Why me?

I sat there, in the cafe, tapping my fingers against the table. There was a gentle breeze that swept my hair back and for a moment, there was an eerie silence permeating all around me. I close my eyes, dramatically, as I soaked in that singular moment of serenity. Somewhere a radio was softly singing Simon & Garfunkel; a different time, a different age.

"I am a rock, I am an island...", I whispered, subjecting myself to the tunes that brought me up. I remembered my father and the day he showed me that CD for the very first time.

A hand placed itself gently on my left shoulder as I let nostalgia overcome me. I jerked my eyes open and turned around, around to that wonderous sight for sore eyes. Relapsing to my adolescent ways, I stood up clumsily with an uneasy grin trying to mask my discomfort. I mumbled, "Hi".

She smiled, an omnicognizant look, one that reminded you of God and candy and home and all that is supposed to be good about the world. Like then. Like always. She replied, "How have you been?". I didn't reply but just motioned for her to sit down. And we sat.

I looked at her. That first time, the distant face in the crowd. A moment of insanity as I asked her out with that ostensibly suave line, "Will you marry me? Now?". That was so far in the past, it seemed unreal. And then, for some reason, all I remember is her leaving me. Just like that, out of the blue.

"I hear you are doing well?", she laboured on with an unresponsive me. I woke up from the daze to answer, "Yes, yes. Finishing my PhD. Almost engaged... and you?" "I'm doing well too. I got married last year..." The rest of the words faded as I was seeing her but unable to comprehend what exactly she was still saying. I had to know. Now.

"So why? Why did you go? Was it me or not? Where did you go? Why didn't you tell me anything? Did I do anything wrong?". Those were the questions on my mind. Swarming around, teeming insects in my cerebral cage. But all the words which escaped and manifested themselves were, "Why me?".

She remained quiet. She was probably expecting this. Remained a stoic picture of apathy. I assume she was rehearsing her lines. Her script for this very real movie.

"Don't try to pick holes in the past. What happened then was true in that time and context. It wasn't you. It wasn't me either. It was just as it was. Do you wish for me to continue?"

I was being the silent statue now. I nodded. No.

She stood up. "Think of me as your poison. You were able to withstand me then. I was your reality check. I did really like you once upon a time. But circumstances and well..." She quiesced. She mustered up courage as she strove on, "All the best for the future. I hope we can..."

"No."I abruptly interrupted. "I wish you all the best in your life as well. Que sera sera." I stood up as well and bade farewell. We parted ways once again.


----


For friction acts in the direction opposite to the direction of motion.

And T, dream, thyme and asparagus.

Fiction,
H

We want you...

I have been observing my co-author for the last few months. He has become a creature of turmoil and chaos, with all nature leaving him groping for the a meal made of the fruits of order or the dove of peace like Tantalus in Hades. What has caused this profound sea change in my old compadre, I asked myself one dark night, tossing and turning on my bed. What has left him with thoughts that flit and flot, fleetly flee and fly, leaving him not with a moment of respite. Then it came to me - Has a certain thrush, one of the darker hues, left a mark on him? Could it be that a certain babe, with a penchant for bad repartee, made a remark that has left him brooding? I look out of my window - day dreaming of the calm sea and Red wood groves, of bears searching for honey and wolves hunting little pigs, and find that good ol' Yankee ingenuity (here's to macaroni) saves the day yet again.

And so, dear reader, I ask you on behalf of that proud man, unwilling to bend, that, as you sit on to tea today, eating cupcakes and biscuits, you think kindly of us and the tales that we tell, of raconteurs and racoons, of tricksters and pixies, of caraway seeds and faraway trees and while you do so, you brighten our days as we hope we have done yours.

Brighten our days, I say, by clicking on a little button and writing a word, maybe two, through compliments or abuses, through a little word of wisdom, of the latests gossip, or a little story perhaps, of Snow White and the Big Bad Wolf and how they came to love each other. Show us your mind as we have shown you ours.

Speaking of tales and tea and Marie biscuits, I am reminded of the days when we were young, reading our Enid Blytons and their magnificent tea spreads - cakes of every kind, hot scones, home-made butter, fresh cream, litres and litres of tea and orange marmelade. Every weekend, I would wake around 730 and lie awake on my bed till about 900 reading the many adventures of Fatty and the Five Find outers, George and the Famous Five or Jupiter Jones and Hitchcock's merry trio. I had my fair share of the Hardy Boys too, but never found them as interesting as the Nancy Drews. I always found that Nancy Drew did a lot more thinking and legwork (she had the legs for it, I suppose); however, I never read the Case files - they were too girly for my liking - all mushy stuff with La Femme Drew entrapped more by her latest crush than the villainous fiend in the stories.

