The children, on the terraces of the buildings opposite ours, are flying kites. From where I am, they look like different coloured dots, paint stains on palette. The kites get intertwined with each other and flutter around aimlessly. They are beyond the control of the children, I assume. The children come together and move away, playing and talking, an inadvertent choreography of sorts.

The sky looms behind the glossy sky scrapers. It is going to rain. It has been a long day and I have watched the sky change colours. The dull yellow morning light quickly gave way to the monsoon sky and now the mournful colours swirl around; the sky divided into multiple shades of grey.

The children slowly disappear and the building tops stand bare under the steely rain. The rain starts out harsh, then backs down just a little bit. There are tiny faces, or maybe only in my head, at the windows in the distance. A kite peeks from behind a tree, left behind and forgotten.

The street lights come on and it looks darker outside from here than it probably is. The silhouettes of the dancing leaves beckon, offering my imagination their untold stories.

Rusty beverages.

There is a broken coffee machine in the pantry. On one of side of its metal body, there is a blown up picture of a laughing girl in a flowery dress on a bicycle. She isn’t riding it, she is sitting with a man, her lover I’d presume, and is concentrating on not falling off. He appears to be steering the cycle with unnatural ease all while looking extremely gleeful.

The dark brown decoction sputters out of the machine every time an ambitious person attempts to make himself a decent cup of coffee. The milk gurgles from tubes into the paper cup which sometimes quivers a little, unable to stand its own. The two foam together into a seemingly agreeable manner which hoodwinks the person into tasting this frothy liquid.
Then he gags, and drinks cold water in a hurry, his face twisted in disgust.

The coffee concentrate is the bitterest thing you’d have the misfortune of tasting. It’s vile, like drinking medicine but without the healing properties. It’s unclear whether the proportion of the liquids has gone wrong or if it’s simply just really bad coffee.

A man, with a torn gym bag full of tools, is a regular in the pantry. He tinkers with hammers and screwdrivers, attempting to fix the machine almost every other day. But somehow hasn’t, so far, managed to fix the problem permanently.

The days in between, some people make trips there, despite having been burnt by the proverbial fire before. They make themselves a cup, childishly hoping that the coffee has magically become suitable for human consumption. The rest of us, who aren’t as brave but definitely more bored, observe this and take notes.

I found you, hidden behind the pile of yellowing novels.

The rain jumped off the blue plastic sheets that we were trying to crowd under. My hair was plastered to my face and my arms were dappled with raindrops that sparkled a little. I made attempts to keep the thick volume in my hand from getting wet, while trying to look for you.

You were there, somewhere in the cluster of street bookstores, peeling out books from the middle of piles that swayed in a precarious manner. You stood and held the book and skimmed through it and I watched your face twist into a small smile.

The place smelled of paper; delicious and demanding. The booksellers held out books, old ones with someone else's memories strewn across the pages, playing on our weaknesses. You haggled with them, in a tone that was firm but devoid of condescension. We bought them, while the shopkeeper grumbled under his breath and puddles formed behind us.

We walked away under the blue umbrella, with an armful of books that didn't fit in bags, while the rain lashed out at everything in sight.

Reeling.

The air smells of popcorn. There is a hush, the kind that comes with everyone's collected bated breath at something that's about to happen. They pass a cigarette back and forth, a ring of cherry lipstick and one of beer breath. The usher doesn't bother even though smoking isn't permitted.

It's a rundown theatre that shows movies that not many want to go for. Korean action films and French films where women wear perfume and eat croissants with the Eiffel tower in the background. Movies where people walk out out the theatre wanting to making their own. The variety where people jot down notes on the back of ticket stubs because this isn't just film, it's an education.

They watch these movies every weekend and go back to discuss it over tea.They write down disconnected sentences which spark off a journey of thoughts. They look over into each other's writing because sometimes the best work just needs inspiration worthy of it. They write stories that get locked into their desks at home or forgotten in old notebooks. 

The day the theatre is torn down, they stand outside not sad but a little lost. There's a void on the weekend that alcohol doesn't fill and regular cinema doesn't satiate. The writing is forced to the point of unbearable. 

They don't make it as writers or movie-makers. They never planned to. They realize that they needed something to hold everything together. And while that can be replaced, you'd rather you didn't have to. 

The road seems endless.

