Change

“Hey Mr. do you have some change? You see my car just broke down and I would like to call for a towing service only my mobile is out of battery and …. You know it’s kind of late.”

“I know what it must seem like to you and believe me this is a huge change for me coming to this new place and looking for a place all by myself. I am not one of the junkies who are forever walking the streets with one sob story or another. I really am in a fix and even though you may think that I am just one of them I am not; at least no longer…”

All of that was whizzing past her head as she grappled with my current situation. Just when she had thought that she had enough of this begging or asking for “help” on the streets. It was like she was being sucked into it for no fault of hers. The thing was that if she didn’t get off that road in the next 5 minutes, all that she had worked for these past few months was going to go down the drain. All the meticulous planning…. All those sleepless nights…. All the sweat and hours and savings that she finally had the courage to put at stake was literally going to wash out in front of her very eyes and the last thing she wanted to do was to stand there wool gathering indulging in a fit of self pity at the most inconvenient of times if there was any.

Gathering her remaining wits, she decided to stick to the truth and ask for help, this was not about the next dinner. This was after all about the rest of her life. If she did not make a dash for it now, she would never be able to break free of her life here and seek other pastures green or not but at the very least different.

She peeked into the car with a lone fatherly-looking-fellow and asked for a ride to the next town. She cooked up some cock and bull story about being left behind on some field trip and not having enough money to take the tube.

The man seemed receptive enough, didn’t seem to mind and seemed to understand her plight and was willing to help. In fact he went on to say how he had been tired to driving alone and wouldn’t mind some company on the way.

After the initial chit chat and pleasantries, they fell into a comfortable silence. The guy bought some bags of chips on the next gas station and was nice enough to get some cola for her too.

She had had a very long day and now that she was finally going to be free of a life of drudgery and she was finally going to earn her living… this new found sense of freedom was exhilarating but in spite of all the excitement of the past hour, she felt her eyes closing…

“May be if I sit up straight and put on my shades, the guy wouldn’t even notice that I have taken a nap. After all it’s not nice to be sleeping next to the driver; was her last conscious thought, before she lost the fight to keep herself up.

When she got up the first conscious thought in her head was that she felt sore, like she had done a lot of work and the muscles were aching, the thigh and arms and she also felt a dull thud of an ache in her abdomen… thinking she must be due any day now, she got out of bed. Only then did she realize that this room was not her bed room and she barely had any clothes on. She looked frantically around her feeling confused and trying to piece together what had happened, she recollected the car ride and the coke and noticed a few bills on the dresser.

“Things after all had changed a lot in the course of the night” she thought; and then she heard the unmistakable click of the door lock…

Passage

The cells have already undergone their 21^st passage, which means that they have been sub-cultured 21 times, and they are no longer what they were in their first passage or for that matter in their 5^th passage, they have evolved into something different, the environment around them has influenced them to be what they are now. For one thing it makes them unfit for my set of experiments as for comparing them I need to have them at the same passage.

I wonder why it took science to understand and prove and accept this so very obvious a thing. You see looking at this whole thing not biochemically but philosophically, man what he is today is not really what he was yesterday and ideally should not be what he will be tomorrow. All of us are supposed to evolve and if not that then ….. change. There is of course such a thing as retrogressive evolution; so I guess evolve is pretty much the word- for good or for bad. So essentially life as long as it is living will evolve weather for better or worse. So the corollary of this man and environment thing can be that if you evolve to be better than yourself, can you also influence the environment around you? This is of course assuming that man and his environment is one open system and there is a continuous exchange of energy between them. Hmmm interesting is this what is supposed to be making a contribution to society? Is this what the whole endeavor of living is supposed to be about? IS this how contribution is supposed to be, as a by product of change that is with in you? Or is it supposed to be more o f an active process than that. Hmmm what a tangent!

