A Dog's life.

On the usual route from his new home, he would see a dog, handsome, alert, in control of his little territory spreading from one gate to the other of a 9 storied residential tower and a little stretched portion of the road in front of it. He liked the dog the instant he noticed him. He knew the next time he would walk past, he would try to make friends with the dog. He liked the content expression on him. This was an important trait he believed. Happiness he felt was overrated, and content was underrated. It was rare in humans, and this was a Dog. He gave the dog the name that came to his mind that instant, Whosane.


He realized how in Whosane he saw a reflection of himself; of something he believed.


Once an old colleague of his, after continuous days of long hours they had put, and without a vacation since months, spoke to him of what he wished to do when he gets a day off. He said he wanted time to get bored. It was a thought that grew further in his mind, into the possible state of mind that colleague could have been reffering to when he said it - time to get bored. Many years later, he could connect it to what he felt. It was a time when he had finished all that he had to for the day and he sat wondering, but he couldn't. It was the time to do nothing. It was the time to just be. To him, it was the time to be content. It would be momentary, but it would be worth that moment.


Rarely he found another human he could convince on content being more key than happiness. The premise itself would put them off. He would be left explaining how he never undermined happiness, but by then he would be considered a certain version of man who liked pain, or something close to that.


Months passed. He would walk by Whosane, sitting content, pet him once a while, and try talking to him. The dog seemed to listen without reading too much into details, as if he could see the larger picture. Though life eventually got busy, and he could only manage to walk past and notice Whosane sometimes. The Sometimes went on to become fewer than before, and soon he did not have the conscious memory to notice or remember Whosane.


A few more months passed. He finally noticed the dog again. Whosane looked a forgotten version of his past this time, not as content as before. At first he thought he was reading too much into it. It was a dog after all. How was he to be content or not, and have a way to express it. A night such, on his way back from work, he stopped over to play with Whosane. The dog took a while to come to him. He looked more distrustful than before. Maybe it was a bit more than that he thought, maybe he was scared. But it came around eventually, he petted the dog for sometime, and then he left for his apartment holding his palm up in the air, like he always did after he petted a stray, uncomfortable, till he found a place to wash his hands. All this while though, he kept wondering about Whosane, about he not being content anymore, had any merit in it.


He stopped over again, within a few days. Whosane came to him with more eagerness than before, but he looked more pale as well. While he petted him, the dog kept looking around. Soon there was a bunch of other dogs around him. He remembered them, because he used to pet them all initially, because they were all a troop once, and they wont let him only pet Whosane. Now however the air was different. Whosane seemed threatened by them and it stuck closer to his legs and followed him like a shadow, protecting himself from the other dogs. The message was clear. Whosane's territory was invaded by the other dogs. It became apparent why he did not seem content anymore. The dog was under threat. Whosane barked at the other dogs, they barked back at him. This was their war for territory. He realized he had himself surrounded by ferociously barking dogs with Whosane behind him, barking back at them, visibly scared. There is nothing he could do. He knew Whosane would have to fight them off, alone. His once mates had become the reason for his trouble, and he was alone now.


Leaving the dog behind he scurried out towards his apartment, worried, wondering, and relating....alone..

Rockstar - review

Sometimes when you have had a bit too much of reality, any fantasy seems worth the sell. Rockstar in that sense is not just any fantasy though. It is something that can be believed in parts. If you have a different story to tell, it will surely keep one occupied for most parts.The songs blend in beautifully into the story. And you realize that it is fair to have Mohit Chauhan sing all of them, keeping it consistent with Ranbir's voice in the movie. This is commendable in a world where Akshay Kumar can end up with Rahat Fateh Ali's voice without anyone's bother.

There was a certain potential in the film, which if had been realized fully, could have become a poster film. Poster film is one that would make you wish you collect a poster and frame it, some years later. It had that kind of an art to it, specially the still shots and slow-mo. The DOP (director of photography) has left his mark.

If one cuts the hype around it, has their own small list of favorite songs sitting in anticipation, and appreciates the classic Imtiaz Ali first half humor, they may not be as disappointed as certain reviews are making it out to be. It does appear, though, that there has been some serious editing, in which they have probably cut out something relevant as well.

Life; as usual.

He had an off that day. It was bit unlikely for one of them to get a day off when the other did not. There was never a debate over their company’s holiday policies. Both seemed to be doing as well. Today was that odd day though, when only he was at home.


There was not much that he learned to cook, and this seemed like a concern today, because he was planning to. Between them though, he made up, because what he lacked in cooking, he made up in cleaning, a trait he borrowed from his Dad, cleaning was something that he could put his mind to, and that made it not as mundane.