The people by the side, some in clown caps and some in capes, wave at you and you wave back nervously. Some of them offer you tang, grape flavoured and crystal clear, but you say nothankyou and begin to jog because you have to be somewhere and you don’t remember where but this is the only road.

It’s a one way road.

When you look back you see a large writhing object, like a thousand people in a rain cloud, coming at you. It’s not menacing but it isn’t pleasant either. The people are saying things to you. Disconnected things you already know. Like how you’re lactose intolerant but can keep yoghurt down. And how you hate getting haircuts.

Your slow jog is now a sprint because the people bombard you with inane details of your life which are distracting your thought process and your mind is fogging up. The people up ahead on the side-lines, are taking pictures of each other . They are singing upbeat songs and whistling Belafonte tunes. As you pass them by, they drop their things and starting calling out to you. They ask you if you can make it and if you’d rather stop and join them for some minced meat sandwiches.

The road comes to an end and opens up into an open space where there is nothing. The space is full of nothing. Nothing.

The people vanish from the sides and the object chasing you dissolves into the air. You look behind and the road is folding itself up like a carpet after the party is over. You stand on the edge. You don’t know why you are here but well, you’ve arrived.

There is a belated mid-week crisis that people here seem to be facing. They are stuck in a weird place, where Friday is not so far that it doesn’t matter, but not close enough to start bringing out the party hats. They are making sour comments about how they are hungry and cold and can’t wait for the weekend. I don’t even think some of them are hungry, because I have seen them eating banana chips from a noisy plastic packet. I think it’s just cathartic to whine. They are putting it out there, they could be hungry or cold or sad or hormonal.

In an attempt to cheer themselves up, I saw a couple of people opening up weekend guides on online magazines, slyly texting potential plans to their friends. One of them abandoned all subtlety and started making calls to people asking them if they wanted to go to Pune on the weekend to attend some house party which, and the whole floor heard and sat up, will have free flowing alcohol and the best pork chops one will ever taste.

Saturday being a non-working day is a bit of a big deal here. People plan. People tie their hopes around that glorious span of time where for once you also have a holiday, like the rest of the world.
As I was writing this, one of the enthusiastic people from another floor stopped by to ask me if I was interested in planning a weekend beach outing with some other colleagues. When I smiled and turned it down citing prior engagements, he raised his eyebrows and said, “You have plans?” I am not sure what shocked him more; that people here can have plans too or that I was cool enough to make weekend plans that didn’t depend on the people I work with.

He walked away, a little annoyed, with a parting remark that I’d “better atleast make it for the team lunch”. Team lunches usually involve great amounts of cribbing about having to work on Saturdays. I wonder what we’ll do with all our free time at tomorrow’s lunch.

Recurring mental images.

I sit back watching multiple pretentious plots crash and burn.

The people in these plots are people around me. I try and think of them in interesting roles. The crazy plant lady becomes a geisha; her lips a bloody red and her leathery neck now smooth and powdered. The man with the limp becomes a detective and wears dark glasses and a hat. He has a gruff voice and thin fingers.

Every time the crazy plant lady walks by, I add a little part in her jigsaw puzzle. Her name is Migaya and she bats her fake eyelashes every three seconds. The silver hair ornament that holds back her tresses is actually a kitchen knife. Then one day, the hunter becomes the hunted.

The detective just buried his wife, because God knows that sometimes the bravest warriors are the ones that shoot at their own feet. He washes up and sits at the table, slathering butter on rubbery toast. He watches the rain come down, knowing that somewhere some grave will be leaking a chalky white liquid that smells like green tea.

The crazy plant lady and the man with the limp sometimes take a cab back home together. I wonder if they know.

The yellow elephant.

The yellow elephant has mirrors on it. It stares deeply into my soul as I wash my hands with pink soap that smells of medicinal roses.

The elephant also has a defective eye. The eye has a slightly blue tumour at the edge, giving the elephant a perpetual teary, depressed expression. Its stomach has a blue concentric circle, also lined with mirrors. The trunk has an orange outline, uneven and untidy. The yellow of the trunk is fading, leaving white diseased spots in some places. The tail always catches my attention. It’s a bright green with tentacles, like an octopus or an animated coconut tree. It’s almost like the tail was created last and in an attempt to squeeze in some eccentricity before it was over.

They move the elephant around sometimes. They sometimes place him over the umbrella rack or the hand drier. He doesn’t look any less depressed though. The blue tumour keeps getting more intimidating by the passing day.

