Love

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Love is not holding up a person like a roof

Being held up in the air by a solitary pillar;

Rather it is two trees, separated at their roots

And tips, intertwining and their trunks fusing

In the middle, by pure free will, interconnected

But independent

Incineration

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He burned all his discarded tales,

For fear that within each artificial World

There would be left alive some few people

Believing their existence on paper conferred

The status of Reality. And then he feared

That his own existence and world might well

Be a discarded tale from God's typewriter,

Awaiting Incineration

Typewriter

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He banged out a poem with great rapidity

In the hopes of receiving great recognition

Like so many before him had done on the

Picture instant share application on his

Phone, as though inspiration and beauty

Could be at one's beck and call the moment

One sits at a

Typewriter

The Hunt

Though I wish to write to write poetry, only prose pours out of me.  I am afraid there is no clever quipping verse in my mind to come pouring out from my soul to showcase in a forum for public view.  My words are too modern, speaking this jargon of a new world too modern for the speech of a clear-voiced muse in singing her sweet (or sour) song.  It is all-too-vulgar to be anything other than a pedestrian prose.  It's too sad to be of interest to the refined mind, to a refined tongue to speak.  But I will print it anyway. Make the clanging noises of an impactful machine, which pounds each letter and word with an insistent bang onto the tied down page, in crude bondage, taking the spanking and slapping like an angry woman, one so disgusted with herself that she would let a man abuse her and then call it joyful, consensual "bondage" as though enslavement could ever be willingly accepted from someone by anyone in their rational mind.  Thus will I write, slapping and punishing with insistence into each line, with utter contemptuous disregard for their sensibility.  I will heed only the sound of that tinny bell, tinny, tinny, tinny! Only the clanging of margin bell shall concern me, a pause button clicking to stop my consciousness's stream.  Otherwise, nothing will prevent my angry rampage.  My words shall be like bullets, piercing through the heart of the page.  That is what my muse is, the Goddess of the Hunt.  She will track down unassailably, beat down both me and my thoughts, until nothing else is left to run ahead.  I will be exhausted, like the fox at the end of a great run, no energy left in him to even die a dignified death.  I shall just fall over with exhaustion.  My soul, if there be such a thing even metaphorically, shall be emptied out in toto before my fury lets up.  No matter what time of day or night.  No matter waht the circumstances.  I will hack out text to the great consternation of the masses.  They might request me to stop, demand that I stop,  command me to cease and desist, but I will not.  I will be, by god the worst writer who walked upon the face of God's green Earth.  I swear that I will not stop till that should happen.  And why should I stop? Who the devil will stop me?

Nevertheles, it would be a lie to say that I don't want to write well.  I actually had illusions of grandeur when I bought this machine.  What twentysomething doesn't want to be the next Jack Kerouack?  Who doesn't want to have written the next modern classic?  Who doesn't want to have written the next modern classic?  Who doesn't want to pen the anthem of his own generation?  I suppose there are people who do not harbour such great ambitions, but I cannot honestly suggest, even to myself that I am one of those lucky men whose desires are so limited.  I am to count myself among those hacks who do want to be heard.  I really can't help it I guess.  Good thing there is still ink left in my ribbon, both figuratively and literally.  The replacements that were due to arrive already have yet to do so.  Creative, metaphorical, ribbons, are irreplaceable, of course, which is what makes them so precious.  One must simply type, simply write with a feverish pitch.  Otherwise there is no salvation.  The Goddess of the Hunt will forgive all sins but lack of enthusiasm.  That, she will punish most severely.  She will herself shoot down like a dog a hunter who refuses to submit himself to the chase with all heart.  So I will be enthusiastic.

The Most Real He'd Ever Felt

In retrospect, that was the most he'd ever cried.  Not another night in childhood, not another day in adulthood.  That one drunken night of confessing his love, when he'd had two whiskys too many with no food in his stomach and yet hadn't thrown up.  Normally throwing up never made him feel any better.  But he wishes he'd thrown up, wishes he'd stopped bawling and just gotten the elixir of truth out of his gut.

It's quite embarrassing, telling the truth so openly, so uneloquently.  Really it's the attention from others that screws the pooch.  When a grown man with scruff on his face bawls like a child who's been savagely spanked, crying about love, about being in love, in the arms of the one he loves, in a room locked so that he doesn't escape and run into an oncoming truck.... people notice!  Well it should seem quite obvious that people would notice.  If I could have painted a canvas instead of having to paint with words, the truth would have become obvious ad nauseam.  A grown man crying....  How silly, how pathetic, how... how foolish!  

