he went to work, came home, walked into the kitchen, washed his lunchbox, took out a will he'd made and had attested by two coworkers at lunch, put it on the table under a paper-weight, wrote a suicide note on a paper he left on the hall table, went into the living room and checked if there was anything good on tv. There wasn't, as usual, so he cooked dinner, then took out the sleeping pills from the bathroom cupboard, leaving two behind for his wife to take that night, went into the bedroom, and swallowed them down with the glass of water he'd kept on the bedside table.
His wife came in. She threw her keys on the table, saw the note, picked it up and read it. Then she read the will beneath it. He'd left everything to her. The note said- I'm killing myself. I'm sorry girl, but I was just so bored. With love, Your husband, John. She nodded once, then went into the next room and called the police. It all went off without incident.

"Do you know what you remind me of ?"
She shook her head slightly and continued to look at him.
He watched her a moment, watched her watch him, and continued- "When I was young, I took a walk one saturday flea-market morning. I liked getting antiques, then. Funny, isn't it ? Back then, I loved tradition and heritage and antiques, the whole caboodle as though it were my whole reason for living. Now, when i ought to be romanticizing about the olden days, I can't stand the sight of anything less than forty years younger than me... Yes, so. I was going in and out examining these antiques as though I was some kind of goddam expert, when in one of these runs-of-the-mill, I saw this pot. "
"I remind you of a pot ?", curling into a smile.
" Yes, this particular one- a cooking pot, with some kind of pattern- oddly enough, not floral- on it. and it was old. Looked very... worn. Not, you understand, broken or cracked or in bad shape, just worn. As though it had been used, for long years. And you didn't mind, because it wasn't a very beautiful pot. Not delicate or pretty or gold-leaf-expensive. Just old and kind of plain, and happy with all that. A contented pot."
He stopped, ran his fingers through his beard, raised his chin, looking at the panelling above her head now, then lowered it again slightly and went on.
"I couldn't afford it."

My home ?

It will be... on the downs. Great, green rolling downs, with the rare wild outcrop of dark rock rearing up out of it. On the top of one of those hillocks, I will build a house. A mad house. A house of stone, of smooth blue-grey stone, with soaring ceilings and vast windows. It will need central heating, but it will not have it. It will have big, warm, downy blankets instead.

The rooms will continue the madness. One will be warm. Warm, with a dark, polished wood floor, and deep red and flame-coloured besides, and a fireplace with a chimney and everything. This room will have photographs. Three at most. Three large photographs of the people I would like to remember or think of. Comfortable armchair, sofa and a rug on the floor. A mattress in the corner you can flop tiredly down on.

The upstairs room will be dark green, like thoughtful fir woods, with light only coming from the small, gable window with a deep window-seat. A high bed, with slim bedposts from which sheer white curtains billow out like clouds, and white sheets. And a room leading off this one will be the library, with floor-to-ceiling shelves filled with books, books that I like, and that like me. And some that don't like me at all.

The main room - drawing-room-with-no-guests-to-come-spoil-it, will have vast windows of huge single pieces of glass, so that you forget they are there, and it seems that you are sitting on the downs themselves, and it will face west, so that all afternoon, the warm sun will filter in lazily and make comfortable the little spots where I like to curl up.

There will be a large and fancy kitchen- fancy not in trappings, but in state-of-the-art-ness, which will enable me to eat very well by cooking very little. Otherwise, it will be a cheerful sort of room. Yellow, perhaps, though not too yellow. I am not a yellow person.

And there will be one more room, aside from bathrooms and closet and similar necessary-but-not-really-to-be-noticed places. It will be very small. A small room, packed into the space left in space by the assortment of other rooms to ensure that the whole thing stands. A little room, with a slanting ceiling, and nothing in it at all. One fairly small, plain window. Nothing else. The floor, walls, everything will be of the same blue-grey stone outside. I might put in a mat to sit on in the winters. But nothing else.

There will be no road reaching directly to it. The road stops off a hillock away, and you can take a fairly convenient path, over that hillock and down through the dale and on a bit and there you are. Meanwhile, I won't have to hear the car-sounds because of the wind that will blow wildly about my house ineffectually trying to blow the anomaly away. Sitting inside you think you can hear the sea, the elements, angry at you, furious, but they cannot get inside.