In the nights, while the office is quiet and the washroom is shut and dry, the yellow elephant comes out and walks around. He sprays the bathroom with water and trots about on his bejewelled feet.
In the morning, the cleaning staff wonders why the floor is wet despite the washroom being shut for the night. The elephant looks on sagely.

The sky is a dark dark purple, like the skin of a grape when you hold it against the light. I see no stars. My head feels clogged; crammed, crowded, impatient thoughts. 

The floor is full of party hats that have been cast away. The paper cups flock together in the corner. The music is scratchy and distant but everyone taps their feet along anyway. There's a guitar and there's occasional off-key singing. There are sticky fingers and ketchup stains. There are noisy whistles that unfurl at every chance available. 

Around me people are speaking in swaying, tear laced voices. They are reminiscing about some part of their lives that has gone away, leaving behind bitterness in a bottle. There's always something that sets it off - a song, a word, a mention of a place where feelings remain strewn, battered amidst the grass. They lie back facing the sky, watching the aeroplanes take off, wondering if they can bring back all that they miss in the capacity of this moment. They wonder whether they will miss this tomorrow, when their senses are no longer foggy and their self esteem has stopped faltering. 

The words start petering off and the stories become more vague. Eventually, there is a audible silence as people start to nod off, their mouths slightly open and their heads at painful angles. 

We stand, only a few of us, holding onto the railing of the roof and listening to music that finds our thoughts and battles them.

We watch the houses in the distance slowly light up, yellow rectangles mushrooming in the dark. 

There's a raw feeling of being awake at a time like this, when your thoughts seem insignificant and your worries worthless. 

We filled the bucket with juice and ice. We dropped in a couple of other things

Some like it with muddled fruit and some like it with old memories in an umbrella and a straw. 

We threw in lemon wedges and salt.

We poured, from a plastic mug, bright soda that fizzled and hissed.

We stirred it with a ladle and scooped a little up to taste. It taste interesting and confusing. 

They drank it till they dropped.

We drank it on the roof with just the right amount of rain. We put our feet up on lumpy cushions and listened to good bad music. 

As everyone slept, we threw out the leftover potion. 

It gurgled down the drain pipe and another Saturday dissolved away. 

Soothe

Alan sat on the porch; a half empty plate of food lay next to him. His parents’ voices could be heard even through the closed doors. He could picture his mother saying spiteful things, her face turning an angry red. He could picture his father crushing his yellow stress ball while screaming back. Initially, his father used the stress ball after a particularly long computer session. “Don’t want to get carpal tunnel, now, do I?” his father had said to him. He didn’t know what carpal tunnel was. He hadn’t asked, either. Now there was no time to ask. His parents were so caught up in their own complicated worlds they had no time for him.

Now that his parents fought a lot, he spent a lot of time on the porch. In all his 8 years, he had never witnessed such a tense atmosphere at home. He couldn’t even bear to be around his parents. Meal times were the worst. They either yelled at each other or maintained a cold silence. He wasn’t sure which was worse. Sometimes, he would slip away with his plate and no one would notice. The last time his mother had given him so much as a concerned look was when he had come home early one day from school with a stomach ache. The minute he felt better, she had zoned out again. 

Today’s fight was about her unkempt her. His father had made some snide remark about how her hair was so untidy. She had retaliated saying with all the stress that he gave her she had no time to tend to her hair. Alan had picked up his plate and walked out. He could still hear snatches of the conversation. The fight about unkempt hair was now about unpaid bills. Alan’s young mind couldn’t keep up with the bitter verbal blows that his parents were exchanging. He stuck his fingers in his ears and wished that they would stop.

He thought of the time when his parents still loved him and each other. He missed falling asleep between them. He missed his mother ruffling his hair at breakfast; while his parents sneaked a kiss which he pretended to not notice. If he was sick, his mother would stroke his hair till he fell asleep. He craved their attention. In a selfish way, he wanted them to stop fighting long enough to look at him.

