The superior, inferior and us.: 2010

Tuesday, November 23, 2010

On a silent street named Titan - Part 1.

“I AM ALIVE” shouted the grumpy old man who woke up from his sleep, dripping with sweat and a face full of horror as he sat up on his old torn rags which he used as bed, on the side of a silent street named Titan. He slowing looked up turning his aching neck to realize that the sun had already taken its full toll and the rays of light penetrated the lively green leaves of the timeworn tree under which he took shelter. He looked up and saw that a couple of birds were singing in harmony in the little nest they gathered for themselves. The old man looked around himself took some pebbles scattered next to his bed and used the last left energy from his last night’s food to shoot the pebbles which scared the life out of the birds who fled in terror into blue open sky. “DON’T YOU DARE SHOW UP AGAIN WITH THOSE STUPID VOICES OF YOURS” the old man shouted, throwing his fist in air till the poor little birds were no longer in sight. He reached for his shaped out stick and slowly lifted himself up like a turtle. He looked to his east as far as he could to see and the road curved down into the distant mountains and to his west where he could not see where the Titan Street ended except that he knew that it went into the only city which was civilized in the entire plateau of the gigantic landmass which was disconnected from the rest of the world through the darkest oceans and wildest seas. The old man took few steps to the small pond on the dried land to the side of the road which was the only source of water on Titan Street, a road which was laid through barren lands on either sides of it. No one knew when the road was laid and how that body of water appeared next to it at that place. The road ran through miles and miles of barren land until it ended in the treacherous mountains in the east. Some say the civilization in the west laid the road to connect to the mountains in the east but stopped using it since they started believing that a curse has been laid upon the street which would make people passing through it extremely miserable and that very few were able to make it back after walking on it. However the civilization did hear about a man who lived on it as long as they can trace back. No one knew how he lived through time, hunger and weather. Some said he was immortal and some said he was the devil himself.

Back on the street the old man collected some water in his earthen vessel and sat back on his bed. He drank some of it and sprinkled some around his bed. He lay back on his bed and started staring at the leaves and whatever the spots of sky he can see through them. He went back into his deep thought process and moments later he was startled. His ears heard a noise which his brain had forgotten ages ago. The noise grew louder and louder and all at once the old man shot up in bad and started looking around. He looked to the east and it was the same old mountain. He looked to the west and he could not believe what his eyes were seeing. A figures started coming closer and closer to the old man and till the time his eyes came back to focus the figure stood right in front of him. The old man grabbed his stick and threw it right in the face of that figure. “OUCH, why the hell did you do that” replied the voice and now the figure was much clearer. It was a young man dresses in a wrinkled yellow t shirt and dark blue pants. He was rubbing the left side of his forehead where the stick impacted. “You old man, why did you hit me? Did you see any weapon in my hand or was I about to kill you?” the young man demanded the answer. “Go away, go away before I kill you and burry you under my bed. Go back if you love your life, go back to where you are coming from” said the old man. “Who the hell are you to ask me to go back? I will go where I want” continued the young man “and by the way if you want to have a fight then let me warn you it’s a baaaaad idea”. The old man got furious and started to take a leap at him “I will show you what a bad idea is” and he moved forward only to fall down after two steps. The young man came rushing and lifted the old man who was struggling to get his hands on the man. “Settle down old man, I mean no harm. I was just passing by.” The old man’s furry took a rest; he drank some water got himself together and looks at the young man. It was the face of any human the old man has seen in ages. All he was used to seeing is his own reflection in the water. He had long forgotten how childhood and youth looked or felt like and never had a conversation with another soul apart from mumbling to himself. The old man could not die and even as ages passed he could not figure out why his soul would not leave his body which over the years had made him volatile against every single person and thing in his world. “Why on earth do you want to head to the mountains? Dint your elders back home tell you stories about the people who did the same mistake? Go back young man; go back before it is too late” the old man expressed. “Well whatever might happen to me is not worst than what would happen to me if I stayed back there, you have no idea what I have escaped old man, by the way what can I call you? I do not like calling you old man!” The old man’s eyes when wide and he uttered sharply “what is the problem in calling me old man?” “Alright alright, please calm down. You seems like you want to confront every moment” said the young man. “What do they call you…YOUNG MAN?” asked the old man. “They call me Ethan sir” replied the young man. “Ethan SIR?” said the old man surprisingly, “No no I was referring to you as SIR”. “You are a weird little young lad, so why are you going to the east?” asked the old man offering Ethan to sit down. Ethan took rest under the tree with his back on the tree’s bark. He looked around and could not see anything except the mountains at the Far East and expressed “How are you living here, are you even alive old man?” A little furry built up on the old man’s face “first answer the questions asked and make new questions, aren’t there any elders at your place to teach you some manners” grunted the old man. “Alright alright, maintain some cool. I will tell you, what else I have to do apart from narrating my story to you. It’s not like I have to sleep early and get back to work tomorrow” said Ethan and started laughing. The old man showed no reaction. “Alright, so you want to listen to me” started Ethan “Just remembered that you asked for it and I am not responsible to console you when you will be filled with tears and pity for me. I have not escaped the ordinary”. The old man just kept staring.

