To Depravity, our middle name

Ten days ago a girl two days short of her fifteenth birthday was killed. Ten days later Arushi, we have killed you on an average of ten times everyday. We have ripped you apart, shredded your life, your being and publicly devoured it.

We have picked you to the bone, maybe even the marrow. I say ‘maybe’ because, I stopped at the bone, couldn’t see any further.

They say that the soul never dies, that it is a voyager on the road to forever. I know now that it is not true. Cannot be. After all we had subjected your soul to. Just when it stepped on that road to forever we caught it by the scruff and buried it alive.

We the living have buried your soul alive, suffocated it to death, just so because you don’t leave our TV, newspapers and our very sick minds for some time.

Since your death newspapers and TV channels (try as I may, can’t call them NEWS channels) have been on a screeching overdrive that would have shamed a banshee.

First, we shouted it was the servant who killed you. So we spent endless hours debating the wisdom of hiring them. In passing we even touched upon the far important point of treating them like crap.

We began to endlessly theorize, helped undoubtedly by a lot of women in chiffon saris who came on TV and shared their miserable experience with these muck-of-the earth people. The whole socialite brigade was there, you know the rich women, who throw parties and give poor Ramu the leftovers.

You know the kind who were wearing conservative diamond/platinum jewelry because it was supposed to be some kind of a solemn moment, after all a young girl had died and the domestic help was the culprit number one. Till now that is.

Then the police, under much pressure from the TV channels, who still have to find a replacement for Ramayan, Mahabharta kind of melodrama, changed the whole damn argument. It was not the poor beggar. How could he have killed the poor girl? The damn chap was rotting on the terrace, killed on the same night.

God! Somebody at India TV must have got himself drunk on happiness on the poor sod’s death. Zee, Star and the others wouldn’t have been far behind.

For some days, this drama, this vulgar, voyeuristic drama unfolding before us could even beat the hollows out of the TRPs those epic dramas ever enjoyed. (BTW were TRP’s even in existence then?)

And so began another disgusting spewing of theories. How? Who? Endless dramatic enactments of the alleged event that nobody saw, that nobody had any inkling of, that nobody could logically trace back in time.

Heck, it was our time for playing Sherlock or Bymokesh, God! Rest their souls. The same old gang. The same old nonsense.

By this time the Noida police was working overtime. Heavens! It finally cracked the case. It was the father, silly. Who else can kill a little girl but a father. Hell, we are embarrassed it took us so long.

This time the sold-on-muck people, the crime show anchors and reporters across India TV, Zee, NDTV, Star, would all have died of “sudden cardiac arrest perpetrated by unexpected gain or windfall.”

The frigging father killed the girl and the servant. The Gods of Primetime television were never so generous. Everything else followed. The father was having an affair with a colleague. The daughter knew this and was upset. She told the servant, because you see, even they were kind of playing snuggle-cuddle with each other. The monster dad couldn’t stomach all this, so he stomached half a bottle of alcohol and killed them both.

The mother didn’t know anything at all. The tired creature just kept snoring the night off.

The TV channels had their pound of flesh. So we kept seeing more dramatic representations of the event, even more graphic details of what might not have happened.

Of how it can’t be substantiated that the father was the killer, we heard very little. Who the hell cared enough to raise these questions anyway? We have our primetime taken care of. We have our eyeballs not glued but implanted on TV. This is such a godsend for us. Who the hell are we to care about anything else?

We had both the women in question giving their story. We liked this. Will any reality show ever get this real? We also had, you know that new kid on the block, the new upper class way of showing our pain, hurt and ketchup-bleeding hearts; the candlelight vigil.

We had friends of the girl praising her. All made up and saying things their parents spent the whole night making them rehearse. This was their murderous claim to fame. Another check mark in the CV that parents make for their kids. She came on TV and parroted off with such aplomb they will say.

The clock of the tragedy had by now circled its grotesque, vulgar, depraved life. We still don’t know any better. Tired of damning the father and having our share of gratification by making two women defend their character on primetime, we are back at the beginning.

We need something to feed our depraved souls. Nothing less than an uber middle class murder tragedy born out of wedlock, of lust will dot. Or so we would like to think.