Sunday afternoons remain lazy though and the ritual too, has not changed by much, though the books have, the authors have, the Carolyn Keenes have become Rex Stouts, the Enid Blytons have become Mervyn Peakes, but the tales are the same. And with that, come memories of a boy - a boy with a little girl called Wendy, a boy who could fight, who could fly and who could Cock-A-Doodle Doo!! I can see me.

And so, gentle reader, allow me to ask again that you cure my friend of his melancholy - if you love our posts, tell your friends to read us, else, tell your enemies.

So, good night unto you all.
Give me your hands, if we be friends,
And Robin shall restore amends.

-Puck, Robin Goodfellow,
A Midsummer Night's Dream

And H, poison, rock and home.

Oink,
T

Don't hate the player

We meet such interesting people in our lives. I have always been fascinated by the fact that there are 8 billion people on this Earth. 8,000,000,000. That's like a nauseatingly large number. In my more misanthropic moments, I am known to prophesise a systemic global genocide of 7 billion of our wonderful brothers and sisters and restart civilization all over again with a more manageable number. But that's just me being elitist I suppose.

One such character is from the city where I am supposedly based, and I say supposedly because I haven't seen my roommate in nearly two weeks and don't think I will for another two. We were just moving into the city when we went out to search for a mattress maker in the alien metropolitan with bustling streets. We found one such shop, a small one mind you, but the young guy in charge was a talkative one. And he talked of the time he was flown to this wonderful island and asked to make mattreses for a king. How there were a team of nearly 15 mattress makers sweating it out in the playgrounds to create masterpieces for the nearly 500 rooms of the king's palace. In retrospect, I suppose the young garrulous craftsman probably mistook some hotel for a palace but I like the fantasy he wove for that half an hour of my otherwise insipid and very real life.

Another time, I was yet another stereotypical tourist visiting the foreign city of Singapore and being taken on a tour of the city by this rather enterprising guide. His name was Oriental with many onomatopoeic words but the nick name he used to introduce himself was Go. And every half an hour, he would announce his name with much gusto and repeat it multiple times and pump his fists into the air. A funny character. I looked at him and wondered about the life he lead. How many times he would go to same places. Say the same things. Crack the same jokes. Do the same things. He never seemed bored though. And he certainly wasn't boring. Go Go Go Go .... And I was particularly impressed that he wasn't even perturbed when a matriach of a certain Indian family travelling along with us kept refering to him only as Gopal. She was quite a character though by the way.

Recently I was off on my office retreat which was in exotic Phuket. Being in the organizing committee, I arrived a couple of days early. The first person I met at the airport was a man handling a part of the gigantic transportation. His name was again quite complicated to pronounce but he relieved me when he asked me to call him by what I assume is a necessity for the foreigners, a nick name. His name was YoYo. And YoYo was in his early thirties, unused to the concept of shaving, unkempt hair and smoked Marlbaro lights, like the rest of Thailand. And he was quite the cool customer for apart from this transportation operations, he also owned what he described to me as a beer bar. Where I assume, and this is a hypothesis, that one gets beer. Actually he later clarified that it was a small restaurant and he even invited me to come there and try the local fish. I quickly declined the offer stating I was a pure vegetarian. He sighed in disappointment and offered to treat me to chicken then. I explained to him that from where we come, chicken was very much a non-vegetarian dish. He was shocked and asked me how I lived and what I ate. I replied abashedly vegetables, animal products and eggs. He laughed.

There is this eccentric person who is sort of heading the project I'm in currently. He is eccentric for a multitude of reasons. For one, he is this Italian who looks huge. Looks huge. Looks like a person who used to play sports but lost such fantastic pleasures when he sold his soul to the corporate world. He sleeps for 2 hours a day. On a good day. He is extremely flirtatious and hits on anything that moves, can move and might move. And the hypothesis on the sports would be extremely well-founded because he has been a footballer, a professional swimmer, a judo, and karate expert and a national ski jumper. He joined B-school with a scholarship and a handsome stipend only to come out with a hundred thousand debt - he blames it on trips to Moscow and Lima. He was also in the army and has driven a tank. He enjoys cigars but most unfortunately, he is probably the only Italian who is allergic to alcohol. Alas. He's getting married soon enough to his Chinese girlfriend in St. Lucia. La vita bella.

One day, I will be interesting too. I will be someone who was a new-age pirate in the Mediterranean who fought sharks with his bare hands. Or a standup comedian in the dark suburbs of Morocco making money on the side by being a spy for the Umbrella Corporation. Or a wizard who befriends a manticore using his hypnotize spell and using it against its master, a warlock. A psychiatrist. A hitman. A football coach. A magician. A levitator.

Who am I kidding. I am never going to be anything more than an engineer who beame a consultant and a mangament consultant and then this entrepeneur who started a novel hardware company called "Fish and" with his long time friend and partner-in-crime which then becomes a multi-trillion dollar empire and then buys this country and names it...

Sheesh.

And T, biscuit, peace and parakeet.

Game on,
H