Well... only to the one whose sleeves have become wet with this boy's tears, and to those who've had their party ruined by a sloppy drunk.  To the bawling, bumbling idiot — to him — this was the most real he'd felt.

Vratam

Viswanathapuram was abuzz with activity.  Ramayyar's son, Sreenivasan [known to all as Cheenu'], who was the first BA in the nearest ten villages, was getting married to Krishnayyar's daughter, Janaki.  Ramayyar and Krishnayyar were the two wealthiest landowners in all of Palakkad and so of course, the wedding was a great affair involving about 500 wedding guests from all the surrounding villages and none other than the great maestro Tanjavur Ramanatha Ayyangar singing on the evening of the wedding. 

Janaki was 11 and Cheenu was 21, and their marriage was one considered a perfect match—'pattukku pattu poruttam!' ('a ten out of ten match!') as the astrologer said with gleeful astonishment to all those who came to him.  At her age, Janaki was blossoming into a beautiful young woman.  Cheenu was already the pride and joy of every household in Viswanathapuram, and quite a handsome young man to boot.  He never failed to turn every head as he walked about, his ottaveshti around his waist, his milk-white chest and torso uncovered and adorned by a lone gleaming white poonal.      His thick hair was knotted back in a tight sikhai, and the soft beard accented the big blue-stoned kadukkan on his ears.  Not only was Cheenu the first BA in the area, and that too a graduate with Distinction, he was a great singer, knew how to chant the Yajur-veda with a rare perfection of pronunciation and pitch and was the paradigm of respect to his elders.  Indeed, this was a match made in heaven — a union not just of the earthly Satyavan and Savitri, but the union of two illustrious families.  'A matter of great importance for all of us,' said the elders.

The wedding day that is, the final day when the knot would be tied, was nearing.  Already 5 days of the wedding had passed with great pomp and circumstance.  The various sections of society were all very pleased, especially the gossip mongers.  There was usually something to complain about, but there was nothing this time.  Everyone was forced to feel satisfied.  Their deep bellies were so well-provided-for that they couldn't even find an excuse to feel sorry for themselves.  So instead they talked about the world beyond Viswanathapuram.  About how the white races in far away Europe were fighting each other for land.  Though they talked at length about the merits of the German position versus the British position, ultimately some old fart would say 'Raman anda enna, Ravanan anda namakku enna oy!  Neenkallam vendatattu pesi pesi othavankikkapporel!'  ('Who cares whether Rama rules or Ravana?  You people are going to get into deep trouble talking all this nonsense about politics.) That piece of folk wisdom would, of course, restore peace.  The year was 1916 and the Great War had been going on for some time now.  But of course in Viswanathapuram the fights were more often between women in various households, and among neighbours.  Maybe the Great War in Europe wasn't so bad after all.

The only conspicuous absence on the sixth day of the weding was, of course, the mappillaitozhan — Cheenu's best man,  Sankaran.  Sankaran was the same age as Cheenu, but a little shorter and somewhat thinner and darker than Cheenu, whose musculature was his best feature.  He was just as handsome as Cheenu, and of course, other Brahmin fathers of equal financial position to his own had already begun to calculate how much dowry they would have to pay for their daughters to have him as their bridegroom.  He had not gone to college like Cheenu had.  In fact, his education was entirely traditional.  Sankaran did know English, however, as a side-effect of his friendship with Cheenu.  The two had been friends for as long as anyone could remember.  Sankaran was Ramanatha Sastri's only son, a poor lad for whom all the mothers' hearts bled, for he had been orphaned at birth by the death of his mother, a woman of weak constitution.  He'd been raised by his father, a pious if strict man who gave his son everything a poor scholar's boy could look forward to except tender affection.  And Sankaran found his affection in his constant companion, Cheenu. 

Now, on this, the sixth day of the wedding, Sankaran was nowhere to be found in the magnificent pandal that had been raised in front of Krishnayyar's palatial house on Kizhakke Vasal Street.   Rather, an inquiring eye would have found him wandering alone in Ramayyar's paddy fields, singing 'Sita kalyana vaibhogame... Rama kalayana vaibhogame....' in a voice that quievered every few syllables.  The look on his countenance was not that of a young man happy for his friend.  There was a deep pain that made even the workers in the fields wonder what had happened to the young swami as they hastened to remove themselves from his presence so as to not cause pollution. 

