The LEGO House

I once built a house, a big house of cards. 

I thought it was just perfect, a perfect place to have.

I built it in the garden, and then there came a breeze. 

It was so smooth and light, my house didn't have the strength to fight.

I hence built a house, a house of cards again.

 I thought it was just perfect, a perfect place to have.

I built it in my room; closed doors and no threat. 

The fan whispered to me, it's the air you had to fret.

And then I built a house, a big house of ice. 

I thought it was just perfect, a perfect place to have.

Little did I remember, that water never stays...

It changed its form and took its course, and went its own sweet way

I gathered courage and built a house, a big house of sand. 

I thought it was just perfect, a perfect place to have.

'Twas safe from the sea, until the evening tide; 

which swept it away in one swift motion, before I could say goodbye.

At last, I built a house, a big Lego house. 

I thought it was just perfect, a perfect place to have.

Moms cheered,  it's play day,  kids flocked from round the town. 

But they wanted a car a tree a building,  

.

.

.

and hence they knocked it down.

"Papa Calling"

December 2^nd, 2016; 4:15 p.m.

You don’t expect an expected call to deliver you an unexpected news. The words reverberated in my ears continuously. “Take the first flight back home.” It was as if I would wake up by the shrill voice of my phone’s ringtone, and the nightmare will be over. “Papa calling”” will flash across my screen and he will talk to me. About life, about business, about how proud he is of me, about my flight itinerary post end-term exams.

The floor beneath me sank, and so did my heart. My trembling legs ran as fast as they could. “Take the first flight back home.” I had bookings to make. Laptop in one hand, charger in another, shivering like anything, those two hundred meters felt like walking over ice. The lift was on the 3^rd floor, I needed to be on the 5^th. Right now.  Climbing close to a hundred stairs, gasping for breath, with a sunken heart and close to a thousand cramps in my stomach, I reached the fifth floor, ran straight to my friend’s room, threw the laptop in one corner of the bed and when my legs couldn’t hold the weight of my body and the heart couldn’t hold the weight of the shock, I tumbled down onto the other side and sobbed. Some distant voice sounded like a confused enquiry, a hazy frame holding my shoulders. All I could manage to utter from my choked throat and trembling lips was “Papa…”

The phone buzzed. “Papa calling.” It was as if he had called to talk to me. About life, about business, about how proud he is of me, about my flight itinerary post end-term exams. But he wouldn’t. He couldn’t.

December 3^rd, 12:54 p.m.

This was the longest journey back home. I kept wiping my tears in the car, promising myself not to cry. There were a lot of cars parked in the street. We had to stop some distance away. As I pierced through the crowd, all eyes looked at me. Pity. Sympathy. I don’t know what it was. All I knew was I had to be near mom. Nothing less, nothing more. The crowd made way, it felt foreign in my own driveway. The backdoor entrance was cleared for me to pass. I took off my shoes and walked up to another crowd with familiar faces. Papa slept in the centre. His skin was darker than usual. There was a flower petal near his eyebrow, which I brushed aside. Everyone looked at mom and the four of us. And babaji’s glasses were dirty. They asked me to go hug papa. I couldn’t.

Thirty minutes later, the pyre burnt. I held babaji’s glasses in my left hand, borrowed a handkerchief and wiped the saline water off his glasses. Everyone moved to the side as the ashes came flying to our side. I looked as they set him on fire. I saw my father turn into ashes, flying towards me.

Last night, while I dragged my suitcase out of the lift, I heard a friend murmur, “Going home? Such a luxury.”

And right in this moment, I wanted to tell her.

“Oh you have a dad? Such a luxury!”

The Mayor's Cat.