Spin

As she got up her whole world was spinning out of focus, she was not sure if she was standing up or lying down or hanging upside down for that matter. All she cared about at that point was that she had still somehow managed to grip the thing tight and still had a death grip on it. She was hurtling thru at the speed of god knows what. Let it all work out dear lord she thought. All she cared about then was that if she could if only she could land on her two feet safe and sound she will never ask anything ever, from god ever again. She will not ask for any other divine manipulation or intervention for as long as she lived. This meant a lot to her and come to think of it for the whole of mankind. This is something that the world better be thankful for. But all that only when they knew about it; All that only when she could land on her two feet. She checked for the straps and she checked for her grip, she still had it in her hand. Good . She was surprisingly also able to think, which was also a good thing; Considering she did not have a whole lot of time it was now or never. With the last leap of faith as she had seen in the movies for as long as she remembered and also in the flying school where she was an apprentice for a few summers. She yanked on the rope that would tell her if her parachute was going to save her or not and ….

A letter to You

You are the one i want to be with. you are the one i want to call when i see something funny. when i read something beautiful. you are the one whose hand i want to squeeze when i need reassurance. you are my strength.

You are the one that i have found, when i didn't even know i was looking for. it was an idea that i fell in love with. you are the reality that is even more wonderful that the idea that it was.

You make me feel loved like no one else. You literally take the pain away from my heart and my back.

"I must have had a wicked childhood.

I must have had a miserable youth...

But somewhere in that wicked miserable past,

There must have been a moment of truth.

For there you are standing there loving me

Weather or not you should.

so somewhere in my youth or childhood

I must have done something good."

I say better than good.

You make my life, being who you are. May god bless you cos as long as you are there I am.

ps: I love you

Waiting Room

Suvarna looked outside the window into the dark, gloomy, still and oppressive night of the monsoons. She was hoping to find those answers that were difficult to come by in the neon lit blinding harshness of the room. Sitting by the window looking at the serene and peaceful form of her husband, if you could ignore the needles and tubes weaving in and around his body; he could well be sleeping. Harsh- just the name itself brought back so many memories.

She still remembered the first time that I had seen him. His winsome smile- not privy to her then but she had still felt enveloped in its projected warmth. Not that she had any particular reason to seek it from anyone. She had had enough, rather more than enough for her own; coming from a large and boisterous family with loving and communicative parents and siblings. Sometimes they pushed you to the attic or even the chajja of your balcony to escape into one’s personal space. Well, she wouldn’t want it any other way either. She loved her life, loved her family, loved the simple mathematics of sharing things between three, which invariably made Amul a more prudent choice than Cadbury’s.

But lately she had been experiencing a seed within her deepest self the need to call something her own; all her own without considering anything or anyone else. Wasn’t this the time of life when you were an individual more than a part of a family? Where the question about her parents is not third in line next to her name and school while playing in the park.

She was her own self now, far from what she had been so far. Even in a big city people had known her as the daughter or later in school as the sister…

Now she was finally what she was intended to be since the moment she was conceived a person, no matter how little, but herself. Nobody knew her other as anyone else’s something, if at all they did know her that is. And then she had seen Harsh. No one else but him seemed to brighten up an already very bright summer day! He seemed to breathe action into the very inert and soggy bunch of students waiting for the orientation to begin. An orientation to the course, the way of life, in the art and science of brewing.

A knock on the door brought her back to her present. A very dreary, sanitized, savlon-smelling present. A nurse pushed in a cart laden with all kinds of pills and injections. She stopped for a word of comfort, sympathy and got back to doing her job and tending her ministrations to her patient. Money, a lot of money can get you not just a private hospital room with the best medical care but also compassion. I do not doubt people’s capacity for compassion, but having a well paid job in a leading hospital leaves your mind relatively uncluttered to perceive trauma and pain in the people around you. It is liberating to come to terms with the fact that the story like life is nobody else’s but your own. So here I drop the pretense of talking in the third person. I am Suvarna and this is my story.