Of course, sometimes I will wish that I had made it by the sea instead, and sometimes I will wish it had been in the mountains, and sometimes I will wish it had looked like those conventionally delightful looking little houses, with the tiled roofs and honeysuckle around the door, and so on and so on. But most of the time I will delight in it. And annoying people who are my closest neighbours will come and visit, thinking me lonely and odd and in need of normalising company, and I will be glad about that too, because it will be a delight such as never was to slam the door behind them when they leave. And them thinking it was just the nasty wind.

river

I have braced myself. I have struck my root strong, an immovable rock in the current, because they told me that there would be strong tides and floodwaters trying to rush me away, and break me and upend me. They who have seen, or who make me believe they have seen the source and the shore, the icy wellspring and the vast open end, have told me. So I have stood firm in the flow. But you have climbed aboard that boat, and you have gripped the small oar tight, and you have eased her out. Pushing off from the little stone jetty, you have eased her out into the current, into the stream of life. And it may be that the torrents will come. It may be that the torrents will come and the rain will pour down and the river will rise in fury against us. And I with my roots in the heart of the earth will withstand it, as should be. And you, my friend ? You in the boat that bobs up and down, you whom the gale can cast, helpless, into the whirlpools and drown ? And in the waters you traverse, sharp rocks may rise up from out of the once-friendly water and smile their jagged, wicked grins in the horror of the night... But then my soul too may be broken. But yours in a hundred more ways as you travel the current and harness its will to carry you on. Mine, perhaps, is vulnerable only to myself, that my own regret may rot me. For that too is a greivous weakness.
But in the other times, in the calm times, perhaps your joy will be greater, to compensate for greater sorrows ? You may dip your oar into the current and go to places that I shall never see- such places !- Places beyond the reach of my mind, and you will see them and know them and delight in all that there is in the world to be known. And I, standing in my place in the river, will hear it gurgle around me, gurgle delightedly, like the laugh of a baby, and feel the filtering sunlight around me, and know all about these little bits of home. I will have to know them and love them, for it is from them that I will have to glean my wisdom. For if I cannot be great, and cannot be brave, I can at least, be wise ?
But though everything may be different, and nothing as it now is, in the times when you pass my little spot again, come and spend a little while, will you ? For at least there is this much alike in us- that we both stepped out into the current, to face life as it came winding our way. And so the coming and going and understanding of that river is in both our minds. And it always will be. And if there should be a storm, and you close by, come and lay anchor to me, and I will hold you. If ever I can, as long as I am able, I will.

It is Madras heat. Incisive, precise, ruthless like an angered accountant. Every spot, every dot of the baking earth is cut by searing yellow-white sun. Glancing off the cars and glass and buildings, burning, withering the plants brown, the people black. Black and hard and accountant-like, like itself. God Makes Man In His Own Image. Cruelly the sun-god smiles. You can see him if you are brave or foolish. If you can look up into that blinding brightness, you can see him. Small and neat and precise, neatly combed mustache, beady, narrowly focussed eyes, always calculating, always open and alert, flicking quickly over you and that around you and that in which you are standing. And he is summing his figures and he is deciding that you are not worth it, and he is flicking his attention away, because he has many appointments today and you are not included in his itinerary for today and so you are unwelcome. But he has been kind and he has seen you because it is part of the Tradition to be kind and accommodate, even if he does not like it very much, not very much at all. Then he is thinking about something else, studying something else, so that you are able to drag your eyes away from his clever, sharp eyes and look at the rest of him. He is dressed for the part, dressed in his shining golden sun-suit, because how disappointing he would be to his workers if he wore more efficient and comfortable modern clothing. An ornate gold breastplate, and a golden belt, and a great curved sword of terribly shining silver steel and gemstones, and a crisp white mundu with zari border- a kashava mundu, that most regal of clothes for the Southern man. Though of course, this is no man.

Then his shiny dark brown skin, polished and dark like rosewood. His broad, shoulders, his imposing height, and his quiet, plain, tightly disciplined face like a massive black polished rock, and as inscrutable. He looking west now, he is turning west, imperial even in the unostentatious manner of his movement. And he is changing. He is becoming what he must be to shine down as Imperial Sun God on the Western lands, and He is going to his charge, striding away there. He does not seem that big, but He is covering many hundreds of miles in his stride, He is going away, His burning, searing presence is leaving...

