The flying dog

"Fiction is the lie through which we tell the truth" - Albert Camus 

Part 1: The dog

No one knew the origin of his name, but everyone called the dog "Hotspot". Even his drunk master answered me that he was born "Hotspot" and that he could not recall as to how he got that name. Hotspot was a no-nonsense dog and clearly lived a great nonchalant life in the mountains. He was assured of food from the owner's cafe, so he didn't have to be servile or wag his tail to others. Hotspot had this luxurious habit of sleeping alot and barking rarely. Only time I noticed him barking was when few butterflies sat and  annoyed him hovering around his body. He didn't like butterflies as they posed a nuisance to his free sleepy life. When sleeping, they would sit on his nose and when he would try to shake them off, they would flutter near his eyes. Angrily, he would often bark to shoo them off but then it seemed that butterflies had fun teasing Hotspot.

Part 2: The Cafe Owner

The cafe owner (and also Hotspot's master) was a misogynist. Post his evening drinks, he shared his strong opinion about women and marriages. According to him, marriages were designed by women to enslave men and one should stay away from this horrible institution as much. It seemed women were like butterflies to the Hotspot in the cafe owner. I tried to listen as little from that discussion.

I have been a part of so many corporate office parties that the art of listening-from-one-ear-and-taking-out-from-other has been mastered by now. In corporate parties, people in position of power would get drunk and arrive at you sharing their stories of machoism and then you can't be rude and escape away. The better ones are even able to fuel to that machoism and later rewarded in their appraisals. 

Anways, back to cafe owner, I didn't want to dig deep into the rationale of his misogynistic approach to life. According to one my fake psychologist friend: people who have been heartbroken by a girl at an early age end up becoming misogynists. 

Instead I enquired about Hotspot and told him that for a dog, he slept alot and he clearly hated butterflies.  And then the cafe owner giggled and said that he wanted a nonchalant life like Hotspot. 

Part 3: The Girls

Next day in the evening some young girls (I guess college students) arrived at the cafe. They had brought their own alcohol, Lays chips packets and plastic glasses to relish their booze with the food around the bonfire. I chose to stay away from that party as they were too loud and played unpalatable songs from their mobile phones. But the cafe owner joined them, probably his love for alcohol overpowered his detest for feminine gender or probably he only detested losing his freedom by virtue of relationships only.

After some time from my hotel window, I noticed that everyone (the girls and the cafe owner) dancing via circling around the fire. Due to the heat he had taken off his sweater and his dance moves had turned very funny. Some of the girls had clearly left the space and cheered for him to continue his violent dance moves while some danced along to instigate him into his funny dance moves (one of them being snake dance on the floor).

Part 4: The Butterflies

Next morning I woke up to the cold mountains and from my window saw the cafe owner sleeping in the open in his fully dusty clothes near the dead fire and Hotspot was licking his drunk and fully asleep master. Later multiple butterflies arrived and sat on Hotspot to disturb him. There were so many of them clung to his body that only looking carefully one could notice Hotspot's eyes and the tongue with which he was licking his master. 

And little I could believe my eyes when I saw that all the butterflies fluttered their wings in unison and took Hotspot flying up in the air until he disappeared amidst the clouds!

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Children and Grown-ups

 "All grown-ups were once children.....but only few of them remember it."  -Antoine de Saint-Expury, The Little Prince

Dear friend, 

It has been about eight years now since we last met. I vividly and fondly remember our last meeting at my Delhi flat, us sipping wine and pointlessly discussing authors and film-makers we adored. You were a frequent visitor to my self-curated film festivals and it was a pleasure to host someone with so much thirst for life and hunger for art. 

Today I write to you, not sure whether this email will even reach you or stay unread or bounce back undelivered. It was while reading Camus' book 'Personal Writings', I was reminded of you and our conversations around this charming writer. I even made a futile attempt at searching for you on social media and I must say that your absence was quite anticipated but admirable. Hope you will respond to my email as I would want to know your side of eight years gone by.

Personally, to my discomfort and also with some sense of achievement, I feel more grown up. I speak more sense now and less of non-sense (super-sense as you called it). Don't ask me why I have reduced this non-sense (or super-sense) part, I guess this also comes with a package of growing up. You start caring more or should I say that you start thinking more as to how others would react and end up limiting or binding yourself. On the contrary, the beautiful part of this package is that you expect less from people and their good feelings, acts of friendships and noble deeds seem like miracles to cherish. 