“Curiosity killed the cat.” The little boy kept chanting and Harry was exactly seven seconds close to breaking his skull when Bob took him aside. “What is wrong with you? He’s just a little boy. Can’t you stay a little patient?” “I have tried being patient with this crackhead. We need to try a different way to extract information out of him. He is the only witness to the murder. And here he is, looking at me, repeating this meaningless line with a smirk on his face, as if threatening me to chicken out. The mayor is getting impatient by the minute. That loner’s life revolved around that bloody cat. What are we even doing here? What did I join the police for? To find a random cat’s murderer?” Bob was more calm. “It’s not a random cat. It was the mayor’s cat.” He spoke, still looking into the distance. He was thinking things through, trying to join the dots patiently. “Curiosity killed the cat.” There seemed to be something beyond the scope of what looked obvious. This little child couldn’t possibly be threatening us, he thought. “Curiosity killed the cat.” Bob’s instincts told him to look at this boy’s statement beyond the surface. He brainstormed too hard. He loved puzzles, and this was very interesting. He also loved kids, and he knew something was off with that kid. Kids aren’t evil. They’re supposed to be pure, right? He went home and tried to look at the case from different angles. Got tired, slept, ate, and thought again.

Six days later the effort finally paid off. The universe gave him a signal and he was vigilant enough to not miss it. Three blocks away, A girl named Curiosity lived on room 212 of building B. She came to meet her friend here, the neighbor of the kid. All her attention concentrated towards her phone, her heel pierced into the cat and she winced with pain before dying a painful death. Curiosity didn’t even try to save her. She was too scared to stay. After all, everyone knew this collar-strap with ‘Mayor’s property’ written all over it. She thought it was best to run away. But Johnny happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time. And he got scarred by what he saw.

Over coffee, that evening, the team was being congratulated for having solved such a weirdly twisted case. At the first opportunity, Harry came to Bob and smiled. “Curiosity killed the cat at various levels. The girl killed the animal, mine killed my sense of rationality and patience, and yours killed the conventional way of thinking.” They both gave each other a long hard look, and broke out laughing.

No reason...

We’re always looking for reasons:

Reason to say what we feel.

Reason to do what we want.

Reason to spend time with someone we think we love.

Reason to join a college, or not do so.

We are doing that internship because we expect a certificate in the end. We’re playing that game of tennis to win, or to be fit, or to be able to add it to our resume as a ‘hobby’. We’re aiming at a big-shot company for the heavy paycheck and the fine dining.

We always want to be reasonable, and practical, and sensible.

Today I was walking towards the metro station thinking about the possible turns my life would take in the next few months- or years, when I was stopped on the sidewalk by voices; voices of a group of girls clad in their school uniforms. They came running to me. I was pulled out of my bubble of thought and I didn’t like it.

“Here” The youngest one presented me a little branch of flowers plucked from the roadside bush, followed by all others.

I was too shocked to react. “Thank you. “ I managed to utter and continued walking.

One step, two, three, four, five, six, seven. I turned around, traced the same path back to their spot.

“Why did you give this to me?” I couldn’t stop myself from wondering about the reason. “We study in that school across the road” The eldest of the lot said, pointing towards the other side of the road. “We give flowers to people while waiting for our bus here.” Chirped the younger one.  “Why do you do that?” I asked again.

“No reason. We have to wait anyway. This is fun.”

No reason.

And I couldn’t stop smiling like an idiot for the rest of the day.

 

Beautiful things happen is this world.

You know why? 

No reason.

All by myself.

I loved being all by myself.
When my friends would invite me over for lunch I would cancel,
Make an excuse of work;
Try to catch some quality lone time.
I liked being all by myself.

When someone would call me for chit chat,
I would wonder when they would hang up
So that I could finish my favorite book.
And when I put it down, late at night, maa would bring me a cup of coffee and something to eat.
And I would tell her to leave me all by myself.

When I'd see people talking about moving out to a different city for college,
I'd be all excited
To have a house of one's own; Decorate it the way one liked.
One could order pizza every night.
Or sit on your favorite bench in your favorite park until early morning.
And would not have to bother about curfew limits.
All I dreamt was being all by myself.