But what about the WHATs

What if the father did not kill the girl or the servant?

What if he never had an affair with another women?

What if he is really mourning his daughter?

Whhat about the mother?

What have we made of their lives?

What have we made of their remaining lives?

What have we made of the life of that other woman and her family?

WHAT ABOUT THE WHAT? WHY DID WE NOT GIVE IT A FAIR CHANCE?

Do you think they care about it? Our editors who are feeding off other people’s tragedy. Our reporters, news- gatherers who are getting their bylines and PTCs

The only thing they care about is when will the next murder happen? Will it have this irresistible mix of sex , lust, adultery. And just to be on the safe side will it have a young girl, just old enough to have an affair herself, but of course a minor, who will preferably be butchered with a blunt instrument?

Hell, India TV maybe even carrying out a secret Havana, some Kaal Kappal sick mind would even be establishing a direct hotline with the Satan. Star, Zee, NDTV would be keeping their finger crossed. To dispel any bad omen in the way, you see.

Taare Zameen Pe

There he is, sitting under the tree, with two dogs. One has collapsed in his lap and is sleeping in the irresistibly cuddly way only dogs can manage to, while the other is enjoying a luxurious de-ticking session by hands that belong to someone who has the most beautifully toothy grin you have seen in a long time. It’s all calm and serene at the moment.

Then the camera delectably pans to another corner, where a group of more bright children, edged on by their parents ‘my-child-is-a-winner’ philosophy are competing in a game of gully cricket. When the viewfinder becomes still, both the boy with the dogs and cricket-playing children occupy either ends of the frame. Briefly.

Suddenly, all hell breaks loose. A shot is hit in the direction of the tree. The boy gets up and throws the ball back. It goes wide, into a different building. He gets taunted and jeered by the thoughtless cruelty kids have enormous access to, gets angry, gets in a tussle with an older boy, gets hurt, hurts him, runs away.

Now, now you have seen it before. In countless movies. Even in K-soaps. The kid is running away to his mother to complain and cry, right? But hang on! Not here, not as long as Aamir Khan wields the megaphone, not the dyslexic Ishaan Nandkishore Awasthi in Taare Zameen Pe (TZP).

What follows is what makes TZP perhaps the most sensitive, delicate peek inside a child’s mind in mainstream Hindi cinema.

Ishaan whizzes up the stairs, past the house of his tormentor, then suddenly turns, drops back a few stops and to vent his disgust, angst with the world that makes no effort to understand him, smashes the flower pots lying outside and gushes up straight to the terrace.

Once there, the boy to whom the world is the place where tadpoles swimming in muddy drains are fascinating, watching dogs playfully tear away exam papers a happy moment; gasps, sighs and starts crying.

It’s a cry of helplessness and for help, of cold anger, of betrayal; from the world, the school, parents, everything. Only the tadpoles and the dogs are exempt. And then an aimlessly meandering kite ambles into the terrace and rescues him. The kite catches his attention, the scuffle is forgotten, tears hurriedly wiped away and his mind starts painting new landscapes. And your eyes brim up and if you speak right then, you choke a little on the way.

It is no ordinary movie, TZP. Aamir paints it with just as confident a brushstroke with which Ishaan escapes the world, its contempt and finds himself in the drawing sheet. You also know why the Black infuriated him. None of those over-the-top, crude shenanigans for him. A child is a supremely precious being, gentle putty, and in TZP, Khan moulds him masterly.

The film is full of poignant moments of Ishaan’s childhood, our childhood and the childhood of that third grade classmate, who forever kept looking for rainbows outside the window, who did miserably in the tests and made friends with the crows by feeding them his lunch.

As Ishaan’s story moves on, he takes your heart along, his every failure evoking cobwebbed memories, his every timidly-smug smile eliciting an I-have-been-there-before smile from you.

There are two things that Aamir uses brilliantly in the film. One is silence. In the second half Ishaan, save for a single sentence never speaks. At one level this starkly succeeds in showing the character’s transformation from a somewhat angry-at-the-world-dyslexic boy to someone whom the world has crushed. At another it makes for compelling cinema. It is here that the director’s use of colour and music comes in.