The nurse gave me words of encouragement and appreciation for my constant vigil by my husband’s side; telling me how many such cases came back from coma to lead full lives. Well but I knew better than that. That future could not be ours, was not ours, not for Harsh and Suvarna. I was not being pessimistic, I was holding on to… some reality… Check …

Checking out is what I was doing when he caught me staring at him. Only later did I realize that a question was directed at me and not just him, but everyone else was looking and waiting for me to respond.

“Excuse me! Could you repeat the question please?”

He smiled apparently benignly but I saw the lurking twinkle “why do you want to study wines and brewing?”

Well I was tougher than that, no amount of twinkly brilliance could unsettle me. For long. I smiled, bought some time and composure; shielded my eyes on the pretext of protecting them from the sun.

“Well I am interested in it and want to pursue it.”

I could see him shifting his attention to another student already.

“And I want to employ the extensive lands around Narayangaon near Pune that my father owns into something profitable, which would also provide creative and entrepreneurial satisfaction.”

Now it was my turn to look smug and nonchalant. I have a few tricks up my sleeve too mister; or haven’t you heard the saying- looks can be deceptive. It could have been coined for me.

Nothing in my appearance is remarkable. Small and diminutive with thick plated hair and a very traditional face. Well nothing remarkable till you hear me speak that is! You see, I was brought up with enough love and positive energy around me to give me confidence and eloquence as a speaker with a distinct raspy voice. The fact was only remarkable because it was unexpected coming from someone as unremarkable as me. Anyway I knew I had his attention then, what I didn’t know was how deeply it ran and for what reasons.

College was like one perfect dream; it not only gave me a sense of purpose but also the promise of a brilliant future. I could not have asked for more. So perfect a picture couldn’t have photoshopped it better. Everything seemed to fall into place effortlessly. Or did it? During the course of this time I got to spend more time with Harsh and get to know him more (or so I thought). We spent many an evening together. Talking, laughing, sharing, and arguing. It only seemed a natural progression for him to propose marriage and for me to accept. Or was it the other way around? Who knows for sure? Anymore.

I still remember the evening when I called my father, papa- my Hero, my confidante. His cautionary stance could also not break my bubble; neither could it protect me from our lofty ambitions. Mine and Harsh’s.

We got married soon after, full of ideas, hope, dreams and plans. We could not wait to get our hands dirty and busy with making wines. It was too idyllic to last our lifetime. I didn’t even notice the distance that wedged and was squeezing itself between the two of us. Initially when both of us got back home we were dead tired to do anything other than sleep and be ready for another day. It was understandable for Harsh to put in extra hours and I was more than busy myself. So what if he spent most weekends in Pune? There were always things going on between the vinery in Pune and vineyards in Narayangaon. Infact the only time Harsh wasn’t in Pune was when I was.

We were so involved with our enterprise; our friends all but disowned us, except ofcourse for Karthik, my junior in college. We always got along like a house on fire. Infact the popular joke was that if I had not married Harsh, it would have been Karthik with the third coming as a package deal! We often laughed over it. Something this funny is only funny because its not. But this I know only in hind sight.

I was shaken out of my reverie when Karthik barged into the room. He looked devastated. You see he was not there when the accident happened. Actually nobody was around. Harsh always an early riser was all set to go on site. It was the day we were meeting out short listed potential investors. Our small neat little well run enterprise, all set to take its next leap into the big league. I cant say that I was happy with the decision. I have been managing its promotion, its finances, everything other than brewing. That was the job of Harsh, he had the uncanny touch for these details and production, infact Karthik and Harsh. You see Karthik was by now assisting Harsh in production. This arrangement was working wonderfully for everyone. I had the independence of making all financial decisions, micromanager that I am, I had the freedom and luxury to look and overlook all money matters. Karthik and Harsh were only too happy to be left to their creativity and science as they called it. The only passion that seemed to bind them together was making and brewing wines. Lately they had begun to feel stifled by my inability to manage funds; (read: making capital available for their lofty expansion plans and experiments in the winery.) I was content basking in the accomplishment of successfully launching and managing the production of two labels of our wine, our very own wine. But then I was convinced how my complacence may cost the company its promising future. Funny, that was the first time I noticed how my company or even our company had metamorphosed into the company. I was told how I was being inconsiderate of Harsh and Karthik’s efforts and visions.