I get to speak non-sense now only to kids of my friends or relatives. They enjoy such stuff or should I say that they are the only people capable of enjoying such stuff. When you play hide and seek with a four year old kid, the game is so much fun. She would hide behind that curtain or a door despite being completely aware that you are standing and noticing her. Then you act the struggle of seeking her in that exciting game of hide and seek and finally when you find her, she would jump with joy of being found. That's a sign of a successful game - that it must end. I was once answering to my friends' daughter with some non-fictional excuses of dwarfs, fairies and magic to a very sensible question of hers. My friend's wife objected to me telling lies to her daughter and instead asked me to give her the right and scientific logic to her questions.

Speaking of grown-ups, they are a crazy lot. My friend was once narrating about his grandmother who was diagnosed with a fatal disease and doctors had given her a month's time to get all her wishes fulfilled. Instead, she asked her son to get her the bank's passbook updated. My friend reminded her that she was going to die and asked her about where was she going to go with so much money in her bank account. She said that all the principal and interest accumulation gave her peace and who didn't want to die in peace. One fine day, his father got the passbook updated and she slept with the passbook clutched to her breast and next morning the grandmother's heart stopped beating. She died in peace with a smile on her face! Isn't it crazy?

Well, I am writing to you after so long and instead of telling you about my last eight years, I am telling you about some random comparison between children and grown-ups. Would you really be interested in knowing that I work for a multi-national company or in trivial details like greying of my hair? I am sure not. You would be more interested in knowing that this work from home has ensured that standing from my balcony I can witness sunsets everyday, you would want to know about the good books and some stories from the travels I would have experienced. But first I need to listen from you. You were quite a celebrated student at National School of Drama and quite close to the supersensical world of theater. I was a student of business studies and now am quite an ordinary ambassador of that MBA education as I preach people to take up art and instead develop their emotional intelligence. 

I would leave the letter with some lines from Camus book (Personal Writings) I just finished. This book similar to my letter is reflective and laments the loss of innocence in the author's journey from age of 20 to 40. 

" There is more love in these awkward pages than in all that have followed. Every artist thus keeps within himself a single source which nourishes during his lifetime what he is and what he says. When that spring runs dry, little by little one sees his work shrivel and crack. These are arts wastelands, no longer watered by the invisible current..... yet nothing prevents one from dreaming in the very hour of exile, since at least I know this, with sure and certain knowledge: a man’s work is nothing more but this slow trek to rediscover, through the detours of art, those two or three great and simple images in whose presence his heart first opened."

Shall wait for your response!

Till then, take care!

-vC

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A Story about Stories

Part 1: Irreverent stories

 I had once written a collection of around eight to ten stories, all of them twisted and whimsical. I shared them with a voracious reader friend of mine. She read them all while I nervously waited for her feedback. She warm-heartedly responded "dude-they-are-brillliant. Try getting them published. The world needs to read them. They are like a fine mixture of Etgar Keret, Kundera, Salinger and Kafka". I told her that she was extra kind and asked he if she found the stories to be too irreverent. She said it hardly mattered and reiterated that the world needed to read these stories.

Part 2: Book publisher

I went out in search of a book publisher. I didn't know anyone except a faintly acquainted college senior whose love for my college was quite conspicuous. I hadn't liked him much for he felt like too businessy. I had that same bad taste meeting him which you get after meeting some extrovert MBA. Too many shenanigans and too less content. But then in my work life, I learnt that I should not judge anyone and instead ask for help. 

It was in that college bonding, I mailed my stories to the school senior who with his business air and fake professionalism sent me some rules of his publishing house. I wonder if he read the stories or not but the senior responded that he was ok to publish on two conditions First,  I needed to pay him some money for his fixed charges (as COVID19 had dented his business too, I wondered how) and second the stories needed to be edited by professional editors. He also told me that he will be sharing some 11.5% royalty with me over and above sales of some fixed count. I agreed on all conditions and asked him to forward the copy to his professional editors.

Part 3: Ex-boss

The so-called professional editors fucked my stories. They not only corrected my grammar but added adjectives and adverbs, rephrased sentences from active to passive thus completely distorting the twists, the plot and the humour. The senior excitedly mailed me asking for an OK on the mail to proceed for publishing the book. I was too sad to respond for two days and then an idea came to my mind. 