Today he had decided to do both however. Waking up late, he figured she had left already. Like a dream that you are reminded of once up, he recollected a faint peck on his forehead that she left him with before leaving for work, confirmed later with the maroon lipstick mark he saw on him, in the bathroom mirror. He made himself some black coffee and followed his daily routine of reading the newspaper sitting on the floor. Reading the papers sitting on the floor, over a cup of tea or coffee was in his mind the best compliment one could give to a quiet morning, so much so that the content in the paper seemed to play an irrelevant role. In today’s journalism and reporting, he felt anyhow, that irrelevant was a fairly apt word.


A late heavy breakfast of omelette, bread cheese and jam, juice and bowl of cornflakes made up for lunch as well. The spread on the table, and the ease of making it made breakfast a meal he always looked forward to. The heavier he made it, the better he slept in the afternoon. And there were few things as fulfilling as the thought of a weekday afternoon nap. He finished eating and made himself another cup of coffee before setting out to clean the house.


Once done with the required cleaning, he realized that he had not called to check how her day was going. There was no set understanding they had on this. Theirs was not a couple that had some clear rule of not calling or calling. They just had phases, of either checking up, or not. And these phases balanced themselves out. If they didn't, there would be an argument, which would set the matter in perspective. In that sense, he always found an argument a welcome effect, in hindsight. He tried explaining that to her later, but she found it principally incorrect to approve of an argument to ever have a positive connotation. And because he could understand what she meant, he did not push the matter much. It was just a matter of opinion after all.


Waking up after his much fancied afternoon nap, he ran in his mind the list of vegetables he needed for making a salad, which would go along with small portions of rice and the only dish he had managed to learn, chicken curry. He spent some time listening to Mekaal Hasan Band with some tea he made for himself. Music for him was more than a matter of the music itself. It was a set up. A cup of tea, with the sun nearing its descend, called for certain sounds. And nothing seemed more apt than the voice of Javed Bashir, one that he had found fitting into umpteen situations since the first time he heard them.


While he was picking up the vegetables at the vendor, he noticed a frail, but clean looking man next to him asking for the price of potatoes. Once the vendor told him how much it cost, he stood in a corner with an expression that resembled control in a part and contemplation in another. He was keeping his face in control, while trying to cover up what he contemplated. The vendor seemed a bit annoyed because the frail clean man was disturbing him while he made a big sale to a guy who pretty much bought everything on impulse, and that was Him. He, however, could not help but notice what the frail clean man was up to. A little while later the frail clean man walked up to ask how much would paav kilo ( paav, hindi for a quarter kilogram) of potato would cost. The vendor seemed annoyed at the silliness of the Ask. For the vendor, it was a small portion of what cost nothing much. For the frail clean man though, it meant dinner. He however noticed the gathered control and self respect on the frail clean man's face. He could have given the potatoes he bought to the frail clean man and felt a better human than being a mere observer, but that expression on the frail clean man's face held him from doing that. The man would not even look at him, though those two were the only ones shopping, and that in itself was the most dignified display of self-reliance in adversity. The frail clean man just waited patiently for the vendor to get done with him. Once he was done buying his set of vegetables, he left leaving the man behind. His bag seemed much heavier than it really was…


This, he decided, was what he would share with her today when she came back from work.


As planned, he cut the vegetables and cooked rice and chicken. She preferred her salad in a minimalistic dressing that he knew needed to be worked on only once she came in. After cleaning up the dishes, he took a shower and waited watching TV over mug of beer.

She walked in later than usual. The expression on her face said it all, she had a bad day. He knew there won’t be much of a dinner today.

He asked her, “How was your day?”

She replied, “Can you make me some noodles?”

Noodles were her comfort food. It was something that even he seemed to agree upon. He thought women had an incredible knack to physically transform an emotional state. Food for emotions, clothes for moods, and many such. It was something he wanted to observe, and even learn a little about. After she took a shower, she slipped into one of his Boxers and Ts. The physical expression was clear; she did have a bad day at work. Though on most occasions, she wore his clothes only when she missed him, and she told him about it later. He knew there was nothing much he could do now. She had to be left alone through her routine. Once that time was up, he would try walking into her zone.

“Would you want to have the noodles in the bedroom floor itself? ”, he asked.

She nodded, with a faint attempt at smiling.


They sat beside the floor lamp next to the book-shelf with their bowl each. The chicken would have to go into tomorrow's lunch he thought, and the salad could last a day or two. The rice could not be saved. He thought about the frail clean man. Then he looked at her pretty face, and nothing seemed to matter beyond that for the time being.


“I don't want to work there, “she said, like she would on a day like that. He heard her through. She slipped into bed after that. He spent a little while cleaning the dishes. He then took a shower, changed and joined her in bed. They made gentle love, and slept like nothing really mattered beyond that moment..