“God save me from him” Ethan mumbled to himself slowly and started. “Someone once told me“there is a reason sometimes a road is less traveled” I never thought that I will recollect it now. I was born and lived my entire life in the place I am coming from. I loved my home and neighborhood more than anything else in this world and had the most wonderful friends one can ever ask for. Life was so much fun everyday with family, school, friends, food, parties and almost every other thing one can dream of .. Everything was so good that” “Stop, Stop, Stop” interrupted the old man “if you say that you were too bored of what you had and have left to discover life I will kill you this very moment” completed the old man.”Please let me speak, and then do whatever you want to grumpy old man” continued Ethan and for the next few hours Ethan continued to narrate his story and how he found peace and success in everything he did. He was a man of goals and achievements. He told him everything about his childhood, his teenage, his small and big moments of life and he even told him the things he never confessed to people back there. As he was coming to the end of his story he sighed and went “everything was going in perfect harmony until”. “Until what?” quickly asked the old man. “For a man of your age patience should be overflowing” said Ethan and continued “Mathilda, oh what a day it was when she came in with a caravan who were in town for three days to exhibit some art work. It was as if the rainbow just touched my heart when she looked at me and the sweetest music from all around the world fell on my ears when she spoke. I was instantly blown away by her beauty and charisma while it did not take long for me to fall completely in love with her. A night before she came in my town I had slept clueless without any idea how the next three days were going to completely transform my life. In fact to an extent that I am now leaving all that I ever loved and going to a place I do not know about. I just want to go away as far as I can as I find no peace in the land I once lived. “My Son” the old man started “Before I choke you to death with my very own dirty hands. Go ahead and tell me what exactly happened?” “Sigh!” Ethan spoke “A series of incidences which I don’t think you old mind can handle but since you asked for it I will say it anyway. The next three days were nothing less than a journey of life time. But the thing is it is already dark plus the moon and start are already shooting out. How about I continue the story tomorrow and you allow me to sleep here for today?” The old man was already very tired because it has been many years where he had to sit and talk and listen for so long. “I will wake you up at the first ray of Sun” proclaimed the old man and fell bag on his rags. Ethan then made a small surface with dried leaves and laid back under the starry white dotted sky in the pitch darkness and the pin drop silence. He looked at the old man who was already in deep sleep, luckily for Ethan the night was not very cold, he started singing slowly a song in his mind ♪ oh tell me now where was my fault….in loving you with my whole heart…..♪ and closed his eyes and instantly went into the dream mode without wondering what lays ahead of him at the dawn……

Friday, September 17, 2010

The walk...

It had just stopped raining and the clouds melted away like a module of freshly harvest

ed cotton set ablaze. It has been ages since I experienced such a rain. As I was walking back stepping over the grass which still had the burden of carrying the tiny raindrops I could remember as a child I was always fascinated by the fact that the clouds traveled quite a distance to pass above me, just silently blowing away but touching me with shade and connecting the earth below to the heavens above .Shade which feels like mothers fabric over the gentle child's face, shade which feels like the sight of an oasis in middle of nowhere, and shade which recharged the burning and dehydrated bunch of kids who took no concern for the soaring sun while busy in their sport.