I suddenly felt like the third wheel. But it was just a feeling right? Must be the PMS kicking in. It was happening a lot lately so much so that I could no longer differentiate pre from the post. I would have continued to blame it on my hormones if I hadn’t gotten up earlier to overhear Harsh to what could only be Karthik. He had the copyright to call Harsh no matter the time. I had begun to resent it and with good reason as I soon discovered.

“These distances will disappear soon buddy. Just wait till we finalize this deal with the Mallan’s. I am sure Suvarna can be persuaded to sell her share, now that we will have the big guns managing the money.”

“Lately her maternal instincts have also been kicking in”

“Its just a question of waiting. Don’t give up on us yet. Not when we have seen our dream though all these years. Remember it didn’t seem like such a great idea when I bulldozed you into taking the course.”

“Don’t give up on us when we are so close to sealing our future together.”

“Alright see you on the weekend, I am sure we will be toasting to our togetherness.”

Yes!

“Oh come on when has she gotten up this early?

Yes I know. See you soon. Ya I am just going down the stairs and out.

Yup see you soon. Ya love you too.”

He turned, must have felt rather than heard my presence. In fact things would have been entirely different had he not turned just then. Looked me in my face. I saw a fleeting shock, settling into to a devil may care smirk. It was that smirk that galvanized my hands into pushing him away, only away at that point was down the stairs. He slipped tumbled, ever so softly to the floor below into unconsciousness. So noiselessly that neither the maali, nor the driver seemed to take any notice.

At that point I did what any human would, turned back and slept an extra hour, having my mind at rest after so long. I was tired of blaming myself for being unreasonable, suspicious, distant and moody. Things had fallen into place after all. Finally.

I was woken up by Bai, who called the hospital. I was frantic now that the enormity of the situation sunk in. The pacing outside the ward was very genuine, so was the ashen pallor. The bated breath with which I heard the doctor’s verdict was very real too.

“If only you had brought him earlier things may have been different, we could have done something. He was already in deep coma before we could get to him. He will be severely disabled, a vegetable the rest of his life, unless he shows some sign of life and movement in the next 48 hours. ”

I went limp and faded into oblivion. Not with grief.

Now I can close my eyes and relax as I hear my wrist watch beep. Harsh had lain as peaceful as when he was brought and the 48 hours were up. Finally.

Revenge

For years it has been me who has been going to the animal house, spending hours in that place fit only for the creatures that are housed in them. Fit for no human being. All the dirty work of cleaning the cages, the shit and the dead fall to me. I don’t get any part of the glory that these scientists claim as soon as one of these shows the kind of tumerous growth on one feet or neck; Later even more so when they can shrink it to size. It is I the unsung hero who has been at the back of all these discoveries silently toiling away at the beck and call of all these young and useless little twits who think they have a larger share of the pie because they make intellectual contribution to the project.

I had a nice vacation planned to spend time with my Vinny in the garden. We both have been looking forward to this day for such a long time. Just because I don’t have a safari booked as my honeymoon and I am not getting married on this weekend , does it make my holiday any less earned that this wh*** and ass of a woman who comes masquerading into the lab thrice a week and everyone seems to eat out of her hands! And I don’t give a crap about the time that she is supposed to be spending in the clinic, if she is not in the lab she could be out shopping for all I know, preparing for her big day.

Do people who aren’t getting married; not entitled to a holiday? Are their needs less important? Are their holidays less deserved? Anyway not that anyone has even been thinking about these questions? Easy for them to say that “Peter you can take care of the mice for this weekend cant you? Its not like you have to be somewhere!” sure I will take care of them, after all it’s the mice I dearly love. I can spend hours with them, talking to them being with them. Why else would I consent to spend hours in the animal house? Not for the money it pays me for sure! Today is the last day that woman will see the animal house or any other house or anything for that matter. She is leaving her all her hard work of all these years behind in that room in my care she says….