Alan realized soon enough that sticking his fingers in his ears wasn’t really helping. He got up and started walking around in his backyard. He wondered what he could do to make his parents stop fighting. Finally, he had his answer. He walked over to an old rickety table where his father kept his toolbox. He picked up a rusted hammer and toyed with it. He placed his small hand on the table and brought down the hammer on his hand with all the force he could muster. There was lesser blood than he expected but the pain was beyond belief. His scream pierced through the afternoon air. For a split second there was absolute silence. Then his parents came running. His father saw his hand and ran to get ice. His hand looked like it was broken. His mother, shocked to see him in pain, started kissing his head, his face, his injured hand. Tears ran down her cheeks. His father returned with the ice. They both tried to hold him close. They both tried to comfort him. Between their stricken faces and his immense pain, he felt a sense of calm. His aching hand has soothed him. Standing there, his parents hugging him, he realized that despite the streaks of blood on the front of his shirt, he was happier than he had been in a while.

Quivering sheets of rain on the other side of the glass wall. Eighteen floors below, white-and-purple trains run along, the rain wetting the disgruntled people that hang on for dear life. There are pebble sized hail stones that hit the glass wall hard enough to get our attention but not enough to crack the glass.

The cars, that look tiny from where we are standing, appear to move at manic speeds, getting to places before the angry rain has its way. Ant-like people scramble for a place to stand.

It gets darker and our reflections in the glass become more defined. A row of faces that stare back in an eerie manner. Hovering heads and disconnected bodies swimming in a sea of discontentment.

That sinking feeling which comes with knowing that the place where you want to be is just out of reach.

Crows took away his food because he was too distracted by his own imagination – where he saw errant spaceships and machine guns. When he told his mother that the food she gave him was consumed by birds, she wasn’t sure if she’d need to applaud his imagination or scold him for lying. Either way, she didn’t believe him. He promised us that it was true though.

He was so taken by the concept of gravity, that he threw things one by one from the window of his living room. It started small – pieces of plastic and paper rockets and then progressed to slightly bigger things like chairs and vases. As the birds flew, not very far away, in tight little groups, the little boy stood at his window, tossing away whatever he could lay his hands on. He watched the pillow drop onto the ground with a dull thud, his cape fluttering dramatically. Some days, he was his own superhero.

As she came back from work, his mother found furniture from her home strewn across the building compound. She looked up confused and saw a grinning seven year old who was just about to discover that when things are thrown from an adequate height, you get slapped across your bottom by a parent.


Happy Birthday Ashish! I hope the year ahead is as eventful as the stories you tell us!

Take me to sea and we can sit and watch the sky covering us, like a large quilt speckled with stars. The water will hit against the tripods, making crashing sounds at a distance. We’ll be able to see feet dangling as other people watch what we’re watching, but probably take away, from it, something completely different.

The air will be salty and the rain will put out the many cigarettes along the sea face. It will gently mock the men who are trying to light one, as their female companions cup their hands over it blocking out the wind. The sand will find its way into my slippers and between my toes.

Cars will fly by behind us: the evening cacophony and the clapping of rubber soles on stone. A dog will come and sit with us, and we’ll play with it until it gets tired. The middle of the sea will light up for a brief moment, the blinking red light of a plane above, and we will notice this and smile for no reason.

The woman, in the house opposite ours, groans - long ragged sounds of pain and fear. She reaches out to nothing in particular, trying to hold on something I cannot see and, I am pretty sure, doesn't exist. Her daughter comes in sometimes. She wears a look of concern peppered with annoyance. She hands her a glass. I can almost taste the metallic warm taste of water. The woman wails softly, her papery fingers make eerie shapes in the light cast by the street bulbs.

She rests her head on the pillow but keeps sitting up every few minutes. She cries dry tears that come out raspy and harsh. The daughter asks her to calm down, a tad too loudly. The woman ignores her and beckons the emptiness to come closer. 

Somewhere between the devil's hour and dawn, she hugs the invisible man, her face glows with relief that he has finally arrived. He holds her hand and leads her away, his dark coat giving him an unnecessarily stately appearance.

When morning comes, the woman, or what used to be her, lies on the bed, motionless. Somewhere else, the real woman walks silently alongside the invisible man. In her mind, this is the beginning she had been waiting for. 

In the house opposite ours, people arrive dressed in white, offering flowers and condolences. 

There is a feeling of dread; or perhaps a watered down version of it. That's how I feel on most Sunday evenings.

It's raining and the dancing leaves outside make patterns against the window pane. There is a music playing in the other room and it is a very comforting, faraway sound. I am eating a green apple cut into very tiny pieces. I wish I could close my eyes and make this last for a long time to come.