And the twilight comes, and the night follows it quickly, and I have not moved. The night wind has blown through the trees to ease the hot torture of my body, but I stand still and watch the place where he has vanished, for now that I have seen Him, I have changed... I have joined them now, and though I may be burned, although my skin may burn and my eyes be blinded by his Power and his Light, I am a Child of the Day now, my adoration shall never cease, my adoration will live until I cease, until I am ever Free, until I am free from the slavery of worshipping Him...

I Worship Him.

Little boy among thousands. Thousands of big, smelly, sweating, standing men and women. Everywhere he only sees a great press of legs- covered by saris, uncovered under dhotis, legs brown and yellow and black and dirt-covered. The overpowering stink of sweat. A trickle of sweat gathers and slides down the line of his spine, making him feel ticklish and uncomfortable, as though the heat was making fun of him. He tugs impatiently at the hand holding his, bawls some complaint, is shushed by the surrounders. Face screwed up in a determination to wail, he hears now that they are mostly quiet, as quiet as such a horde can be. They are listening to something. He tugs at the larger hand dangling at his other side. His father looks down at him over his moustache, and then in a moment of pity or abstraction, hoists him up onto his shoulders.
That's better. Now he can see something, for his father is a tall man with comfortable, broad shoulders. Now it is the sun that beats down, while the drops of sweat continue to trickle down the length of his nose. There are many, many people, as far ahead as he can see, right upto a sort of platform, a stage. A covered stage. And on the stage, in the shade- he screws up his eyes to see- There is a long box. And behind the box, there is a man. A man who is talking. A man whose voice is echoing in the relative quiet of the field. An old, fair-skinned man, bald, with spectacles on his nose, who is speaking angrily. And the men around are frowning a little, frowning at the heat, or to see the little man, or at what the man is saying, the boy cannot tell. They are frowning up at him, and standing still. And then, at something he says, a great shout wells up, all around. A shout, a cry of strength, of support for this little man. ...ki Jai ! is the shout, and it too echoes around until the man begins to speak again. For a moment, the cry pushed back the heat, held back the irritation and flies and lack of wind and rising dust and maddening glare and shouted defiance. Then the man shouted something very loudly, and so did they. He shouted again, they shouted too, until the two sounds merged into one, and the boy forgot where he was, forgot he was hungry, forgot he was uncomfortable, forgot he did not understand what they were shouting, and shouted loud, loud, his head thrown back, out of the emptiness in his belly.

And then a tide of young men, an irresistible tide of snarling, rushing humanity, swept past him and flung itself with picks and crowbars at a great old mosque...

Why can't I write stories ?

kaveri noon

the stream meandered away downhill, to where the farmers and fishermen and regional politicians were squabbling about whose it was, and then down and out to the sea.

Brown, and God alone knows how deep, reflecting the elephants bathing on the far bank for relief from the beating sun, and the mahouts calling, and the little ones splashing and the mothers keeping a wary eye out, flickering through the dancing shade and unwavering sunlight..

Little tadpoles excitedly darting just below the surface of the lazy river while, deeper in, the great black fish wove serpentlike and vanished into the cool, the dark brown of the riverbed, deep below, away from the world, away from the angry, piercing light...

Up the hill on this side were the plantations- the sounds of the workers picking coffee, arabica, robusta, drifted down, the rustle of leaves as they pushed through them, the sound and smell of work to do on a hot summer afternoon, while the earth feels like sleep, while it curls up under the light shade of the silk-cotton trees as the boy with dirty shorts and a dog are doing, back there, out of everyone's way...

A mahout lifts his eyes to peer across the riverbank, because he could have sworn that in the shade near the bend of the river, a girl with her sandalled legs hugged tightly to her chest was sitting, watching.. but there is noone. It must have been a trick of the sharp light glancing off the ripples in the water there, as the water eddies around that brown rock in a gurgle of flowing away... A girl with large eyes, silently watching...

A drift of wind travels down the river, balancing on a current.. As it wafts down the still afternoon land, it looks around, searching through the trees for a little girl whose face he can touch and see her smile softly, sadly, at his already retreating back, but there is no little girl. So he touches the little boy in shorts, who turns over on his back, and the little dog stretches and murmurs a bark in his sleep, and the silk-cotton, freed from the bursting pods, falls...