Sankaran, who brooked no caste prejudice as a matter of course, didn't even seem to notice the workers trying to hide.  In fact, his mind was not there in the fields at all.  It was somewhere else.  He saw the tying of the knot that was to take place tomorrow; Cheenu's muscular arms and strong hands tying the first knot deftly and letting the other two be done by his sister and mother.  He saw Cheenu and Janaki's first year of festivals.  He saw the joy that would accompany the birth of their first child, a boy.  He saw Cheenu playing with his sons, performing their upanayanam and so much more.  And where was he?  Sankaran was nowhere in these pictures.  Sankaran was nothing.

Sankaran crossed the fields and wandered down to the river bank.  It was noon, and the sun was high in the sky.  There, a few hundred yards away downstream, launderers washed and chatted and quarrelled like a flock of ducks.  Sankaran waded into the river and stood waist deep and performed his sandhyavandanam without any of the necessary utensils.  He walked back up onto the bank and strode up a group of flat rocks to sit and do his meditation, being soaked head to toe.  He recited the Gayatri in his mind, 'Om bhur bhuva suvaha tatsavitur varenyam.  Bhargo devasya dhimahi.  Dhiyo yo nah pracodayat.'  Sankaran had mastered great levels of concentration and had easily gone up to 10,008 recitations.  But now, his mind was a rein that had slipped from the hands of his intellect, unable to control the horses of his senses, which were galloping at breakneck speed toward emotions and memories.  Again and again he tried to regain control of his mind but today it would just not allow the intellect to grasp itself.  Finally, having recited merely 108 Gayatris he gave up.  He hastily finished the other portions of the sandhya and sat there, numbed and unable to get his thoughts in order. 

Had everything been a flash in the pan?  A sky-lotus?  A complete and utter chimera?   Was this what love meant?  And was he such a fool that he'd believed Cheenu?  Questions and self-criticism and anger and sorrow and frustration assailed him from all sides.

Sankaran's thoughts slipped slowly back to that evening, when they were 15 years old.  That night, after slipping away together from the temple where everyone was engaged in the Sivaratri celebrations for which Viswanathapuram was famous, they had consummated their love for the first time.  It had happened really quite suddenly.  Neither really had any doubt when it happened, but afterwards, when they hastily bathed at midnight in the river before rushing back to the temple, Sankaran couldn't help asking Cheenu, 'Itellam tappillayo Cheenu?  Ennada nameto periya tappu pannittom enna thonnal alaiyadichende irukku....  Ennada itukkellam prayaschittam?'  ('Isn't all this wrong, Cheenu? Thought that we've done something awful keeps tormenting me.  What's the penance for this?') Cheenu had said after a moment's thought, 'Brahmacariya kalyanam vendam ennutan vakkanam Sankara.  Vere oru vazhiyum teriyalai.  Appa amma ellarum deshyappeduva.  Analum dridhama vendam ennum tan chollavendivarum.  Romba posukkina uravittu nama Kasikku poyiduvom.  Angana nama chenthe irukkalam.'  ('We'll have to remain Brahmacharis and not get married, Sankara.  I don't see any other way.  Our father and my mother will all get angry, but we must stay resolute and refuse to get married.  If they push us too much, then we'll run away together to Kasi.  Over there we could live together.) Sankaran nodded quietly and then said, 'Sari.  Ni chollarathaye pannalam.' ('Alright, we'll do what you suggest.') They had walked back to the temple wordlessly, holding hands all the way. 

After that, it had happened so many times.  They had promised themselves they would be celibate, but neither could keep their word.  And to atone, they would fast.  Cheenu, whose mother was an innocent housewife who doted on her son, would have a hard time and would end up breaking his fast before the evening was out.  Sankaran's father never questioned him; he trusted his son completely and knew that if his son was fasting in atonement, that he had done a good job as a father. 