I called my ex-boss. My ex-boss always wanted to be famous and he had this habit of taking credits for things he never did in the office. So I offered him a deal of making him the author of a book and pay the fixed charges to my college senior. My ex-boss was exhilarated at the idea of being a published author and he gladly agreed. I responded to my senior's mail by saying OK but that the author name and author details will have to be changed as I had decided not to be an author of the edited stories. The school senior got shocked and asked why I wanted to give on my creative possession to somebody else. 

Part 4: Literature Festival

The book got published and it made a lot of noise in my ex-company whatsapp group. People were startled at the creative inclination of my ex-boss, although nobody ever read the book. I never contacted my school senior or ex-boss to get any idea of how well was the book received. It was only today that I got a whatsapp forward video of my ex-boss reading from the same book in a literature festival and then I noticed that the literature festival was sponsored by my ex-company giving a hint as to how he got that reading slot.

Part 5: Its just a story

Lot of people ask me as to why I did that. They suggest that I should have instead asked the senior to restore the stories or else go to some other publisher. I lie to them that nothing like that happened. It is just a story!

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The yellow butterfly story

Aisha, his six year old niece, was on the other side of the phone call. In an usual cute voice of hers, she demanded a bed time story from her favourite uncle.  Last winter, when he had visited his sister, he had pampered Aisha with a bed time story every night and the ending of these stories marked the beginning of Aisha's night dreams.  And today in the lock down when he cannot visit her,  he obliged her with a story  instructing her to switch off the lights, tuck herself in the blanket, put the phone on the speaker mode and close her eyes to listen to him. He asked her to choose one: a butterfly, an elephant or a star as the protagonist of the story. She chose "butterfly".

The story:

The yellow butterfly was once flying bored in a garden until she noticed another butterfly, the white one with blue polka dots on it. The yellow butterfly tried approaching her to say hello but then the white butterfly gave a cold shoulder with an arrogant and a rude vibe. The yellow butterfly came back to her own plant and to escape the hurt of the arrogance of the white butterfly, she tried delving in nostalgia of her childhood. She was reminded of her carefree caterpillarhood, how easy life was, how no one expected much, you just sit on one leaf and chill. Obviously, back then you have dreams of being a butterfly and flying freely here and there but then its only when you become a butterfly, you realise that it is just a hollow dream.

And then sitting on her plant, deep in her nostalgia, she noticed another caterpillar lazing and chilling around on a leaf nearby. Smiling at the caterpillar, the butterfly felt that the caterpillar was well mannered to return her smile and also with a smile which seemed quite genuine. The butterfly flew to the caterpillar and started giving him gyan about how to relish the caterpillarhood and that it would not last long. And in between the long gyaan, the caterpillar noticed his mother back with the nectar. The yellow butterfly realised that the mother was the same ill-mannered white polka dot butterfly who had evaded her hello few minutes back. Before the yellow butterfly could fly back, the mother butterfly started shouting expletives at her and threatened to de-wing the butterfly if she came near her son next time.

The yellow butterfly feeling a bit sad left the garden and started looking for another garden. She stumbled on a garden of bougainvillea where she met a group of butterflies discussing about humans. They were gossiping on the weirdness of adult humans and waited for their six year old friend who would be there anytime. And then Aisha, the friend they were waiting, arrived at this bougainvillea garden to play with the butterflies. 

(Narrating the story, he checked whether his niece was still awake or had he bored her to sleep. Pleasantly, Aisha was awake and excitedly shouted at him to complete the story.) 

Aisha started playing the game of pakdam-pakdai with the butterflies where one player had to touch fleeing players and the one who was caught had to chase others. Aisha was good at the game and whenever the butterfly would come near her, she would duck or sway so smoothly that it was difficult for the butterfly to catch her. The yellow butterfly also joined the game. Due to her lack of stamina and newness of the game, she was most of the time chasing other butterflies and Aisha. At the end of the game, when Aisha's mother asked for Aisha to return to her house, she like a true sportsperson went to the yellow butterfly to wish her well and asked her to practise daily to get better. The yellow butterfly promised that she would come daily and that she really had a good time.  That night, the yellow butterfly tired after the game slept happily like a log and dreamt a beautiful dream of stars and elephants.