I never really could decide if they were lying in the movies when the actors or actresses spoke about their love for rain. I do remember as if I just watched yesterday the line “God is in the rain” from V forVendetta ,which I watched several times after a dearest friend of mine introduced me to it. “Why shouldn’t God be in the rain?” I questioned myself. If there is any way he connects with the souls on earth it should be rain I thought but unfortunately

now, my agnostic mind denies compromising with that thought. It dint matter if God had to do anything with it but I definitely felt blessed when the water droplets would fall on my cheek, my fore head, my chin and my closed eyelids. I kept walking stamping the grass with my shoes, shoes which were already soaked so much that if I were to make wet footprints on a dry floor I would cover a mile before they dried up. As I walked by I cannot help notice the wet grass shooting back into the position after my foot lifted from their face. “Its nature showing rebellion” I quoted to myself and kept waking. I wondered how it would have been if the flora could speak. The earth would be filled with sound of their pain for the amount of exploitation they faced through time. The grass seemed darker after my every step as if I

bleed them in green. I always dreamed of walking over a plain of grass, like the wallpaper one on my Windows desktop. Grass as far as I can see, exposed to sun, wind and water. Take rest under the blanket of countless stars which unlike humans are always there with you and never fail to show up even if you need them or do not need them. One of my best friends loves stars; the stars remind me of him. Even the rain reminds me of someone else, someone who was once very close to me but like a dream those moments did not last very long even though the memories are still left like the stains always used to get on my new shirts. I was always criticized for getting them; I did not like it then. I like it now.

The walk on grass was to end soon as my eyes spotted the cement trail few feet ahead of me. Like the unnoticeable motion of earth’s rotation I changed my path and before I knew I left the grass behind. I could see the trail of my steps on the grass. I knew they wouldn’t preserve them forever and after all why should they? I was the one who walked away from them, they will remain. I could see no trace of

life on the cement I was walking on. The lively, agile and blissful path suddenly became Inanimate, arid, and stodgy. I do not blame it on the pavement or the placement of it to interrupt my walk on grass but I cannot help myself blame the world on how it has evolved or created (was not in a mood for the debate once again). It was one of my least concerns today, even though it is not so on many of my insomniac nights. It dint bother me if the world was created or evolved as I knew that none of them would settle my restlessness arising due to the world interrupting with nature of which the cement trail I was walking on was the perfect example. But why would I care to fight the world? I have my own battle to fight first even though I know that avoiding the defeat is inevitable.

I continued my walk and it was getting dark but unlike my childhood I wasn’t afraid now, not because that I have grown up but because I was sure that the lights here would never turn off, may be for a split second but apart from that I feel like I can never experience the nig

ht sky as I did when I went on a excursion trip during school. While we were coming back around midnight the bus had to stop in middle of nowhere for children to relax their feet (I.m kidding it was to pee) and my body was swirling in the nostalgic memories of the night sky which left me awestruck when I took notice of the innumerable white dots in the sky. I wanted to stare forever but like many other wishes of a young mind this though was trampled by the horn of the school bus which was about to leave. The horn blew again, this time the sound did not come from my memories but from the car which passed just inches in front of me. Lost in my thoughts I did not realize that I was at the end of the trail and had to cross a street. The traffic was not so much today, I thought about the road in front of me, silently watching me, awaiting my footsteps and anticipating my journey across it. It has been there before me and it will be there after me, its life has seen many people and vehicles pass over it, stamp it and even crash on it. It stays there silently and watches everything. The history gets recorded in that lifeless soul. I was close to my destiny, well at least the one I was heading towards now but I do not dare to wonder how far I was from my destiny of life, if I am on the right track, or do I even need one. I choose to claim my end as my destiny after all that is where I will arrive no matter how I must resist. I did not want to be immortal and I knew that like my footprints on the wet grass, memories of me in everyone will cease to exist but I am not afraid of that as I know that those memories have had their time.

I was about to end my w

alk, a journey of less than a mile which made me feel more exhausted than a mule which finished its trip around the town carrying the burden of his heartless master and cursing its life for the situation it was in. There was a time I used to think very deep about the suffering of such creatures but since the time I started hearing that there is a ‘plan’ behind everything I left it to the planner to bear the emotional distress arising from such sights. It was quite a walk, maybe not, or maybe the walk is completely a product of my wandering imagination. May be my last sentence was completely false. I do not care much now if I really took the walk but I do care about me being able to be anywhere in the world and being able to experience the walk.