The years had flown by.  Cheenu had gone to distant Madras and gotten his BA with distinction in English and was looking at a great career in the Civil Service.  And when the time came, though he'd been the one to suggest the penance, he gave into the marriage proposal.  Sankaran heard the news from other friends, but he was too proud to ever question Cheenu about it.  He just smiled broadly outside and sobbed inside when he saw Cheenu [who had a meek and guilty look on his face] and patted him on the shoulder and said, 'Nalla poruttam kadachirukku ennu jyotsyar chollarar.  Ore vayasilirukkaravala nama asirvadam pannakkudathu.  Ana nee ennodu thozhan.  Patinarum pettru peruvazhu Cheenu.'  ('The astrologer says you have a great match.  We shouldn't bless those who are of the same age as us.  Yet, you're my friend.  May you live long to see a full life.)

His thoughts slowly returned to the present when he heard the slapping of the clothes against the rock by the launderers.  He came to a decision.  He nodded firmly and walked off to the pandal with a smile on his face.  Everyone who'd been searching for him asked him where he'd been.  He just smiled and said that he'd been performing his sandhya and had lost track of time.  The elders, of course, gave proud meaningful looks and beamed at Ramanatha Sastri, who stoically [but inwardly with pride] told his son to go and join his friend.  That day and the next, Sankaran, Cheenu and all their friends spent together.

Once the hangover of the grand wedding feast had lifted, people began inquiring about Sankaran's prospects.  He was the second-most-eligible bachelor in Viswanathapuram if only because of his lack of western education and the penury of his father.  Nonetheless, the more conservative among the Brahmins saw both as virtues.  The horoscopes started pouring in and Ramanatha Sastri, who was an expert astrologer himself selected an alliance for his son with a 12-year-old-girl from Govindarajapuram and informed his son that his marriage would be taking place on the 15th of Masi.

To say Sankaran was afraid of his father would be a lie.  Rather, he approached him with the severest discipline and decorum; there was little emotional speech between them.  He took the same approach in telling his father of his decision.  'Appa, enakku kalyanam vendam.  Nan thirumanichachu.  Nan brahmachariyathan iruppen.' ('Father, I don't want to get married.  I've decided.  I'll stay a Brahmachari.') Ramanatha Sastri didn't flinch.  He smiled drily and walked away.  He knew his son.  He would have his reasons.  And though he didn't know how to show affection for his son, he loved and respected him.  No matter how much embarrassment it would cause him now, he'd retract the alliance and reject others by telling them what his son had said.  He apologised profusely to the girl's father, who though a little annoyed, respected Ramanatha Sastri enough on a personal level to accept it.  Thankfully, the matter had not yet become public knowledge, so face was saved by everyone involved.

Cheenu approached Sankaran when he eventually heard the news.  He'd been busy making the rounds with his wife's relations.  He came to Sankaran, who had just finished his sandhya at their usual spot on the river and was off on the way home, with a look of pain and sorrow.  Sankaran smiled as broadly as he had.  Cheenu began, 'Sankara ni enna nanachindirukkay?  Eppadi itu sariyakum?'  ('Sankara, what do you think you're doing?  How can this be right?') Sankaran cut him short:  'Nan vratam eduttal apram mattamatten Cheenu.  Ni ennappatti kavalappadavendam.  Nan cheera iruppen; niyum athupole irukkanam.'  ('I've made a vow and I won't change my mind, Cheenu.  Don't worry about me.  I'll prosper; I wish the same for you.')  With that, Sankaran walked off as the Sun set above their heads, Cheenu looking on after the friend, the lover he knew he'd lost forever.

Turning 24

Akaky looks at himself in the mirror as he puts on his favourite denim shirt and brown pants.  His eyes see not a 24-year-old man, but rather a five-year-old child wearing his father's over-sized clothes.  The beard of a week or two, scraggly and still a little patchy underneath the chin, seems out of place on a face that would otherwise seem as childish as befits the man wearing his clothes.  His hair is a mess of Brylcream and the unwashed gunk of the last three days.  He's recovering from a fever that caused him to almost go into delirium and his face looks wan and his already small and deep-set eyes look even more like they're peeking out between the overhang of the forehead and the high cheek bones.

Somehow there's something that doesn't quite feel very adult about him.  Maybe it's the shirt hanging loose off his shoulders, maybe it's that the pants look loose on his waist as he tries to hold them up at waist length with his hands in his pockets.  It could also be the patchy beard, which if shaved, would reveal a naive face, too pale and white for his nationality.