The film is shot is bright resplendent hues. Lots of greens, reds, and blues. So even while the story becomes somber, the visuals lift you. In fact, gloomy scenes shot in bright hues with great background score and an overriding silence gives you shots and shots of unblinking cinema. It’s not easy on viewers, though. Next, time try not to blink while crying.

To give this rambling piece an air of authority and a semblance of a review I must dwell a little on the technical parts of the film. Coming to performances first, eight-year old Darsheel Safary as Ishaan is, well Ishaan. Was he made for the role, or the role written for him is all that you can ask.

Aamir as the Ram Shankar Nikumbh, the teacher who waves the magic wand of love and compassion is flawless. He hits the right notes at the right places and understatedly emotes superbly.

Tisca Chopra and Vipin Sharma as Ishaan’s parents are fine, with Sharma just a tad over the top at times. The only glitch is the teachers who are more caricatures than characters.

Amole Gupta and his script made the movie possible in the first place and TZP is as much his as Aamir’s. The music stand out, Shankar-Ehsan-Loy have found their refreshing grove again and of course, they had Prasoon Joshi’s touching lyrics to live up to.

A word about Joshi here. A few more films like this and with his unusual choice of words he can becomes Gulzar’s legitimate successor in the film industry

So, back to TZP we come again. The climax of the films where Ishaan’s wins the painting competition has been criticised by many reviewers as reinforcing the same achievement centric approach with kids that the film berates all along.

Frankly, the climax is pretty believable; Ishaan is show throughout as a child with dyslexia, who is exceptional in painting. The end justifies that. Also, the film has enough heart tugging moments that say, nothing really matters as long as we let kids be kids.

With TZP Khan has shown why he still sets the tone for the industry. He has shown why names don’t matter, scripts do, faith in the story does. For who were Ashutosh Gowrikar, Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra and John Mathew Mathan before they found him. He has shown that if you are honest to your craft nothing else matters; you can plough a lonely furrow and still set the agenda.

By the time the end credits roll and the lights come on, you get up, a little misty eyed, a little heavier in the heart and a little grateful for seeing the film.

Many years from now, if you wanted to see a film about childhood, lost childhood and parenthood, a film about the art of storytelling, of happy visuals and sad scenes in the same frame, a film about moments that make you smile and cry at the same time, you will nostalgically remember the boy with the toothy grin. And perhaps also the tadpoles, dogs and the kite.

For Dravid, from the rafters

Dear Dilip Vengsarkar,

It has been six days since you and your wise brethren decided that it would do Indian cricket a world of good if Rahul Dravid was dropped from the team for the first two ODIs against Pakistan. Since then newsprint and tapes have been generously utilised by former players and scholarly sports journalists to comment and analyse the considered opinion of you and your brethren.

In this regard Colonel I beg you to listen to my, the faceless cricket fan’s, the one who burns in the rafters in our ‘grand’ stadiums, the one who silently takes the many hours and the heaps of abuse and contempt to get to his place in the aisles you probably don’t know exist’s; two paise worth of views on the issue. Sorry, I got a bit carried away with my description but then I wanted you to place me right.

You of course, with your penchant for semantics said he was only being ‘rested’. Perhaps he had just stepped back on earth after having spent more than six months in space, a L’a Miss Williams and needed time and rest to get back to the ways of us earthlings.

I hope my dear colonel that you don’t mind my calling you a earthling, for as every Ranji player, for that matter any player knows, you and your colleagues are no ordinary mortals but like our Gods, are full of Maya. Your actions are enveloped in intrigue that nobody can fathom. But I am this two-paise-bum-burned-in-the-rafters character so I hope you will excuse my semantic slip-ups.

See, I have again digressed from the purpose of writing this letter so let me come back to it. So, maybe Rahul Dravid secretly went for a hike to Mount Everest and is none the better for it and deserved the rest so graciously given by you. For if it is not the two above reasons, then Colonel, I fail to understand (admittedly my understanding is not as good as yours but still) why the monk-in-flannels, the one who could bring sanity even in the outrageously heady atmosphere of the rafters is not in the team.