Wednesday, September 8, 2010

The Orange and Charlie

The hunter’s bullet just missed the aim but flew close enough for the little Robin bird flying in the sky to get traumatized and take shelter on the tree nearby. It was an Orange tree and the bird settled down at one of the bottom most braches of the tree. The bird may have not been smart enough to understand what the tiny piece of metal which came towards it was but, after settling down, the bird was definitely smart enough to realize that the tree it was sitting on had some fruit. While the bird was struggling to get hold of one, it was also successful in dropping three of those on to the ground and while this drama was happening on the tree, the village postman who was passing under the tree picked up a couple of fallen Oranges with an intention of giving it at the house in village, where a baby was born not a while ago.

The postman arrived at the house of the boy who had already started walking to his surprise, the boy’s face lit up at the very sight of the fruit even though little did he know about how to eat this fruit. Soon after the baby was given the fruit, the baby’s elder brother who just started his school grabbed the other Orange and sprinted back into the house while his dad came out to collect the post. “Charlieeeee, come back and say thank you to the post master” the boy’s father yelled, and soon after he was acknowledged by the sweetest and most innocent voice in town “thank youuuu” from inside, the postman smiled and left. Charlie was busy burying this fruit in his backpack as he wanted to save it for the lunch at school next day. The following day when the time had come for him to savor his much beloved fruit he made sure that he took the biggest bite possible from it and the very instant he did that his face went red, his eyes moisturized and his tongue went sour & bitter. It was the bitterest thing Charlie had ever tasted in his life and in rage he threw the remaining piece of Orange as hard as he can and dropped his head down on the table completely dejected and heart broken. He soon started hearing sounds of laughter and looked up to the entire canteen laughing wildly and that very instant he realized that to his misfortune the Orange had found the back of a high school teacher who was leaving the canteen, the teacher turned back instantly only to realize the canteen full of students laughing at him. The teacher would not say a thing instead went quietly towards Charlie, gave him the scariest looks the boy had seen and then simply left the room. This was the look Charlie would never forgot, and today, years later on his day of the graduation while everybody was busy making plans to celebrate the success Charlie was in the corner, sitting and staring at his grade sheet in utter disbelief because between the cluster of A and A- on his Grade Sheet there was this one bold C. While looking at the C He could still see the same scary look of he saw in his professor’s eyes years ago when he threw that Orange at him. What this meant was that Charlie now will not be going to the college he always dreamed to attend but instead he would have to settle for something else. “Damn Orange” he regretted and left the scene. This was not the first time Charlie used those words but all his friends must have heard him say it at least once every academic year when he used to pass the high school professor as Charlie knew very well that he needed to pass a course under him to graduate. It’s not strange to imagine that Charlie had a butterfly effect analogy for whatever bad has happened to him in life after that and connected them to the Orange incident. “I should have never eaten that Orange, actually I should have never bought it to the school but at the first case I should have not taken it from the post master” and on and on and on he would go back through the time.

As expected Charlie would spend most of his undergrad years cursing the Orange. He would do that when he got low grades in class, he would do that when he did not like the scenery at the new place and he would also be so negative to blame the Orange if he got wet in rain while walking back to his house as he would think the only reason to be in this new place and different school other than what he dreamed of was that Orange. He would never eat an Orange ever again and would never look at one when he passed them. He would like to see himself caught in a bear’s claw in his dreams rather than see Oranges; such was his hatred over years. Some once even overheard Charlie express his wish to win a lottery, invest and grow an Orange tree farm and then burn it all down and build a house on the ashes.

When Charlie got a job he was very excited to move to a new place but he would not leave behind his Orange-Blame ideology. He once overheard two of his colleagues discussing a book which highlighted how Oranges are the sweetest on the top of the tree and the how the Oranges at the southern and northern end of tree would be different. Charlie shook his head and uttered slowly “I would never like to meet its author, a guy with so much love for Oranges and I can never be friend”. As years passed Charlie became much focused on work and investments, he always wanted his career and his life partner to be special. He was in a point of life where money started flowing in and he had established his name. Soon he started realizing that he was nearing an age where he should settle down but never did he want to marry someone he did not understand, he knew he did not have that time for himself due to the excessive amounts of time he gave to his work. He still was the old Charlie who though if only he would have studies in his dream university he would have been in this position years ago and he would have had more time for himself than work, “Damn Orange”.