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Epilogue: His sister called him (the storytelling uncle) the next morning to complain as to what story had he narrated to Aisha last night that she is vehemently denying to wear her erstwhile-favourite-polka-dot frock.

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The Identity

" I have no desires, save the desire to express myself in defiance of all the world's muteness" - Vladimir Nabokov

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Part 1: The Identity

Who am I? A question so simple yet so philosophical that it has soothed souls as well as provoked numerous wounds.. In search of belonging, everybody strives to find an identity: an adjective or a noun which is so dangerous that it ends up causing limitless chaos, both individually and socially. I am a Muslim or a Christian, an American or a Chinese, a lawyer or a doctor, a wife or a mother, an introvert or an extrovert and so on. A label, you see, is that dangerous simplistic social identity we assume which not only makes us lose our individual identity but also gives us a collective identity for us to own, defend and demarcate. All of these actions ultimately cause relativity and thus the root of this volatile and complex world.

Part 2: The Lock down

He looked at the elegant watch he had not worn since long. The lockdown had lasted long now and he was not sure when would things go back to normal. He knew things wouldn't be the same and it should not be. The consumption economy had caused enough harm to people but while his heart was optimistic, his brain knew that the consumption economy would be back or rather further causing more harm.

In a random webinar he was once shown a video where a monk was briefly passing by the topic- "Who am I". In simple and brief words, he said that our identity is a sum function of all the people/ideas/things we love. People/ideas/things we love give us our identity and love is the supreme emotion which defines us who we are. According to him, when somebody goes through a breakup he/she basically remorses over the loss of his identity. Even the death of somebody closer gives us a feeling of hollowness for the loss of our identity. When somebody betrays us or breaches our trust, it actually leads to loss of our identity. Every feeling he said : a feeling of happiness or sadness was a byproduct of this identity strengthening or identity crisis and this identity was a by product of love. When asked by the audience, how to escape this identity, his answer was to love God. When we attach ourselves to God (infinite) or zero (Buddha way), the identity crisis would not happen.


Part 3: The migrant labour

He had just returned home after walking and hitchhiking several kilometers of distance from the fields of Punjab to his village in UP. It was a long run away from those arduous fields where everyday he had to plough yards of land for his rich master just for some pittance of money. Back in his rickety home, he could notice the conspicuous discomfort in the eyes of his four other brothers for one more brother had arrived to share the resources left by their deceased father. In contrast, the mother was happy on the occasion of her eldest son coming back and that too in the holy month of Ramadan. Probably, the virus causing mayhem in the world had become an Eid gift sent by Allah for her eldest son was with her after fifteen long years.

The entire family broke the evening fast together, the mother chose to give some of her iftar food to her eldest son who himself had taken less of the potion to ease the discomfort of his younger brothers. In the night, he went and sat by his mother's cot massaging her feet to help her sleep. The mother asked him about how had he spent his last fifteen years and commented him on his heavy Punjabi accent. She switched on to sharing tales of his underrated father (who had died when he was just twelve) as to how talented a musician (a qawwaal) he was. His qawwaali performances used to mesmerise everyone and was once blessed by the maestro shehnai player late Bismillah Khan himself.

In the night, he slept on the ground beside his mothers cot and saw (it was a dream or an imagination, he wasn't sure) Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan performing for a large audience in Punjabi and when he looked closely he realised it was his father's face singing the hymns of love in a language he would never have understood...

"Nitt khair mangaa soneya main teri, dua naa koi hor mang di
tere pairan ch akhir hove meri, dua na koi aur mang di"
(Forever I ask God for your well being, I don't ask anything else from Him
May I live at your feet till I die, I don't ask anything else from Him)

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A letter of good spirits

"Human life is but a series of  footnotes to a vast obscure unfinished masterpiece"- Vladimir Nabokov

This post is an epistolary attempt where a psychologist based out of Mumbai writes a hand-written letter to his wife in US, who is also locked down with their daughter (Ayesha) due to the ongoing corona virus crisis. This letter tries to step a notch ahead in conveying some warm wishes and love in an otherwise technologically communicative world of video-chats and social media.