We, the faceless fans, have seen all kinds of batsmen come and go. From the two Vijay’s,no make it three Vijay’s must add Manjrekar also, the Nwabab, the hurricane from Haryana, the best square cutter, the original little master, your own good-at-lords-average-elsewhere self, the once in a lifetime Tendulkar to the god in the offside Sourav. Also the many Amres and Kamblis in between. And then there been this Dravid fellow, you know the one who had nothing ostentatiously extraordinary but who in our not-so-considered opinion became possibly the most extraordinary of them all.

I can see you Colonel smirking and saying there goes another emotional fan, for we at the rafters have been know for such outbursts as Dada would vouch but pray hear me out.

I and many like us were not enamoured with him when he first came. He looked all right though. The bat came straight, the head was steady, the footwork precise (yes even we know such things) which is not what you can say about our many stars for the ‘morrow but more on that later.

We did not like him just because of this. In the madhouse that one day cricket often is, he was one sobering factor. When the others were plonking their foot down and competing with woodcutters he was a classical. When others were mistiming shots that modern bats carried all the way, he was showing them the whole breadth of the willow. We at the aisles-you-don’t-care about were exasperated by this. Used to applauding sixes it took time for us to see his worth.

But eventually the realization came. We saw it time after and time and innings after innings. For whenever there was something in the pitch, whenever it turned like a drunken serpent waltzing, whenever the ball came off the pitch to the throat, possessed with a malicious glee that shone in the eyes, when the woodcutters and the pretenders had shown that their true colour was yellow, he fought on. At J’burg, at Lords, at Adelaide and many times in the dried- paddy- fields-like pitches of our country.

His kissing the India crest after scoring the wining run in Adelaide sealed it for us. He is no genius, never has been, but I will say this when it was the most difficult to bat, when it was the most important to bat, he never let us down. If Sachin has been the genius, the gifted swordsman who could cut through whole armies, though some would like to add not when we wanted it the most, then he has been the one standing at the gates of the castle and it here we say that never once did he budge, not when we wanted him to stay put. That is why he is extraordinary.

So Colonel we come again to this question of why he was not picked? You say the old ones have to be phased out, as if they come with a sell by date. As if youth come with a predetermined induction date. To be in the team us at the rafters feel you should have earned that irrespective of age.

Not many of your beacons for tomorrow have done it. Raina the eager pup that he is has not. Not at the cost of Dravid anyway. Nor has Dinesd Karthick. And not even Sehwag, for after maybe 89 matches of hit and miss even I will strike gold.

One bad series cannot justify his ouster, we the faceless fans, very strongly feel. Platinum and quartz cannot have the same yardstick. As far as that goes Colonel, I would also like to add that you don’t replace a Rolls Royce with a Maruti.

As far as a this fielding thing is considered, I will ask you one question. When the scoreboard says India 5/3 who would you want to be there? Search in your heart and see if you can come up with a name that spells different from Rahul Sharad Dravid,? We at the rafters don’t think so. I will bet my burnt-at-the-rafters-bum on it.

Thank You,

A faceless fan,

From an obscure rafter.

The Fort less travelled

East Coast Road. Mahabalipuram and Pondicherry instantly ring in your mind. Alamparai Fort does not. Closeted between these two more celebrated places it remains off the tourist map. Very few people even seem to be aware of it. The internet, the one- stop answer to everything is also less than its all knowing self in this case. Not that this Mughal fort that was gifted to the French, conquered by the English and finally claimed by Oblivion deserves to be forgotten. For it is quite a weekend getaway, this fort.

Getting here is a breeze. Just cruise long the East Coast Road from Chennai for 100 km or so, have the delightfully azure ocean on the left, give you company as it plays peek-a-boo with the grandiloquent palm trees, dodge a mirage or two that the sun teasingly throws at you and DO NOT miss the fading signboard that glumly points out “Alamparai Fort, Kadapakkam.” Three kilometres off the road and you face the fort (whatever remains of it anyway) that history forgot.

The blue, rusted board of the Archaeological Survey of India gives you some snippets from times that were more glorious for the fort. It informs you that the ancient Tamil text Siruppanatruppadai mentions this region having a fort that was used as a resting place by the pilgrims going to Rameshwaram. Later Dost Ali Khan, the Nawab of Carnatic gave the fort as a token of friendship to Joseph Francois Dupleix in 1720, the Frenchmen who was the Governor General of the French territories in India. Finally it fell into English hands when the French were defeated by Robert Clive.