Akaky looks at himself and he can't help smiling that wry smile of his.  The smile that is perhaps the most incongruous but also the most indelible part of him.  Though he looks childish to himself beneath the trappings, the smile is that of a wizened old man.  A tough old bird who's smoked Camel unfiltered's all his life so his voice is like gravel in a tin can.  Such an old man's smile, exuding sarcasm and a kind of rugged realism about life.  That smile, along with the wrinkles on his forehead, the ever-deepening wrinkles and the few grey hairs that threaten to become the many grey hairs.  All of this... perhaps, these ephemera are what make Akaky 24 years old today.  Perhaps this is the trick to aging.  With each year, another wrinkle, another shock of grey hair, another notch of sarcasm and unshakeable coarseness.

The portrait of the artist as a ... man.

The Creative Process

I wonder whether one needs to make up an entire story, from head to toe, for it to be deemed fiction. Why not just dye the hair, give it a nosejob, and a facial, paint the nails and put some make up on reality? Doesn't that qualify as fiction too?

If it does qualify as fiction, then I suppose all the stories we tell of our own lives are fictitious. As we repeat the same story over and over again, — the one about escaping from a crazed subway mugger, or the one about the time I got so drunk that I ended up kicking a vending machine open, — every single time... we add new details, change emotions, change the whole grand scope of the event.

Doesn't that qualify as fiction? Isn't that creative? Because if it is, then everything I've written here is fiction, and if it isn't, then nothing here is creative.

With taste

Ignore me if you must, mon cher. Never pick up when I call you; don't respond to my letters; avoid me in person. It seems that you must ruin our friendship of ten years, just to ... for what? What could your motive be?

Ignore me, if you must, mon cher. It must bring you some joy, some secret pleasure in thinking of my suffering, perhaps not thinking of my suffering. You must be so oblivious to others' feelings that I must not rise to the level of consciousness within your being. I must be simply non-existent in your mind.

Ignore me, if you must, mon cher. Pretend that you did not tempt my foolish heart with sweet nothings, with goodbyes of 'Ciao bello!' Pretend that you did not once ask me to move in prematurely. Pretend that it is all nothing. Perhaps some years down the line, you will pretend also that you did not kiss me as you held my hand in a dark theater, as your dark musk enveloped my soul, and I, for a moment, rejoiced in something that was never to be.

Ignore me, if you must, mon cher. Ignore me, indeed, but do it with some taste, for the way you do it now is really rather ugly.

To T.S. (2009)

O love, what love burns in my heart!
A love that dares not speak out loud its own name for fear of
Hurting those wonderful bejewelled ears;
A love so tender that it pains,
Pains my heart so to see your
Red lips and not kiss them;
A love that wants naught to hear
But your voice say to me,
“I want you” (or even “Hi.”)

O ye gods! What have I done?
What torture have I inflicted
On another that I should
Thus be tortured too! —
Pierced by the arrows of Eros
Have I been that not a moment goes by without my thoughts
Are not filled by that wondrous,
Kind, beautiful face!

O love, my dear — release me,
Forever release with cruel,
Hurting words, that my heart
May die to become stone!
May I feel no more the pangs
Of such a passion;
May I love no more, no!
Not another one should enter
My heart as you have!
Speak cruelly, my dear;
Clip the wings of Cupid
That he dare fly not.
O release me my love, that
None, no! — a name
Not yours shall ever enter
My poor heart. Yet do — release me,
For I know that you love me not
Nor regard this poor beating bloody heart of mine.

Waiting

He waited. He had waited for days now, for weeks. He waited again and again and again in the false hope that he would call. He didn't call: not in seconds, minutes, hours, days or weeks. Of course his waiting hadn't been passive. He tried, more than once, to call him, but without effect.

What was he waiting for? What was he expecting would happen? That there could be any point was something only a madman would believe. Of course, for some time now he'd been doubting his own sanity. So what then? "It's beyond all reason," he would say aloud to himself when there was no one around to hear; he said the same thing in his mind when there were others to hear so that they wouldn't hear.

Waiting made him a victim: he loved that — he hated that. Maybe he wasn't a victim. Maybe he was just a ****ing a*****e.

Terror

He knew that he was wasting his time, surfing the internet, and looking at the Facebook pages and photographs of people he had never met, nor would ever meet. He had many more important things to do, like his graduate school applications, or reading for pleasure and intellectual development. But he liked doing this more; he felt as though he were learning a lot more by getting glimpses of humanity at its boring everyday, at birthdays, games, get-togethers, where people felt the need to record the memory of a fleeting moment for all time yet to come.