A thought disturbs me.
Mussolini in 1943, was under immense pressure to sign a peace treaty with the Allies, who were poised to invade Italy after having captured Sicily. He refused to abandon Hitler, and was deposed by the King and disowned by his party.
Hitler, although fighting a desperate battle on the eastern front, needing every man he could get to resist the Russian advance, rushed troops into Italy via the Brenner pass, fought bitterly and kept the Allies from taking italy, and killing Mussolini, for a year and a half.
A thought disturbs me.
Even before the war was over, Stalin suspected Churchill of postponing the attack on Germany so that the USSR would be brought to its knees. The British while advancing aginst the Germans a few months later, wanted to rush ahead so that Berlin would not fall to the Russians.
The thought disturbs me. Should we be learning friendship or loyalty from- from the Wrong sources ? the Bad guys ? Because Mussolini, the power-hungry, somewhat stupid opportunist, lost his position rather than betray his ally, and Hitler, the ruthless, communist-hater, whose ultimate goal in life was Germany winning wars and being Great, took troops out of his armies combatting the selfsame Commies, his last hope for salvaging any pride, and sent them to the aid of his bumbling, stumbling ally, whose cause was pretty much already lost.
It's all wrong.
Or I really don't know life at all.

Winter afternoon, phone call, and setting off, down one road and up another.
And finally, in the greyish shadows of a grey building, he would be waiting- skinny, with a toothy grin and bright eyes.
And we would run around and around the sunlight-spotted building, very fast. He was faster, but I was older.
Around the paved driveway, and leaved side-paths, and the dry pond-space at the back with the pebbled circles in it which were the only way you could cross- step out and you're out.
And we'd play.
Enacting future scenes of video-games, and each part of the place would be a different land, or a different level.
Same thing, actually.
And the pesky little brother, who wailed a lot and nasally, and complained he was being left out, was always the villain- or the victim to be rescued, whom we'd conveniently forget to rescue.
And there would be different rules for each part of the outdoors, which we'd follow because the competitor could be watching from the side-door, to joyfully yell- 'Cheater!' And then we'd have to start all over again.
And sometimes Pineapple Punnappa would join us. And he'd pronounce the name deliberately, with a huge grin on his face. Neverfailing joke.
And once, with a grin even wider, and with eyes maybe brighter, he told me that one day he was going to be Rich. And I grinned too.
We ice-skated, round and round a rink, coolly swooshing past all the others who were huffily hobbling along and falling a lot. And raced go-karts.
And played Sonic and Knuckles, laughing at Tails, Sonic's fox- sidekick who flew clumsily by revolving his tail (the clumsiness was me, while he got Sonic to Hyper-Sonic stage, where the hair goes all silver, and you have hyper-speed and can fly without eating those coin things.)
I, on more than one occasion, suspended the little brother by his ankles for being extra annoying, while we both laughed because it was so cartoony, and the little guy wailed some more.
He tried teaching me how to skateboard, but I couldn't, and so he took the skateboard and I got the scooty and we tried going down the ramp on them, but weren't very good, so we just ran.
And when he, and his cousin brothers, and I were showing off our special fight positions in a mirror, I heard aunty say- 'She gets along with the boys so well, ya, they usually don't like girls', and I glowed with pride.
And he never fibbed, and looked faintly puzzled when the adults asked him one of those questions that they wink to. And shrugged, and came back to where the three of us were watching Jungle Book 3.
And, later, we watched 300 together and thought it was cool. The fight scenes, the fight scenes. Some of it was gross, but still.
And at the senti bits, we looked at each other and grinned uneasily.
He couldn't do hindi either, and we made fun of hindi sir together.
And jumped and kicked and yowled and gave chase and wrestled, even when we were in classes eleven and nine, and pretty big.
Once, we walked right round the second floor of the house, on the outside ledge, when everyone was sleeping, even though someone might have seen us. And we might have fallen off.
And though I don't remember what we talked about, there always was enough.


'Bright boy at the carriage window,
Waving to me calling,
But I've loved you all these years and looked for you everywhere,
...Returning always to the forest's silence,
To watch the windows of some passing train... '


But now a deep voice, and few words.
But still a rough statement that he’s not the kind to lie.
But he’s a guy now. Gone away and grown.

