Sunday, October 15, 2017

Musical walks of life


Part 1: Bombay

As he left his office at 11pm, the security guard at his office gate gave him a pitiful farewell smile. He was getting used to these smiles from everyone: friends, flatmates, colleagues and at times he (turning into both the watcher and the watched) would also end up giving himself a commiserating smile. Hanging his bag with a laptop and a book, he crossed the foot-over-bridge and began walking on the marine drive stretch. Everyday walk on the marine drive listening to his ipod playing old hindi songs helped him calm his restless mind.

The background music from his ipod, the aesthetic settings of marine drive and melancholic feeling of being a corporate slave gave him the perfect setting of being a protagonist from some art movie (the kind of movies which stir our minds instead of our wallets). Then he walked upto the Church Gate station and took on the fast local train to Andheri, where lived with his 3 flatmates in a tiny apartment. Everyday, he enjoyed standing on the gate of the train with the wind gushing on his face, it added on to that art movie feeling. Then after getting down at Andheri station, being denied by several auto guys he started to walk towards his home. And in that very walk, from the railway station to his home, every day, he passed through several vendors, some who sold tea, some who sold footwears and all these vendors were oblivious of his presence while he kept walking like a protagonist acting in his own soulful art movie.

And when he entered the lift of his building, his attention fell to the apt lyrics of the song playing in his ipod:
"Gham aur khushi mein farq naa mehsoos ho jahaan,
main dil ko us mukaam par laata chalaa gaya,
main zindagi kaa saath nibhaata chalaa gaya" 


Part 2: Delhi

It was a charming Delhi winter and he left his office early and boarded the local metro. Unlike the doors of the local Mumbai train, the doors of the metro would shut and that made him feel claustrophobic. He got off from the Green Park metro station and started walking towards his home. The pleasant weather was conducive for a walk. He took out his mobile phone and ear phones to listen to the FM radio to aid his walk. Somehow he always needed a background music for his walks. The thought of his stolen ipod  came to his mind, it had been one of his closest friends during his Bombay days; sadly it had been pick-pocketed in the crowded Delhi metro.

And in the walk from the metro and his home, he stopped by to eat a plate of steamed chicken momos. He enjoyed the idea of eating under the open sky and he knew that those momos tasted well only in this set of ambience because once he had got them packed for his flatmates and when they ate it there, momos didn't seam tasty at all. So today he ate his momos, paid his bill, thanked the vendor and started walking to his apartment listening to the RJ playing a soulful song which was serendipitously his most played song in the old ipod:

"Barbaadiyon ka shok manaana fizul thaa,
barbaadiyon ka jashn manaata chalaa gaya,
main zindagi kaa saath nibhaata chalaa gayaa"

Part 3: Bangalore

He shut down his cafe doors at around 11pm and after having dinner with his team, he walked back home.

Bangalore weather was really pleasant for good long walks but sadly the roads weren't (contrary to delhi where earth was conducive and the sky was not). And as he walked, he didn't want to analyse much as to where he was going towards in his entrepreneurial journey, all he knew was that he had walked away from the mediocrity of corporate life. And at times walking-away was more crucial than walking-towards.

And then amongst the tiny drizzle falling across the yellow street lamp, a sudden thought of his past travel to the hills came to his mind and the pleasant nostalgia brought relief to his mind amidst so much chaos and pandemonium. As he reached the gate, he smiled at the security guard of the apartment and exchanged the regular well-wishing pleasantries with him. The security guard, having found someone to share his happiness with, took out the recently bought second-hand mobile phone and proudly navigated him through some of the already installed apps like Uber, Whatsapp and flipkart, for which the guard had paid extra money. He even played some of the music from the songs which might have been downloaded by the previous owner of the phone. One of the songs triggered very strong emotions in him for the lyrics were:

"Jo mil gaya, use muqaddar samajh liya
jo kho gaya usko bhulaata chalaa gaya
main zindagi kaa saath nibhaata chala gaya"

Saturday, September 30, 2017

The Strangers


"The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion"- Albert Camus

The Guy 

This is a story about a guy who was completely carefree. He was as free as a freebird, no one ever saw him worried and his attitude was truly devil-may-care kind.  Some liked him, mostly hated him, but he didn't care. Elderly men suggested him to start caring about his career, elderly women suggested him to start caring about his relationships, but very few suggested him to be the way he was. He did not care about any of their suggestions and continued to be the way he was.