Little does she know she will leave more than all that she will leave her life behind tonight in that animal room. All that hullabaloo for a wedding that is not going to be but then… they don’t know that do they? Not all that high and mighty are they? All these doctors and PhDs…

If only they could let me and Vinny be on our own this weekend. I wouldn’t have to …

Cinderella and her Mom...

All of us know about the Cinderella whose genes made it possible for her to be like her mother to be able to wear her mom's cool clothes and the much coveted shoe! And she did not have to live with a kind she wanted to grow up to be like!

But what about those mere mortals who forever live in the shadow of their super-woman moms. Who possess no apparent legacy to stand a chance of measuring up to "the" original. Who forever try and finally give up the eventuality of never being able to go one up. Now in all fairness most of the moms never do quite take kindly to their daughters being less than perfect (read the best versions of themselves!) but there are those that actually do not expect you to be their size. They want you to spead your own wings look for your own pastures and do your own flying and navigating while u are at it. It is those one who make it so difficult to resent them cos well they are as up there as the up itself can afford to be without being giddy!

That ladies and gentlemen, how my mom is. Imagine my plight to have had to live with such a person all the initial formative years of my life. Mind you before I became aware of the living up tothingie, I was more than blissful, as ignorants are made out to be. But slowly and slowly when I realized the super powers of my mother, I very brashly and promptly tried resisting and rebelling (job profile of a teenager) against her sense of order and discipline (for lack of a better word!) and each time I was met with a cool reassuring and even understanding a smile, as if she knew what my struggle with myself was about. It was infuriating to say the least, I could not shake her resolve to love me and continue to show me the light. You know how mothers can be when it comes to their own child. Well she was unarguably the best kind. After all my teenage years of rebel and guerilla warfare tactics, I finally decided to give up trying to be better (who am I kidding) rather as good as her. That gave me the freedom to appreciate the person I was sharing my life with without the pressure of being like her. And that really did set me free from a lot of baggage but not all. I still tried to keep at it not in terms of a competition but more as a gold standard in life.

Many years after making my peace with the thought I happened to closely observed my own mother being under the wing of her mother. And I saw the little girl in my self assured mother striving to make food the way my nani can or rather does. I saw my mother looking for approval, striving for that internal measure-up to her mother.And somehow this wisdom dawned on me that the years and the effort that I spend in making myself better is all that matters and how continuous this whole exercise is or at least should be and how long am I going to be at it.....

Apparently all my life J

Pensive

Sometimes I feel so overwhelmed with don't know what but the only outlet then seems to pour it out on the paper or screen in this case. Theres just nothing else to do than just type on with some music playing as a background and letting your mind wander and wonder.

There is nothing that is particularly wrong with life in fact probably nothing but its just like there is such a back log of things that I sometimes have been in too much of a hurry to have felt. It becomes necessary to kind of re-visit it before you can move on. I miss not having a "pensive" in such times. I think writing for me is also akin to putting the slivery slivers into my pensive. Is there anyone else out there that has had such bouts?

I absolutely love the concept of memory, its wonderful to be able to go back and re-live it, re-create it in your head. The most interesting thing of it all is that all this kind of takes you by total surprise, mostly when you are least expecting it. It could be a song, a face, a colour, just randomly anything at all. Most times there is no discernible link between the trigger and the memory that is triggered. Although that does not stop you from trying to find a connection. At times I do succeed but that is not the point of the whole exercise if thats what it is. Mind thankfully keeps track of all that we feel, sometimes it also keeps what we have not felt. Some of my experiences have certainly enhanced upon revisiting it in my head. Bizarre as it sounds I think it is true.

Reality Bites.

It was a bad start of the day. The alarm had gone off as it should but somehow it had failed to rouse me from my dreamless sleep. At least not till Supriya literally shook me and drenched me out of it with the help of some water from my night stand. Apparently not a good start for her either considering, the persistent shrill wake up buzz got her from her room to mine through the adjoining balcony that we share in our hostel.