However, all that now remains for the stray traveller who meanders here is the outer walls of this 15 acre fort. The rest of the construction has withered away. But it is still majestic. The two watchtowers face the backwaters and have stubbornly refused to give way to changing times, neglect and even the tsunami. They are a must-climb for anyone who comes here. For the view from the top is simply breathtaking. Far from you is the Bay of Bengal, in your footsteps are some of the loveliest backwaters you will ever find. Oddly scattered palm trees that dot the landscape. Up from those proud watchtowers all this looks heavenly. Surely, one “Kodak Moment” that you are not going to forget.

This is not all that you can do here. The fishermen around are eager to take you on a boat ride in the backwaters. The price is negotiable and depends on how adept you are at bargaining. So for about Rs 50 per head you can royally lounge in a fishing boat and imagine amid the cool, serene, blue waters the splendour of the fort in its heyday. Or just how stunning it would look on a full moon night from these still waters under the canopy of an eerily beautiful sky.

You can also wade in from one bank to another of the backwaters (the water is not more than waist deep) although the water bed can be a little rocky. The beach is clean and the ocean swim-worthy (though it would be better to ask the locals before going out for a swim.) Another sight to behold is the seagulls. Small seagulls, big seagulls, flying seagulls, running seagulls- all for your eyes only. Then there are the crimson crabs that scurry to their burrows as they hear you tread on the sand. Add to this, there are hardly any people there and you feel it is your own private beach.

All in all if you are looking for a getaway that is just that, then Alamparai Fort is the place to visit. No jostling for elbow space either on the beach or the fort. No tourist guides to regale you with tales that never happened. No hotels, no restaurants. Just the fort, the backwaters, the beach, the seagulls, you and some friends and maybe the odd ghost or two of some Frenchmen who still man the watchtowers.

Them, the Minnows

They came, they saw and they were not completely conquered. That in a nutshell sums up the story of the minnows in the Cricket World Cup, 2007. The story is not over though. But in the first stage of the grandest cricket tournament in the world, many first timers have put on quite a show. Much was written about Bermuda, Canada, the Netherlands and Ireland just making up the numbers and taking the intensity out of the World Cup.

However, here is what we have. One week into the Caribbean bonanza and the tournament is split wide open. First, the Kiwis, with ink still not dry in their Oz bashing 3-0 victory script lost a practise match to Bangladesh, which caused the first flutter. Then came the storm. Bangladesh thrashed (yes that is the word) India by five wickets and India’s chances for the next round became a hostage to too many ‘ifs’. Around the same time in Sabina Park, Jamaica, Ireland defeated Pakistan and in what is so far the upset of the tournament. Having already lost to West Indies earlier, this resulted in the ouster of Pakistan from the World Cup.

The much-maligned minnows, who were expected to be nothing more than cannon fodder for the big boys, have turned the tables against them. All of a sudden we have captains talking about “respecting the opposition” and “every match is important to us”. No one is taking anything for granted. The message is there for everyone to see. It says you may whip Bermuda for over 400 runs and someone may hit six sixes in an over but you can also lose to anyone. It is this uncertainty, which was absent earlier. Yesterday, England were tottering against Canada, at 8/3, just a couple of more quick wickets away from another upheaval. Though England managed to win comfortably at the end, there were moments when Canada must have eyed glory.

Spare a thought here for these so-called lesser teams. Coming from countries where even their neighbours may not think much about them being a part of the national team, these spirited men have shown that desire and love for the game may even make up for talent and skill.. No pep talks from psychologists for them. No entourages of high profile coaches, laptop-wielding analysts. No fitness trainers, regimented diets and high strategy for them. For this ragtag bunch of vegetable vendors, policemen and postmen the green turf, the white leather, and the possibility of the impossible is enough.

Applaud them, do not decry them. For it takes courage to step out in the field knowing well that the opposition is far superior. For facing a McGrath or a Murlitharan, for bowling to Tendulkar and knowing that they are going to be at the receiving end. And for that something inside them that still pushes them on, that tells them that victory may not be just a mirage.