Another one about polyps

Musk deer and the one-horned rhinoceros and the European corn borer I know about now. But what I have found out that really interests me is that coral polyps can be nasty. It seems when they're competing over the prime spot to leave their shells, some turn horrid and poison others. But you know, it shouldn't surprise me. That weak, soft, shelless things should be so mean. I mean, that's even known to be the popular method of murder among the weak- poison.
And it is the weakest who are mean. The others don't have a reason to be, but they do. They have nothing else to hide them, protect them. No sting. No vast and towering appearance, like the harmless-ish whales. They're just pretty tiny, and useless, and fleshy, and grey, and they're going to die. The only thing they get to decide about their lives is where their bodies will lie when they're gone. Not even the manner of their death, but something as inconsequential to living as the grave spot. And since they have only something so miserable to fight about, it must be vicious. Like that Murphy's Law which states that the precise reason why college politics is so vicious is that there is so little at stake.
So I'm not horrified. I'm not asking what this world is coming to if small little simple creatures like coral polyps are turning to murder. It's the big ones I'm concerned with. So, as long as blue whales aren't developing a determination to avenge themselves for all the hoop skirts and whale blubber, I'm ok. Probably because the whales could actually cause me some damage. But possibly because I've got perspective. Let the little polyps have their bitter squabbles, I say magnanimously. Then, quaking in my boots a little, But please, please let the whales go on being nice.

sisters.

Two little girls come racing round the corner and plop down on two chairs in the middle of the row. Out pop two books and a crayon box.

Then another girl turns the corner, and one earnest colourer breaks off to clutch the seat next to her, and shake her frantically, black curls flying out behind. Big sister.

In a minute, a littler girl with little black ringlets and a bag round her neck bigger than her body, which knocks the breath out of her at every second step, comes running round. And she wriggles into the empty seat. The other two don't even look up. Little sister.

She looks intently at sister and friend. Pulls out a book, and opens to a page with a picture in the bottom-right corner, like theirs. Looks again- at the bowed head, curls quivering, and man and house and sky yellowing beneath the hand. Then reaches for a crayon lying in her sister's lap, and begins to red a man of her own.

polyps

I know the basic facts about coral polyps. Little, defenceless creatures who use minerals they find floating around to build themselves an armour, or a home, that stays on long after they are dead to form other living things’ homes, and tourist sites, and holiday islands.
But what does the polyp feel about it, I wonder? Little, colourless, limp creature with eyes cautiously peeping, does he know that he’s doing just what those slaves who built the Pyramids, and the slaves who built the Great Wall, did ? Only we assume he does it of his own volition. There is no great and cruel Coral Lord to cut off his thumbs or his head after, say, the Barrier Reef’s constructed. Does he even know that’s what he’s doing when he secretes himself a hidey-hole ? Did they ?
And how do they all pile up so efficiently and organisedly if there isn’t a polyp Architect or Contractor to oversee things with the Bigger Picture in mind ? (with a coral hard-hat on, of course. Safety First.)
Maybe it’s really a pilgrimage, the last journey of every polyp, to die in the place all polyps go to die, to fulfil some destiny too vast for any of them to see. A polyp Haj. So that the Maldives are actually the polyp version of the Park Street Cemetery. ‘Sacred to the memory’ written in the polyp tongue that hides the secret of the Greater Purpose.
And then, what they leave behind is really greater than what the Egyptian slaves did, or the Chinese, because it lives. It’s a home, not a tomb or a public works project. For ever after, each polyp who added his bit is blessed by the each little fish family, each cranky old sting-ray who found the perfect hollow, even though the neighbourhood is a bit loud, and the cool dude fish who consider themselves lucky that they got a pretty neat place at such low rental, in such a happening spot. And there are colour carnivals, and swim-abouts, and plankton on the house, and sometimes, huge figures in black sticky-suits, who point, and stare in wonder. Life illuminates the things he left behind.Would you call it a noble act if it was a matter of course, and not some decision in the face of insurmountable odds ? It was definitely a good act, in result at least, that those polyps did. Even if they didn’t know the master plan. Even if they were only instruments. Each of them, I suppose, was free to not play second fiddle to the millions of others who had done this thing before him. Just to be contrary, they could have floated out and surrendered their skeletons to the deep black of the Marianas Trench. But they didn’t. And so the music came to be. Here’s lookin’ at you, polyp.