Then soon enough, I realize that tomorrow is Monday and the feeling of dread bubbles inside of me. I think of the work, the crisp smell that I associate with air-conditioned offices and the long phone calls with people who have condescending tones.

Soon enough a countdown will begin for the weekend and all too soon that will be over too. And repeat. 

A backwards tumbling auto with six people and a driver who whistled. We smelled of sweat and mud and wet grass. The auto took us away from the spider webs and yellow crabs and muddy trails.

It was a long day; stomach cramps and treks means you're probably not going all the way to the top. I wished I had though.

We played with a dog and fed it Parle G biscuits. The dog wouldn't let you go when you tried leaving. It was the nicest of dogs and the nicest of moments.

If you close your eyes and want to relive the day, well then, you know it's a day well spent.

Some of the best stories I have been told came from people when their hands were wrapped around glasses with dark liquids. I will always remember the look in their eyes and the rising and ebbing of the vulnerability beneath. I will remember their stories, not just because their stories were noteworthy, but also because the time they told me their stories was magical; a time where for only a brief while, I walked through their worlds, waiting, watching, listening.

In the dark smoke filled room, I heard a story about guilt, the most unforgiving of emotions which found its way into the conversation, as the people at the table became increasingly uninhibited.
As a child, the storyteller had a  friend; a girl with straight brown hair and teeth that were held in place with braces. They played with each other often enough and their parents would coo over how perhaps when they grew up, they’d marry. The storyteller, a rather disgruntled young boy, was offended every time this was said and told his parents he wouldn’t marry someone so strange. “She smells like bananas.” He told his parents, while they laughed at how cute he was. He didn’t mind playing with her though; she played a mean game of Monopoly.

At a picnic, both families decided that the kids could go play while the adults chatted and drank beers from yellow cans. As the afternoon grew warmer and the parents became more animated, he and his friend snuck away to skip stones at a lake. She told him she really liked looking at fish, because “They look so happy all the time.” They sat at the edge, looking at fish and arguing as children do, over something insignificant.

One thing led to another and he told her that should she able to swim to the other end, he’d let her have some book she’d been eyeing for a while. She agreed but said she’d need to check with her mother. He knew he’d get yelled at for suggesting this and told her to “stop being such a baby” and to swim anyway.

The story got pretty predictable at this point, and the storyteller told us about him screaming because her bobbing head disappeared, the livid parents, the accusatory glances, the bloated, lifeless friend whose parents moved homes immediately after and the recurring dream ever since with the bloated dead body and the leaves stuck in her brown hair.

Somewhere in that room, we were part of his thoughts. Although the grief had been dulled by time, there would always be an unshakeable sense of remorse that someone who could have been around, perhaps at this table, died because of a silly bet. As everyone became quieter, I realized that hanging somewhere between the guilt and the regret, was a silent plea to not be judged.

They served large pizza slices and coke at the meeting. There was also salad and crackers for the health-conscious. The people sat through the meeting, biding their time until lunch.

At lunch, there was an unexpected level of chaos. People badgered the staff about the slightly cold pizza and asked if they could change the toppings. They asked if they could get a diet coke instead. The staff wasn’t particularly pleased but hid it under sugary smiles and servile “Let me just check, Sir”s.

A woman was heard complaining that the salad leaves were beginning to shrivel. Another asked if they could get a boiled egg, with the yolk scooped out of course, alongside the salad. She looked rather displeased when they said that would not be possible. She muttered under her breath about how she’ll have to go hungry and moved to the juice counter.

A large number of people had more than one serving of the chocolate mousse. The health conscious temporarily forgot about their dietary restrictions and licked their spoons clean. Some asked if they could have some fresh fruit to balance out the chocolate.

The hour long lunch break took close to two hours. At the end of it, everyone looked full and pleasantly sluggish. Not one of them could properly list out what had been covered in the first half of the meeting.

Take a lie and wrap it with glitter.

She, the one with a big umbrella and dangerously high heels, overbalanced at a crossroad and came down in a heap. All the vehicles screeched to a halt and a flurry of colourful words was witnessed.

She looked sheepish but not mortified and tried to pull herself together while the street watched her.
The man in the black car came out, and amidst loud gasps, helped her up. He offered to hold her bag, a dull pink because they don’t make it any other colour, and her folder. She quietly followed him to his car and got in, nodding at the wonderful man who held open the door for her.