The ICC also deserves credit for ensuring participation of these teams. At the end of the day though there are still detractors of the idea of allowing participation of so many non-test playing nations. But then who would not like to see an Ireland defeating Pakistan, or a Canada causing a scare in the English dressing room and India’s fate contingent to Bangladesh’s performance. This may just be the spark that cricket needs to spread to other lands. How 1983 changed our own cricketing history is well known. The ‘glorious uncertainties’ of cricket have again come alive.

This indeed is the most ‘open’ World Cup ever, more than what it was thought of. Pakistan are out, India’s future is not completely in their hands, Ireland is most likely in the Super Eight and Bangladesh may well join them.

It is fitting that it has happened in the land of Bob Marley, Rastafarians, Calypso and also in the land of Sobers, Richards and Worrell. For where else does, the conventional, the norm, garner so little mileage. The Cricket World Cup 2007 has just started and many more unforeseen results maybe in the offing. Thanks to, them the minnows.

March on Roger

The modern day individual sport is an unimaginably competitive venture. Men battle men, fight with themselves to get that iota more and tales of valour, grit and victory-from the-face of defeat are commonplace. Indeed, so fiercely intense is sport that larger- than- life- drama on various playing fields of the world are often dismissed as mundane, run of the mill events. However, if in the past three years or so tennis courts around the globe have been privy to something awe inspiringly sublime, if the script has changed from the one describing a battlefield to the one where a solitary artist is painting hitherto unknown but hauntingly beautiful landscapes with bold, deft strokes then lets thank a Swiss named Roger Federer for that.

Federer finished the year by winning the season ending Shanghai Masters Cup. His 92-5 win loss record for the year includes 3 grand slams. Simple numbers that tell the story of the year. What they however do not tell completely is the manner in which it was achieved. Total ruthless domination is one answer but not the entirely correct one. Yes, Federer was ruthless, (he just dropped a set in winning his fourth consecutive Wimbledon and had nineteen 6-0 sets in the year, more than half of which came in the semi-finals and finals of championships), but the sheer artistry and skill on display can never be totally described in numbers. It was as if one man was playing a different game altogether. It was a year Federer “walked on water.”

Indeed, no number one in the history of the Open era has had such a dominant run as Federer seems to be having. At 25, he already has 9 grand slams titles polished and standing on the mantelpiece. He has won 3 slams a year twice. Only on the crimson clay of Roland Garros has a bullfighter-of-a -Spaniard called Rafael Nadal made him look mortal. The other surfaces have given in to his genius. The French Open is perhaps the biggest challenge that Federer faces. But he can play on clay, make no mistake about it. A semi-finalist and a finalist, both times claimed by Nadal, the next year is probably his best chance to win it.

So what do we do with a player like this? A player whose only aim in life seems to be to get his name against records of all kinds. A player who everytime he steps on the court seems to play only against history. A player whose forehand is probably the best ever the game has seen and whose one-handed backhand is reminiscent of the days of wooden racquets, when more than power it was skill that won you the match. A player who beats the ballistic-missile-firing baseliners from the baseline and a serve and a volleyer, if there still is one, from the net. And does all this in such a smooth, graceful manner that even his opponents on the other side of the net cannot help but be serenaded by his magic. If not anything else then Federer is definitely the most liked number one ever.

To understand all this, we try to put things into perspective. We come up with arguments like it is easy for him because his opponents are not good enough. Or that his nine slams have been easy compared to Pete’s who had a tougher field to contend with. Or the idea that serve and volleyers are by definition better players and so the quality today, in the age of baseliners is not the same. For starters, try returning a torpedo of a forehand from the baseline in a reaction time of a fraction of a second! Of course we forget that five of Becker’s six slams came before Sampras’ first. Or that four of Agassi’s eight slams came after he was 29, around the time when Pete was on a downhill. In fact, 13 of Sampras’ slams came before he was 29. So, when we say Sampras’ competitors ended up with 6 slams or 8 slams that is not telling the complete story. The point here though is not to take the sheen off Pete’s phenomenal achievements, but to say that each generation throws up its own competition and it is the sheer skill and supreme talent of Federer that makes it look all so easy.