On a book.

That's it ?
What's it?
That's all ?
Yes.
That's the end?
Yes.
That's the magnificent end.
I never said it was magnificent.
But you implied it.
No, I said I liked it.
Yes, so..
That isn't the same thing. Anyway, I take it you don't like it ?
No. Is that a surprise?
I don't know. I hadn't thought about it. I just showed it to you.
Without any expectations of what I would say ?
Yes, I think so.
At any rate, I don't like it.
Why not ?
I just don't.
But surely you must have a reason.
I just- I don't like something about it. Perhaps it's the end.
What don't you like about the end ?
It's so abrupt.
It's meant to be. That's the point.
But what's the point ?
It's unenending. A circle of thought. I don't see why you don't like it.
I don't see why you wrote it, so we're quits.
No,I mean, it's a good ending... I liked it.
If you're going to be so sure of your own opinion, don't ask for someone else's.
But your dislike is so unreasonable.
It isn't. I don't understand this book. I don't feel good about it. So I don't like it.
All books are not meant to reassure your self-esteem, I'm afraid.
That's it. I can't... live upto this. I look for something of myself in everything. To identify with.Your book doesn't give me that. It has nothing to do with my self-esteem. Or perhaps it does. You're not very good for it, and neither is your book. I've given my opinion on it. I'm sorry if it doesn't live up to yours.
What on earth are you talking about ?
It doesn't matter.



It did.
....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

A very original book.
Thank you.
I might publish it.
Thank you.
I don't like it.
What ?
Yes.
Then why would you publish it ?
Because someone might like it.
But that doesn't make sense.
Why ever not ?
It doesn't. You should publish what you like. Or you should have acquired a taste for what you publish. Or for what the people like.
Why ?
That's what all the publishers do.
I'm not an ordinary publisher.
But you're a big and popular one.
Yes. Because I publish something for everybody.
But why ? Surely every publishing company has a... a sort of policy ?
Maybe they do. Diversity is mine. Out is in these days, as in the sixties. And in is in, as in the 90s. And there are period freaks, as there have always been. And children, and romantic girls, and testosterone-filled boys, and conservative women, and dry, factual men. I publish for all of them.
...But... I mean...
Anyway, my policy isn't your business. I know my business, and this will go through. As I said, someone might like it.


Someone didn't.
.........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

Why didn't it work ?
They can't say.
They're supposed to know. They're the experts.
People didn't like it.
But why didn't they ?
Because they didn't.
But for what reason ?
They don't need a reason.
Nonsense. Everyone always has a reason. They hardly ever express it, but they always have one. They're just afraid it'll be the wrong one.
I don't think so.
I know it. I've seen a lot of people in my time.
I'm sure you have.
Many kinds of them. And in many ways they're all the same.
No doubt.
So what's the reason ?
They don't have one.


They did.
...........................................................................................................................................................................................................

The book was a disaster.
Yes, it was.
Why ?
They didn't take to it.
Why not ?
I'm not sure. But it bombed.
Yes, but the question is why ? What was wrong with it ?
It seemed to have all the right characteristics for a book of its kind.
What kind was it ?
You didn't read it ?
You did, didn't you ? Why should I have to ?
Well... It was an ideas book.
What sort of ideas ?
Socio-psychological sort of thing.
Speak English.
I'm doing just that. Learn English. You publish books in that language.
I know enough to serve my purpose. Now explain.
Well, it's about psychology of the elements of society, a critique, that sort of thing. Very intellectual.
Pseudo- ?
Seemed genuine enough.
Reviews ?
Mixed.
The best, in other words. So what went wrong.
It's been demonstrated to us, once again, that critics are not normal people.
A very expensive lesson.
Yes.
[Pause]
Can't believe the genre's dying out, though. What happened to good old sensical social commentary ?
'Sensical' isn't a word. It appears your English isn't exactly the Queen's, either.
It isn't a word, but it will be. It's evolving into one. 37 % more people use 'sensical' than 'vagaries', 'callous' or 'transsubstantiation'.
Is that true ?
No.
So.
Yes. The extinction of social commentary.
Yes.
I'd better cross it off my list.
Yes.
mmm...Ballad poetry...Farce... Murder- by Poison... Poetic fantasy... Self-improvement... Ah. Social commentary. No more of that.
You're sure ?
I'd say it looks to be quite conclusively proved.
Perhaps, yes. But I don't like crossing things off.
Well, neither do I. We publish everything, as I extensively explained to the boy.
This boy ?
Yes.
The expensive author.
[irritatedly] Yes.
Ironic.
Yes.