They fell in love, in the confines of his car that smelled of rosewood. He told her he knew that there was something rather special about this day and she smiled while it rained and perhaps little fairies in a parallel universe sang and had a tea party.

They then got married and went on to have two perfectly healthy children one of whom became a state level swimmer. The other became a realist and called out his  parents’ bluff and said this story was cooked up to cover up the fact that they had actually been set up by their own parents because they were getting older and nobody would want to marry them.

They looked like they were caught cheating on a test but they quickly covered that with an indignant tone and angry expressions.

The son smirked and walked away.

Oh Bombay!

Through a dusty car window peppered with raindrops, the city passes us by.

The people, either running along the sea face or sitting with their backs to us hidden behind umbrellas, look strangely determined in their endeavours. The men with caps turned backwards strut around, fish mouthed because of the perpetual whistle.

The sea mirrors the deep orange shade that gets associated with evenings in Bombay. Despite the mild rain, the fiery colours of the setting sun push their way through, onto the water and the sidewalk. The children writing on the sidewalk with chalk look like they have halos, the light playing subtle tricks.

The car stops at a signal and the city rushes at its windows; the increasingly aggressive rain and a fleet of beggars. They knock and beg, pointing at their chapped mouths and concave stomachs. We look the other way, but the keep tapping at the window, the rain water trickling down their gummy faces.

By the time we hit the suburbs, the golden light changes into a dark blue one and the rain comes down in a torrent. The city, now a collage of multi coloured umbrellas, bickers quietly against a backdrop of muddy roads and tired faces.

The rain continues to come down on us, even when we get out of the car, and another fairly typical day is behind us.

Home.

We became who we are in a house with checkered tiles and pale yellow walls. We put away our lego pieces in a blue bucket with a lid. We played cards, the plastic variety with pictures of fruits and coconut trees on one side, sitting cross legged on the bed. We kept our books away in a wooden cabinet with glass doors.

The walls had tiny doodles, our names carved in child-like handwriting and random, disconnected words which may have meant something to us at that time. The wall next to the telephone once had phone numbers jotted with felt pen, because clearly nobody bothered themselves with diaries. It used had a funny feel to it, untidy but comfortably familiar. Then the walls got painted and the numbers found their away into more advanced, and less messy, technology.

The kitchen always smelled good and the refrigerator always atleast one thing that made us happy, ice-candy sticks with the cheap paper sticking to them or leftover pieces of cake with a spoon frozen in it, from a someone else’s mid night snack.

We are still becoming people we want to become in the same house, with the memories of all those years lurking behind doors and lying silently amidst dusty books.

In the nights, we peep from behind the curtains and watch the street slowly wrap up its day; boisterous trees, sleeping dogs and twinkling lights from homes of people who have also probably lived there forever.

The weather is deliciously gloomy. We stand, coughing, in the smoky shop which sells rolls. It rains ferociously behind us. The rain water rolls of the umbrella onto my bare arms while we walk out of the store looking for an auto.

There is nothing particularly noteworthy about the evening, but I know I'll remember it later. In the memory categories in my head, this will come under non specific memories.

There is always a strange feeling at the bottom of my stomach on Sunday nights. Mostly impending Monday morning blues. It is, as of now, mercifully overpowered by the smell of food and the tingling feeling that comes with knowing that I'll look back at this stray memory in the future. And that it will make me smile.

Blah.

There was no rain.

The protagonist woke up in the morning and didn’t meet anyone special. He was slated to go for a movie shoot where a beautiful woman would fall in love with him, but he went to the park instead and sat on a bench. He didn’t read or make conversations. He sat and watched the empty park and left when it was too dark to watch anything.

He came home and made baked beans with toast. He almost cut his finger while cutting the crust of the toast off but didn’t. He was meant to bleed to dead as a haemophilic, but turns out he doesn’t have haemophilia. He watched TV with the volume off with the curtains drawn so no inquisitive neighbour (who’s actually a serial killer with an apron) could spot him and slit his throat later at night.

Before he fell asleep, there was no tap on his window or knock on his door. He slept peacefully and woke up the next morning at a time that was neither early nor late. He did his dishes and went to the park again, missing a book signing this time.

There was no storm or background score either.

That night when he came home, there was a solitary letter in the mailbox that had the potential of being ominous. But even that turned out to be a flier for a local clothes sale.