He was learning what it was like to be a human being. This was a lesson he felt he really needed to learn, since he'd lost touch with his own humanness along the way. It is puzzling that losing one's own humanity is possible. After all, in the Sanskrit verse, "humanness is what comes of being human, as cowness comes of being a cow." So how could he have ever lost it, his "ownmostness"? But such was the mystery that had crept into his mind of late. He didn't feel as though he were himself; he didn't feel as though he were anyone. He had become empty, an empty coffee cup at the diner, waiting to be filled by the pretty waitress who was really an actress.

What filled that cup more than anything was terror and fear. He had only seen this kind of terror in another person; he was much older, and by any measure someone who'd failed to make use of the opportunities given to him. But now he had begun to experience it himself. Terror because he didn't know where he was going; terror because there was nothing before his mind. This must be the feeling of convicts at the gallows or the chair, right before the trap door opened and the neck broke painfully, or right before the switch was flipped and one was fried in an oilless pan. It must also be the feeling of those set afloat on canoes in exile as they had nothing but a hostile crowd behind them and terrifying infinity and emptiness before them.

Terror. This is what defined his life now, a formless force.

Existence Refined

His hand shook with a slight tremor as he took a long and hungry drag of the cigarette. He breathed the smoke deep into his lungs with the cold winter air, forgetting but for a moment the piercing wind and enjoying the feeling of an eternal craving quenched. For a moment he felt satisfied, as his mind suddenly seemed to open up; the clarity of drinking ten cups of coffee in a breath invigorated his soul. "This is life," a voice told him from within the deep recesses of the unconscious.

Then, the bitter taste of the cheaply made cigarette, the tobacco and the leaf in which it was wrapped, struck him as a hammer on his tongue. For a moment he was disgusted, absolutely repulsed by the aftertaste, but like with every other bitterness that comes with the short-lived pleasures of life, he became used to it. Indeed, he received a perverse enjoyment from it.

"Wow, I could really get used to this," he said aloud to his friends, who responded with laughter and chiding humour. "Well, you probably shouldn't smoke anymore then," they said; "You don't want to get addicted." More laughter.

But he knew even as he laughed in retort that they were joking, that the simple pleasure of a slow, "classy way of committing suicide" as Vonnegut had once described it would not be denied him and indeed that it could not be denied him. This was his expression of freedom, to do it for the sake of doing it.

Thinking thus, and taking a few last drags of the quickly extinguishing cigarette, he stepped out the last sparks and lit another and took another drag, reliving that first moment all over again.

Knife in the Heart

Outside, the car siren blared at intervals. What set it off or what kept it going he could not tell. His mind found one more parallel metaphor between the world outside and that within. The siren was just like his father, a man he had barely ever known: what set off the emptiness and bitterness of his father's soul, or what sustained it, he could not tell. And somehow, this bitterness, the smoldering anger and self-hate seemed directed toward him, though he knew it was not.

He knew for sure that his father was not the cruel, cold-hearted man he seemed to his mother. He felt it with all his heart, that this poor devil — ruined by circumstances as much as by alternating periods of passivity, over-confidence, and even a penury of spirit, — was, at heart, kind, caring, and even a person full of compassion. He knew it, or he thought he knew it, or wanted to know.

A terrible sorrow filled up his eyes and choked his throat as he saw him get back into his car and drive back to work. He knew somehow that his father (and he could never bring himself to call him 'dad') did not want to go back, but even if he had stayed, what would it have achieved? There would have been naught but more stupid bickering over money and the bills between his parents (as if there were not enough already).

The trouble was that his mother was an unforgiving woman, though indeed well-meaning. All she needed to do was to be more tactful, but she would not, she could not — it was neither in her nature nor was she willing to be more tactful.

For a moment, he was about to cry, to burst into tears. He wanted to cry for his father, for his mother, and perhaps most of all for himself; then, the telephone rang.

Thinker Me

I think it is in my father's family normally to think too much when one has free time (or time when nothing can be done) to think. Think too much, to brood, that is. I've seen my grandfather, who's now in his middle 80's, sitting on the porch in his wood-and-cloth easy chair in the afternoons, on rainy days especially, seemingly looking through thick glasses (I am told the thickest possible prescription) into nothing at all with his eyes glazed over with the reminiscence of times past. The man has ironically gone through much in his rather uneventful life, through much embarrassment, much suffering, and certainly much disappointment. The only reason I think he has lived this long and is as healthy as he is,— and his being alive today is a great surprise to me— must be his deep faith.