He started walking toward his apartment with these thoughts and it was one of those nights where Charlie would stay late in his office just sitting and thinking deeply gulping down gallons of coffee. He was just about to cross the street before his house when a girl came in full speed and hit him with her bicycle she was riding. He got up; picked that girl up and set her bicycle straight. He was about to say something and at that instance his glare fell on his old foe fruit the girl was carrying in a bag. It’s not your fault he said while the girl was all set to apologize. “What do you mean it’s not my fault? of course it’s my fault, I was the one who was careless enough to notice that the bag of Oranges I hung on my handle was messing with my front tire“. Charlie laughed and said “You see it’s the Oranges. I would blame them for the entire mankind’s misery”. He laughed and was about to leave when the girl shouted “What? I don’t get you? How is it that you blame them and not me?” Charlie had no intention to open up but the girl would not listen. After repeatedly insisting to listen to the story Charlie came close to her and said, “I do not know why but even though you may think I’m an Idiot after listening to what I say, I would still consider saying this to you and in return I want all you’re Oranges. Agreed? “ . The girl sat down on the corner of the street and said “The bag is already yours, but tell me why you want them?” Charlie sat next to her and said “you will know” and started telling his Orange story and how he relates all that is happening to him is due to the Orange he had thrown at the professor in the childhood. The girl was amazed and went silent; she had many points which she made a note of in her head to say once Charlie finished. After Charlie finished the girl said “before I tell you something which may completely shock you, tell me what you will do with the Oranges?” Charlie quickly replied “I will flush them down the toilet” The girl was not surprised enough and said “That we shall see” and started saying something when blew Charlie’s mind. “When I was a little girl my grandfather took me along for hunting in very same village you are from” Charlie interrupted her and went “What?” she said “No questions” and continued “So one day we were out in the fields trying to shoot a bird and soon after my grandfather took aim to shoot the bird, I grabbed him tightly as I was afraid and this made him miss his aim, we followed the bird which sat on an nearby Orange tree and by the time we reached the tree we saw three Oranges on ground which were being picked up by an old post master. However on spotting me he gave me one of them and left with two, I was so fascinated by the fruit that I eat and saved some seeds to be planted. When the tree grew and started to bloom I had a bunch of them every season from then on and when I grew up it was not a wonder that I went into studying this wonderful fruit, which in turn brought me into this city which has the school with best environmental program and don’t be surprised when I say that the oranges you are holding are part of my research and are from the same old tree I planted” Charlie did not say a word, he was taken aback by what he heard. He did not expect to hear this form one of the most pretty and sweetest sounding person he had ever met in his life.

He left and couldn’t sleep the entire night thinking how his life can experience such a co-incidence. He threw the orange bag in the refrigerator and he also could not stop thinking about this girl whom he just can’t get out of his mind. Next day he pulled up the girls email on the university’s directory and emailed her that he wants to meet her. For next few months they met several times and each time he met her he started appreciating her and fell in deep admiration for her. He just could not believe how his life changed since meeting her that night to where he was this day. He was totally convinced to have found his dream girl. Not only he stared loving her more and more but started realizing that the tremendous joy and happiness he was having in his life now would have not been possible without his “Damn Orange” moments. He decided to marry her and build a house with trees planted out of seeds from the Oranges he had from their first meet.

It took Charlie years to realize that how a moment in his life changed the perspective of all his other moments he had lived and how he was united with the girl of his dreams by something he least expected in his life.

And this is how Charlie and Isabella, my mom and dad, met each other said the small girl Sara closing the book she was reading from in front of the entire class for her annual story telling assignment. The teacher gave her an A and wrote a note addresses to Charlie which read “I wonder if you ever found out the story Isabella told was true?” Charlie emailed Sara's teacher back “Dear Melinda, I knew Isabella was lying the moment she started the story because I told her never really happened at the first place, I started constructing the story the moment she hit me and I saw her. I wanted to keep Isabella involved and wanted to spend as much time as possible with her that night at the sidewalk, I would have used Apple’s in my story instead of Oranges if she had been carrying Apples. She over smarted me by picking up the story and constructing it well but we told this story to our daughter as real life event because we don’t want her to get dejected by small things in life and start blaming her past life events for present. Hope you can keep my secret”. Charlie got a reply in minutes which read “I will keep this a secret forever and for that send me some Oranges from your tree with Sara”.