Her extreme measures resulted in some name calling which subsided into my sheepish wane of a smile as I remembered the note I had struck on her door last night.

Anyway the point being that today of all days, it was specifically painful to be up and about in the morning to attend an extra class in collage. As if these extra hours on a cold wintry foggy Delhi morning will change the course of my life! Ya right!

I hastily got up, now fully aware of the time or the lack of it. Got ready in record time thanks to unknown series of events, that resulted in an available bath cubicle with steaming hot water; as though god himself wanted to make up for his earlier foul up of my day.

Of course later I got to know that god was working through Shikha’s NRI boyfriend calling her at these strange hours of the weekend mornings.

As I walk the streets in early foggy Delhi morning, I am just hoping that this turns out to be worth my while, me traveling all across the city in this less than ideal weather. May be we can catch a movie if the class gets over in time. So far so good, at least the bus was on time. This in local lingo means that it came with in five min of my reaching the 100 meters stretch of land called the bus stand. It just keeps getting better; just as I walk in I manage to plonk myself into the last empty seat of now quickly filling bus. As I settle into the bumpy ride, characteristic of a non-jam packed bus, I spot an old baba and even though I am feigning a nap I feel or rather imagine his censure as he stands right next to my seat. Finally the devil in me gives up; not without a good fight though and I offer him the seat, which he graciously accepts of course.

I blame my semi-awake state to the defeat of the devil within. Something happens that jolts me out of it. A casual caress on my butt, not that it would be the first but still its relatively difficult to get away with in a not so full a bus passage. I crane my neck and see this old man’s umbrella jutting out. Beep! False alarm. No need for hackles to be up, just yet. Now at least I am wide awake

All remnants of my sleep evaporate as I try to soak in the morning sun and thaw. It is nothing more that a warm glow through the fog. I actually begin to enjoy my ritualistic ride to my college and things are looking up as the oldie starts gathering himself to get off. As he reaches for the supporting rod to heave himself up; he blatantly brushes across my assets and before I can put into any of the billion ways of retribution, he gets off. All I manage to say with enough vehemence is “I hope you die and go to hell you moronic low life”.

A strange thing happened just then as I saw myself, taking the seat in the bus and a wispier version of me floats out into the open to witness a very sorry scene. In his hurry to get off and away from his scene of crime, he runs right into the path of a truck ending in a bloody head on.

The nest thing of course I know is that I am sitting in the bus. Thoroughly puzzles and spooked by what I saw or what I thought I saw. Was it possible that I have just had an out of body experience? I am filled with guilt and remorse and anger. Unwittingly the saying flashes through my mind “be careful for what you wish for, you might just get it.” Why did I have to say those words right then? And most importantly, of all the things I could have asked god for, in his moment of benevolence, I have wasted that one wish on the scum that I would hardly cross paths with. Why of all the things I ask god for, he had to grant me this?

As I am castigating and berating myself mentally, my co passenger nudges me and then shakes me out of my reverie.

“What is wrong with you?”

“Are you on dope? How can you go to sleep on the wet pillow”?

Don’t you have to be somewhere?

As I open my eyes I see Supriya bending over me. I release the breath that I didn’t realize I was holding. A feeling of relief was washing over me in waves.

Completely oblivious to my near escape from my dream, Supriya is chatting away to glory having brought me some breakfast from the canteen. I am happy to see her do things that fill my life with the normalcy I have suddenly come to appreciate. Probably because it was so short lived.

Supriya reads the headlines from the news paper and laments over it.

“Just look at the state of traffic in the city. Just yesterday an old man got crushed under a truck as he was getting down from a bus.” Happened right in the morning, where we all go through.

Before I could recover and contemplate over the implications of this piece of news, she walked out the door and popped her head back in for the warning.

“I am off but listen you better keep away from Shikha for a while; she is on your case and knows it was you who used her hot water yesterday.”