Brief

A maximum of thirty words are spoken everyday.

Most are concise answers to pointed questions. A few, on good days, are spent in basic questions.
There is no need to talk more than needed. There is no desire to ask about days, weather conditions or thoughts. It is a very intense game of what we like to call “Do you really need to know?” If a certain story or fact isn’t going to change your life or affect you immediately, the answer is NO, you don’t need to know. Thus, the thought will not be shared, and will be stored in one’s careful mind till the day it qualifies as something that will indeed make a difference to your being.

At the end of the day, if you have words left over from your thirty word quota, those words are lost forever. They aren’t carried forward, like points at the supermarket.

If all the lost words got together, we could use them to fill a hundred page book.

Organized worries.

Get a yellow legal pad and a freshly sharpened pencil.

Then, you write down on what exactly is bothering you. If there is more than one thing, make a numbered list in no particular order. However, if there are more than ten things, I’d suggest you make the list in a manner where no. 1 is the biggest worry (like. Renal failure or bankruptcy) and no. 12 is less urgent (like chipping nail polish or empty juice box) 


Then you divide the list (still maintain the descending order of seriousness) on the basis of things that are in your control and things that are contingent on external factors. An example would be, while you can control what tie you wear to go with your blazer, you have no command over the country’s inflation rate. 


After the list has been duly split, into these sections, put away the section which you cannot change. I don’t think you should trash it though. There’s a strange pleasure in ticking off things from a list, so you can preserve that and check the item as and when the world conspires to correct it. 


The section which you have control over gets further divided into whether it stems from you or from other people. I suggest you write ‘me’ or in red ink against each item. In my experience, most of these things will usually come back to you, unless you’re an absolute darling but your husband beats you with an iron rod on a whim. 


Now your lists are ready. Look over them for typos or logical fallacies. You now have two options. You either deal with the things that are upsetting you OR you sit with your feet on a windowsill and wallow in how the world has wronged you while smoking a teaky pipe.


It’s really up to you. Both bring their own qualities to the table.

Tight-lipped talking.

It was expected that the answer to how one gets through the meeting would be at the bottom of the coffee mug. However, the bottom offered no advice and in turn left behind granular residue that smelled nothing like coffee.

It was quite a verbose morning where everything that was being discussed brought with it more thoughts than it needed to, most of which were spewing out of the many mouths around the table. The women, in their tan coloured stockings and cherry red lips, continued to drone on about how advertising their products with a little pink somewhere appealed to pre-teen girls with access to money. The men were outraged and tapped their expensive pens in opposition saying that this would alienate the little boys who would get bullied for buying pink things.

They took stereotypical breaks where the women walked down long winding hallways to mirrored bathrooms and the men stood outside in circles smoking. It was strange that not a single man went to the bathroom to wash up or a woman in heels stepped out for a quick puff. That being said, it obviously also didn’t bode well for people in support of gender neutral opinions that this group of people held to their chests their pinks and non-pinks debates.

The product, seen on long banners around the office, was an energy drink for children which a lot of people thought would be a bust because no sane parent would want their children to have more energy than they already did, which in itself was a task to handle. They called it Mr. Champ or another such name that tried as hard and decided that the advertisement would have a child jumping off a dive-board at a swimming pool only to start flying mid-air thanks to all the newfound energy. They tried variations with the child being a girl and the swimming pool being a meadow with butterflies and the diving board being a swing set. The variations, although a little too ridiculous, were discussed anyway so as to give everyone’s idea a chance. In the end, over elaborate lunches, it was decided that the child would be a robot with a pink laser beaming out of his forehead.

The day ended like it started, with machine coffee and longwinded thoughts, with logic faltering a little bit. They deemed it a productive process and congratulated one another with sappy lines and over-used adjectives. The men offered to drop the women home but they said they would drive back themselves.

Meanwhile, children everywhere made mental notes to not buy anything unless it came with a free toy and thus pre-empted the death of the robot child that drank energy drinks but offered no freebies.

There were monsoon birthdays covered in photo collages. There were books in paper bags. There were cards and letters; my handwriting jumping off the pages in reds and greens. Midnight was a special time – the waiting by the phone and feverishly dialling the number only to scream Happy Birthday and other festive things.