It's all come true. The house, the new city, the bench in the park, the pizza.
Everyone's on their own, providing for themselves.
Now I pick up the phone and look at the contact list that has just added numbers with time.
And I look at my favorite coffee mug and suddenly crave for mom's homemade pickle.
And I look at the book lying on the floor which has the bookmark my best friend made for me.

I have all the time I need to spend with myself. What else does one need?

But I have to admit: I hate it!
I hate being all by myself.

Inspired by the song: All by myself,by Eric Carmen. 

Photographs by: Shreyanshi Soni, Yoshieta Gupta

What world do we live in?

Which world are we living in?

Every day, while flipping through the newspaper, I come across various headlines in different fonts. And each one of them gets me thinking, which world are we living in?

So a 19-year-old girl gets raped in a minibus in Bangaluru. How it happened? Well, the same old, girl going to work, boards bus, horny driver, gives bus controls to assistant, rapes her for an hour or so, throws her on a deserted road, speeds away. Oh, and also, the writer mentioned another gang-rape incident in the vicinity just a few weeks ago, just for the record, you know.

There’s another small-font news where a man and his father forced the wife into committing suicide. Why? The usual: incompetent man can’t earn enough to support his own family so constantly forces the wife to bring in money from her ‘paraya-ghar’. 

It’s funny though, how the reporter mentioned leniency given to the father and the son on account of various other people they have to take care of, including a three-year-old son from the victim. Thank god it’s a son, though. She might not even live those three extra years if not for that xy chromosome. So usually there is a lifetime imprisonment under section 304-B (Dowry Death) now reduced to a seven year imprisonment for both perpetrators in this case. Also, I am made aware of the presence of a section 498-A of the IPC which designates punishment for subjecting a married woman to cruelty. Did someone mention ‘marital rape’ to me some time ago?

Oh, but what is the law for? What are PILs for? I’ll tell you. This very noble monk named Swami Satyananda Chakradhari plays his role as a politically aware and active citizen by filing a public interest litigation requesting a 10-year-imprisonment for cow slaughter.

Yes! That’s the solution! A ten year imprisonment for cow slaughter. And a leniency-granted seven year for manslaughter.

And what’s on the super-headlines? A debate on whether Chhota Rajan should be retained in Delhi or handed over to Mumbai Police.

This is the world we are living in.

Source: The Hindu, Delhi, Saturday, November 7, 2015

Fear v/s Embrace

How disturbing would it be to find out that the person who offered you a seat in the metro, or the person you helped cross the road, or the person who sold you those pink earrings at round the corner, or the person with whom you had a very memorable conversation last evening while waiting at the coffee house, or all of them at once-- are dead. No more. Gone to a place which noone has ever seen, yet everyone keeps talking about.
How strange it sounds how profoundly death— irrespective of our relation with the person— affects us, leaves a permanent mark: a wound; a scar.
Some people get irritated when you talk to them about death. It's like the unspeakable truth everyone keeps fearing and avoiding and distracting one's mind from. They know it's inevitable, "but why talk about something that makes you sad?", say most people who are convinced that I am obsessed with the idea of death.
But why not talk about it like one talks about marriage, or further educational pursuits, or dispelling one's virginity, or jobs- which are more or less equally unpredictable. We make a million plans: only a quarter of them work out as we imagined. People dwell over their dream wedding, or their dream vacation, and when I ask them about their dream death—long awkward silence, followed by looks as if you have shoved a knife straight into their gut.

Because we always want to cling on! This desperate need to make things last forever, even human life. We know it's impossible but we like to believe it isn't. So we would close our ears when someone would say the opposite.
What we don't realize is that the only things that last till you do are memories. So why not embrace them, accept their transcendentalism? 
How disturbing it was to think about deaths of those people! And how fascinating it is to know that their last memory of the living world which they would carry to the other world(if any) would be of an episode with a stranger. And the stranger, in so many cases, is you!