One fine day he met a girl who asked him why-are-you-the-way-you-are. He answered in his typical . idiosyncratic manner I-am-the-way-I-am. But then when he saw her eyes in detail, he saw beauty, a raw black and white beauty. He saw that rare kind of beauty which offered him the glimpse of eternity that he wanted to stretch out over the whole of time. She being a sensitive girl noticed the change in him having seen her beautiful eyes.


The Girl 

This is a story about a sensitive girl whose life was a perpetual pendulum swinging between her strong mind and her fragile heart.  An outsider, she felt that she never belonged-to nor could fit-in anywhere. Life felt like a movie to her and everyone except she herself felt like a character from a movie. She was just one spectator watching the movie from outside the frame. One fine evening, a friend of her told her about this completely carefree guy who didn't care and that she, who had a thing for "different", should meet him. Initially she was reluctant but then lot many people had told her that he was actually "different". So she decided to meet him and ask him why-was-he-the-way-he-was.

The Guy and The Girl 

This is a story about a guy and a girl who fell in love with each other. It all started when he saw beauty in her eyes and she found a companion in his indifference. It all started when he felt her presence and the worship of her eyes, and then his heart had turned to her in quiet sufferance of her gaze, without shame or wantonness. No, it all started when the girl first heard about the guy being different. Ideally, by that logic it all started when he (or she) was born. But then it was love, logic didn't apply there. The Guy started caring and the Girl stopped feeling like an outsider. Both stepped in the frame of their own movies and thus their unfettered love story began.

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                                                                                                                                                                                           Picture: Close Noir Art by Quibe
                                                                                                                                                                         Inspiration: Albert Camus and James Joyce

Wednesday, April 12, 2017

Of the hills and the seas


Blessed is he, for the hills are his family and the seas are his friends...


Hills are his family



Unsettled in every city, departing from every gate, it is in the hills he finds his home. Isn't he, the free bird, expected to make a home above all those abysses?  Hills are his bright home, supportive family and the omnipresent teacher. Hills taught him to possess less for he who possesses little is so much the less possessed: praised be a moderate poverty.

Up there, the food is pure, the air is fresh, the people are pure. The trees sway, the flowers blossom, the birds chirp for he, their own, is back in his physical self.  He liked to lie here where children play, beside that oak tree, among thistles and red poppies.

The outsider feeling evaporates when he is wandering in the hills. They bless him with the messages of humility, the joys of giving and to embrace the peaks and troughs of life.

And thus he has become the river, beautifully carved into the landscape, nourishing all the plants and trees passing by...

Seas are his friends



Still is the bottom of his friends: who could guess that the sea hides its loyalty and trustworthiness beneath it. Imperturbable is their depth: but his friends glitter with swimming riddles and laughter. Well, you don't choose family but you choose friends. He didn't even had to choose friends, he just swam with the tide and they chose him.

"He" and "him" converse often and as they say that the friend of a hermit is always the third one. His third one is the "sea". The sea was there to listen to him, to calm him. It was dependable and above all it was non-judgemental. He would sit by his friend and observe the large heartedness of it. A true friend is one who gives you a background to the frame you walk in.

This friend supported him in his voyage of an outrageous, scornful and untroubled life. And with his friend he shared the greatest events; for they are not our noisiest but our stillest hours.........


Blessed is he, for his family are the hills and his friends are the seas...

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(Inspired by Nietzsche's Thus Spake Zarathustra)