Then the day dissolved into nothingness soon enough. It wasn’t just another day but it definitely wasn’t noteworthy. It came down to just phone calls, even text messages.  It was an insipid two-minute phone call, where we discussed new cities and dinner prices. I don’t remember too much else and that’s saying something because I am not one to forget. I do however remember the feeling of just being two people, very far away, making small talk because that’s the norm. The birthday wishes were a burden and from what came next everything else was too.

The monsoon birthday is unimportant now. It passes me by without the slightest hint. Days later, when I am reminded of it because of a Facebook update or some such, I realize how this was only inevitable. The people involved now exist miles outside my scheme of things.

This is something that I just write about now and every time I do, I smile as the metaphoric dodged bullet whizzes past me.

Everyone's man.

Today, he is a good listener. He sat through lunch listening to a colleague whimper about a cheating wife. He nodded at the right places and thumped the colleague’s back when he was done. He dropped in a few appropriate phrases that he couldn’t believe came out sounding sincere. There was the age old “This too shall pass” and then there was “you’ll pull through” Neither of which he could provide a guarantee for but since today he was a good listener, he said it anyway.

Some days, he is a funny man. He makes incessant jokes about everything and people tell him what a hoot he is. He is full of good natured jibes and harmless sarcasm. He pulls out one-liners that he’s heard elsewhere but they never fail to impress. In tense situations, he makes people laugh and they look over at him gratefully. He drives back at night, wondering if people could see the dead pan expression in his eyes.

Last week, he was the conscientious one. He checked for punctuation and made sure that the pages were aligned when he punched holes through them while filing. He replied to each of his mails and then said, “It just bothers me to leave unread mails in my inbox” while people looked on with a milder variant of awe. He washed out his coffee mug and he made sure all calls were returned. He had his coffee without sugar and took the stairs instead of the elevator.

And then there are days when he tries to be everything all at once. He laughs and makes impeccable presentations. He makes a visit to a sick subordinate and then makes sure to take some flowers along. He walks home to burn a few extra calories. He stays up at night to finish off a task he took on because it would be challenging.

Even in his own space, he is unsure of who he should be. He wonders what he should do with the ten free minutes. He falls asleep over his laptop, his back bending at a painful angle. He wakes up with a cramp in his neck but he powers on anyway because today he has to be an interesting person and he needs to prepare for that.

Chai.

There is something absolutely gorgeous called Iranian chai, which is found in old, slightly musty places with red checkered table cloths sandwiched between the table and the glass top. 

There is always the old man with a fur cap sitting at the entrance, his big yellowing eyes looking magnified from behind his thick glasses. The time stops and watches the world go by,  as the old man hits a little bell signalling over a hunched waiter. The waiter has a towel on his shoulder which he uses to mop tables even before the people vacate their chairs.

The tea is hot and sweet, with cardamom and only a whiff of ginger. The tea cups are non descript and shapeless, but it doesn't matter. The tea is best consumed on dark, rainy days when the sky looks particularly gloomy. 

The small, slightly burnt bun slathered with delicious blobs of butter, which accompanies the tea, becomes a part of your memories which remain untouched for a long time. 

Then many years later, when you walk past a defunct Iranian joint, you tell your friends how you once missed an English Literature lecture to have bun maska and chai for ten rupees. 

There is a small shop in the lane. It sells biscuits and bread, pens and band- aids. The man at the store always has a radio held to his ear. He listens to anything worthy of his time. Some days it's the news of an important building catching a strategic fire, other days it's the delayed monsoons.

Children go to the store to buy packets of chips to play before school. He takes the folded ten rupee notes and yells at them for good measure. They don't care and it makes me feel better, so all in all everyone's pleased. Men buy loose cigarettes and ask him for a match box. The women buy hair oil and shampoo sachets, preparing for Sunday morning hair care rituals. He growls at everyone and pretends like it is a burden for him to sell them things.

The only thing that the man approves of is cricket. The only time he doesn't scowl is when children come to buy rubber balls to play cricket with. 

I stop at the store to ask for change, after late night auto rides. He never gives me any and angrily starts pulling the shutter down. This eggs me on to ask more often, to check if he ever gives people change.

Then one day, it hits me. From now on, whenever he gives me change, I check my phone for cricket scores. 

I am told that every four years, there is a month so magical, that if you stand outside his store with a thousand rupee note, he'll give you change and he will smile at you. When India won the world cup last year and all the jumping up and down and bleeding blue was done, I thought of this and jumped a little more.