The Prop

The Theater of life carries the chance to take you from being a Hero, to being a part of the Supporting cast. You become the Prop to someone's Destiny, instead of becoming their Destiny.

Welcome the King..

It was one of those days when he would get back home, drained of his energies, and suddenly get busy cleaning the house. Nothing new, it always started from one thing that seemed a bother. This night it was the gap between the tiles on dining table. He had already tried cleaning it once but it was not too satisfactory. This time he used the dishwashing liquid and an old toothbrush, and it did the trick. And it never ended there; he went on to clean many such corners. Though that night it was not a usual day of cleaning for him. He was more tired than he normally used to be. Normally he would clean because he felt like, or because he wanted to distract himself, and sometimes because the house needed cleaning. But that night he was cleaning against his regular urge, and under a certain compulsion. He was so tired this time that he would keep on coming back for some rest after every part he cleaned. On any other day he would quit. But he went on cleaning in greater detail than ever; Wet-mopping the floor, cleaning kitchen slabs, bathroom tiles, fans, lamps. He did not know why he was doing it, but he could not stop himself either. And this went on till wee hours of morning. Finally when it seemed to him that there was nothing more he could clean, out of will or need, he took a shower, changed and called it a night.

The legend of Mahabali was a story he was told many times around the festival of Onam, the harvest festival of Kerala. While he never volunteered for any cleaning, his normal day before Onam was disrupted by his family moving him around to clean the house. The pretext was of keeping the house clean for King Mahabali, who was said to visit his beloved subjects, in the early hours of morning. And he would enter and bless a house that was kept clean.

Next morning, he was woken up at 8 am by a text message from a family friend. It conveyed Onam wishes on behalf of him and his family. It reminded him of the day about which he had temporarily forgotten.

It did not occur to him till he stepped out of bed, till his bare feet touched the floor, and he could not feel even a speck of dust beneath him. He realized his house was ready, without his conscious intent, to welcome the King..

The Wind Up Bird Chronicles (Book Review)

Reading a Murakami lets you live through the world with less reaction and more observation, setting you up for respecting more or less everything. I don’t know if it has got to do with my kind of reclusiveness, or his style of writing. But the story, despite of being one of suffering, becomes desirable. Though I guess the reasons for that are not all that deep. Murakami provides you with a thrill, and it is unique. It is one thing to be surreal and another to maintain its proximity to the real like Murakami’s writing does. The magic is drawn from what you probably have experienced otherwise, physically, but did not really feel mentally. You probably felt five percent of it, which is all you need, to be drawn. The rest is his fantastic imagination.

I had heard somewhere that a good work of science fiction may not have to be something that agrees with the general laws of science that exist, but it needs to be something that sticks to the very logic that it has set up for itself in the process of establishing the story. And this is one element that Murakami seems to have perfected with his book (though it is not a science fiction). At the end of it all, when you come out of the world he created for you, you can see a certain math that was binding it all together.

The fine observations of daily life and near inspiring philosophies that he presents would not sound as attractive if it weren’t for the modesty and in-consequential self-presence that the protagonist manages to establish. It makes for such naturally felt empathy that when comes a moment of triumph; you feel it is like your own. It actually makes me think whether presenting a thought with self-doubt is any less convincing than presenting it with conviction. Self-doubt or self-argument actually allows you to present two sides of a matter. And that is one side more than of one presented with conviction, which, not to forget, already smells of pride and bias.

Going through this book is near similar to a flight. It is as if a certain realisation of how the world works made you so light that you were lifted up. And that those realisations took away your sense of dimensions such that you suddenly began to travel in ways that defied direction. However, the controller has it all figured, and those directionless flights are all interconnected, and in the end most of it you will figure. The rest is left to imagine, which I believe is Murakami’s signature.

In all this objectivity I am missing the element of excitement in discovering a treasure of point of views, detailing, passions, imagination, quirks, preferences or way of life. And it is probably because I chose to write this review a bit late. The truth is, while I was reading it, the excitement was similar to one of discovering gold.

Black Swan …… (Less of a review, more of a reaction)

Making us question who we are,
Life's high to its deep lows,
Turning convictions into weakness,
Not touching the extremes but till an inch before,
The one that induces crime, but only in intent,
The one that turns instability into a weapon that probes negativity,
And before it bears a consequence that affects beyond self, it transforms it all into art. Streaming it into a single flow,
Running side by side with sanity,
Patiently displaying itself,
Gathering applause for its complexity,
Taking a bow and slowly gelling back to where it all began,

Back to where it started.
Where self has no meaning,
Where everybody is a nobody,
Back to large sea of average,
That place which makes everyone ordinary...till a black swan appears, again.