But I think like my grandfather my father is one who thinks too much, and at my age, young though I still am, I am starting to detect this quality that I once used to think came with age and experience. I think it is my very being to think about things, to regret, to hope, to simply brood on life. Now that I think about it, even as I child, my favourite (though I admit that it was not a conscious choice) pastime was brooding. I would spend endless hours in my room, especially after the death of my maternal grandfather, thinking about the future, thinking about the past and thinking about nothing in particular. Of course, with age, this habit (or should I call it instinct?) has only become worse. Now, it is not merely a passive occasion, especially as the time that I have to myself (in commuting, where one cannot do anything else) has increased in amount.

Indeed with age, the content of my thoughts has changed a lot as well. Once, I used to think of my joining my father, far removed from me by circumstance. I used to think of my grandfather, who loved me and spoiled me with gifts. Now, I think about friends, about all those wrong turns I've made with them, about all those missed opportunities to have asked a girl on a date. I feel rather like every teenager, and then some. Indeed, most teenagers don't have the added curse of thinking about ethics, which I do. I think on dating — I mean that I actually dissect the merits and demerits and the implications for myself. I worry about my parents, I worry about what it would mean to them I were to date, though their point that it could potentially ruin my studies through distraction is a valid point. I think about this, I think about this and a thousand other things. 'Cogito, ergo sum.' — 'I think, therefore I am.'

Long Night's Tale

I remember that time when I went to the opera. I was tempted by the offer of free tickets to balcony seats (and they were really good seats too) It was some stupid thing in French, and though the orchestra was amazing, the plot was disgusting — like that bad coffee you get from some cheap bodega, it left a bad taste in my mouth.

Outside, it had been cold even before I went in, as I had not thought that November in New York could be this cold. I had worn my dad’s blue wool pea-coat, that blue one he had gotten a few years ago from Gap or some similar store for one of his three birthdays (don’t ask, it’s a long story, maybe one I will treat later in another couple of pages). It was cold and windy, I felt stupid not having worn that raincoat in addition to this seemingly threadbare pea-coat. The condition was made worse by the fact that rain had been predicted by some television weatherman and so I was forced to carry my full-length umbrella, leaving one hand exposed to the cold. I was really quite glad when others from my school had come and we went inside to see the opera.

Anyway, after having borne through the two-and-a-half hours of operatic singing and the incredible knee pain, I was glad to leave the opera. My parents had come to pick me up after seeing some movie of their own, as they were unwilling to let me brave the long subway ride with the ten-thousand transfers. It was a blessing on my part too because if I had taken subway, I would have had to wait for another forty-five minutes for that bus. But the killer was none of this — not the burning hunger, not the knee stiffness and pain, and not the torrential flooding rain that was falling outside, which reminded me not of the typical New York rain-shower, but the monsoon rains that I had for years borne in tropical South India. For each first day of school, June the first there, the new uniforms, the new shoes, and the neatly combed hair and powdered faces of all the students for their first day would be ruined in the rain that broke umbrellas like an elephant does long stalks of sugarcanes and heavy cocoanuts. But it wasn’t even this rain that was bad.

The fact of the matter was, that though my leather shoes were getting wet inside and out as I was making a run across the flooding, bowl-shaped courtyard of the opera house, the worst part of the night was a sight from the next block. It was that homeless man, very likely insane, sitting in that rain, screaming ‘Won’t somebody help me? Please!’ The man was just sitting there crying, a cup in hand, filled with either that rainwater or his tears, but who could tell in that rain? Everyone was just rushing by, trying not to get wet, the cars and yellow cabs trying not to ram into each other. Everyone was just trying to get hell out of that rain as soon as possible, and this man, unknown, unnamed was crying for help. As it were, with the other half of the world rushing to get somewhere, I too ran across the street, annoyed by his cries, and sought the cozy, warm comforts of my parents car.

As we drove away, I tried not to think of him or that disgusting opera. ‘Think happy thoughts,’ I said to myself inside. ‘Think warm, cool, happy thoughts.’ The rain outside roared on as ever, falling in torrents. I still wonder sometimes when I am in subway, stuck between two heavy sleepers and my arms pinned down, what happened to that man. Whatever happened to thee o’ nameless one...?