It really was. Not to mention sad.

Bathwater and the adult.

There are two ways to feel warm when you get out of the shower.

One is to drown yourself in lots and lots of steaming water for a long time, so that when you get out you have enough warmth for the thief, the cold around, and enough warmth left over for yourself.

The other is to douse yourself in freezing water, cold slap-splashing your skin, so that when you get out, even the cold air seems relatively warm.

There are two ways to survive life's knocks too.

I want to say whangdoodle.

Young, young, young.

After feeling 82-and-three-quarters-round-the-bend for weeks, feels good.

Bernard Shaw, a bit. The epilogue to Pygmalion. Lots sensible. Feeling better.

Reading old writing, and saying 'Phooey!' to Shakespeare. Wish I could read Othello without reading it. Reading it is such trouble. But it's something. So feeling better. Want to read Three Men In A Bummel. What is a bummel, anyway ?

Want to laugh at a good joke. Only, I forget jokes as son as I've laughed at them. Sometimes before.

Don't want to watch Teevee anymore. Horrid Teevee. Makes me dull and 2-D. Though it's really 2-D itself. But it's got colour. And attitude. Oh yes, it's got attitude, you must admit. And good PR. But still. Stupidifying.

Want to watch things like The History Boys. Felt full, and satiated with goodmovieness after that.

Oho.

Feeling quite better with all the neologising. Doubt that's a word. But while I'm at it. Understand the full joys of it. Sure I'm as good at it as Shakespeare was. 'Brainsickly' indeed. [snort derisively]

Dooby-dooby-doo. I shall study, and gets lots of marks, and win the world.

Castanet. Cerebellum. Cormorant. Karamazoo.

A.F.C.

I always feel a stir of sympathy when I look at that AC-AVC-AFC cost curves diagram. For the AFC.

The Average Cost Curve, a smiling U-shape at the top, and just below it, at first keeping its uniform distance, the Average Variable cost curve, which later goes and cozies up to the boss, getting closer and closer. And here at the bottom of the graph is the poor old Average Fixed, honourably and uselessly forming his uniformly-sized rectangles all along his rectangular- hyperbola form.
Well, I feel sorry for the fellow. On and on he plods with his not- too- interesting (in fact, rather dull) duty, and there above, and right in front of his nose, that upstart has made the upward turn and is getting better and better acquainted with the superior.
And the poor fellow will probably be accused of coldness, and being a stuffed pickle, turning up his nose at a little workplace joie-de-vivre. And will keep having a smaller and smaller role to play, getting further and further away from the site of the action, until he's finally pensioned off at 65, and replaced by another fellow just like him, for he has a pretty important role to play, you know, despite all appearances.

In Memoriam.

Luvly George is dead.
And I, ridiculously enough, am feeling bereaved.
I don't know her.
It's almost an insult to her family's loss to say it, but I am feeling loss.

She- I know very little about her. I know she's somewhat religious and has a tendency to send religious forwards to people on Orkut. In fact, she sends all sorts of forwards. A regular forwarder.
And I know she never put her picture up on her profile, only greeting-card pictures of children and flowers. So for a very long time I didn't know who- which of the girls in church- she was. I only found out when she was getting married.
I played for her wedding- a month or so ago. I messed it up rather badly. Then I relieved my guilt for weeks afterwards by imagining myself profusely apologising to her. I never shall, now.

She married a Maharashtrian boy- a 'love marriage'. He got baptised in order to marry her. They've come to church regularly every sunday since then. She, who understands the service in Malayalam, alongside he, who doesn't.
She died today. Coming back from church on a motorbike with her husband. A truck came and hit them from behind.
So their family will have had a baptism, a wedding, and a funeral, all in the space of a month.
A fair, rounded girl with a bit of a belly in a cream-coloured sari.
It is nothing if not unfair.