So ladies and gentlemen, let us marvel at the phenomenon called Roger Fedrer, let us sit back and watch a work of art in progress. Let him hang his boots first, the talk on tennis immortality and greatness can wait. Let us revel in his unadulterated genius till then.

When you are depressed......

I am feeling low and depressed. The shiny black casing of my laptop, aesthetically delightful most of the times, is not helping matters either. Worse, there is no particular reason for this. Something happens at times, and that is it. I should have realised that gloom was in the air when I called it a day at the college, early around seven, sacrilege by ACJ standards. Once I reached the hostel, there was no doubt at all. I was feeling lousy. Don’t even know where to start.

There was nothing wrong with the day. Actually it was one of the better days. No morning classes meant more sleep and this is always a good beginning. What followed was much like any other day. Boring lectures, people always making you aware of the weight of the ever piling assignments, most of which are pointless exercises, a few wisecracks here and there with persons who still cannot be called friends but are not strangers either. Library, computer lab, canteen and the terrace, back and forth between them; to sum it up another day like the many that have come and gone in the past month and a half. But by seven, gloom had sunk its daggers deep somewhere.

These random, whimsical periods of sadness have always disturbed me. They follow no reason or logic; spare you when you are expecting them, startle you when you are not and leave in the same inscrutable way they had arrived. But during the period you are in their spell, you don’t really know what to do. Everything around you makes you sure that it is there just to make you feel miserable. Even small inconsequential things like coins scattered where you usually scatter it, assumes an overbearing presence just to bug you. All of a sudden you realise what a mess your room is, even though it is always like this. The “ordered disorder” of things around you, which you often proudly proclaim as something that heightens your creativity, appears unsettling to you now.

A patch of dirt at some corner of your room, which you blissfully see but still not see everyday, now acquires a profound karmic metaphysical significance. You start believing that it shows everything that is wrong with you and your life, what a loser you are and god knows what not, just because you refused to acknowledge its presence. To top all this you start analysing all this from a post modern pre colonial post structuralist, existentialistic perspective. Reality, hyper-reality, mediated society and other “truths” of this ilk jostle for space in your already- by- now-bonkers mind. God! It strikes you that all the drivel they force feed you in college everyday is finally taking its revenge on your till now uncluttered, ignorant but blissful mind. Damn the armchair-scotch-cigar-executive class traveling, brand of Marxists, Bolsheviks, Maoists, Stalinists you come across everyday in college for making you such a degenerate!

You try to find a way out from all this sadness in the world. So, you call your friends, who even at the best of times leave no stone unturned to tell you what a jerk and a good for nothing person you are. But by now you are desperate. Your muddled mind even then tries to tell you the almost certain futility of any redemption from of your friends. You are definitely not thinking straight so you dismiss your inner voice as some kind of hyper reality and bravely call your friends. Here is what happens. The first one is busy in some corner seat of some multiplex with his girlfriend (decidedly not watching the movie), he answers the call after an eternity and tells (yells) you to go to hell and that after the performance? is over he may just call you and again yell at you for having such a lousy sense of timing. By now, jittery and fast losing your mind, you try your not-so-great luck with another friend. He answers on the second ring and you are already on cloud nine! He tells you curtly, with a butchers’ knife sharpness of a voice that, “can you please call me after half an hour, am waiting for whatever the damn girlfriend’s name is call”. You fall as quickly as you had floated up.

You have now lost it and are in the grip of some primeval necrophilic urge. As you are wondering whom to kill- your friends, their girlfriends or yourself, you gather whatever remnants of courage you can find in your by now battered soul and call this last friend. He answers the call and cheerfully asks about your love life, girlfriend, et al and you want to hang up before you even say a word. Now, you surely want to kill yourself! It also fortifies your long held belief that friends are there only to screw your happiness.

It is the end of the road. There is nothing else that you can do. So after getting to know that your life sucks, friends are useless, so is college, you room is some kind of a garbage bin, so is your mind, your love life is non existent but not your friends’ and that you have just written a supremely bad piece you try to sleep over everything and make tomorrow the sole repository of all your faith. Tomorrow is different story and may be you will get to know about it at some other time…..