________________________________________________________________________________________________

Dear love,

I am writing this letter in anticipation that it would bring you lots of hope, happiness and harmony more-so during these eventful days of a pandemic across the globe. I really miss being with you and Ayesha and not being able to travel and this inability to spend the weekend together is a discomfort I try to brush off. While we do catch up on video chats, but you are apprehensive of my helpless uneasiness with technology. Speaking with Ayesha on phone (than in person) becomes so difficult because I feel that on phone, the words lose their lightness and spiritual precision and with her I have to be extra careful as she is so tender and can easily be bruised by any ugly diminutive from my end.

My dear, how have you been? How is your work going? Have you been able to learn the art of taking classes through video conferencing? Here, in Bombay, thanks to lot of good word of mouth about my work, the demand has increased but I have to deny taking up new patients as I am barely managing the existing ones. Also, I am trying to take out lot of time for myself.

On my work front, there is a very interesting coincidence I wish to write to you about. One year back I had a lady patient, I am not sure I would have mentioned to you about her. I should not call her a patient but a girl undergoing a very difficult period in her life. In her work life, she had a boss who micromanaged her and was also less intelligent than her. Everyday she struggled managing and scuffled being managed by him. Even her personal life was chaotic, she tried dating men but then most of them felt threatened by her intelligence and the remaining few ones (she perceived) were too immature for any relationship. During her first therapy session, I could totally perceive the bitterness in her. Living alone with an uncontrolled mind, she had started getting suicidal thoughts. Hence she came to my therapy sessions and it wasn't difficult helping her heal.

Part two of the story goes like this. Six months back, I had another patient: a tall, well-read but a very confused man. He lived with this notion that  no one understood him: neither his parents nor his friends. A very disturbing notion indeed. He wanted to take a path of spirituality away from this mundane and materialistic world. At his parents behest, he had tried his hand at working in corporate sector but  he felt miserable in this otherwise insensitive and insolent world of business. Unable to cope up, he ran away to Rishikesh to be guided by an able guru. To put the further story short, this guru like so many other verbose gurus was a fraud and had put him addicted to psychedelic drugs. His parents finally tracing him in Rishikesh got him back to Bombay. Interestingly, the parents asked me to help and reluctantly I took up this guy's case. This was not an easy case as he was also undergoing a strict drug rehab phase. But like a true champion, this guy came out clean and healed. And also, he has some really good sense of humor which helped him heal.

Now, the interesting part. The girl and the guy are dating each other. The guy called me yesterday just for a chit chat and he informed me about the liaison. The idea that the two of them are in love with each other is so flattering to me. I keep telling these youngsters to ensure humor in life. If you can laugh genuinely, no mental health issue can even touch you.

Anyways, what do you do apart from your work? I am reading some other books of Kahlil Gibran, (apart from the Prophet). I have a client who is a passionate stock-broker and has also left me interested in the stock market and valuations. I have downloaded a copy of Intelligent Investor by Graham Benjamin but then reading books online is so difficult that I am planning to buy it later. In the movies section, I am watching this fabulous Iranian director named Jafar Pananhi. Remind me to tell you about him during our next video call. I am so enamoured of this genius director that I can go on and on. Meanwhile, if it interests you, you can research him online as well.

I guess I have written alot. Do take care of yourself and hoping things get normal soon for us to travel and see each other. I am always there in spirits with you.

See you soon and take good care!
Yours and only yours,
P

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Annual Letter to the Students

Prague, 02.05.2019

"We all have our times machines, don't we. Those that take us back are memories...And those that carry us forward, are dreams." - H.G. Wells

Dear Students,

As the calendar changes, I hope that with mirth and laughter you let your old wrinkles come to the year 2020! Like every year, I retain my habit of writing to you my dear students, this annual letter about charming nostalgia, tender resolutions, vacillating hopes and formidable plans. Most people in the world have their weird own ways to celebrate: some drink and dance, some sleep in that cozy blanket, some visit the temple, some travel to scenic locations. I humbly write to you all!

Charming Nostalgia

Austrian Alps, 27.04.2019 

"The future is only an indifferent void no one cares about, but the past is filled with life, and its countenance is irritating, repellent, wounding, to the point that we want to destroy or repaint it. We want to be the masters of the future only for the power to change the past." - Milan Kundera

So many books, so little time! We managed to cover few books this year. Borges was special with his book Labyrinth, what a head spinner the book was! Most of you complained about difficult time you had submitting the assignments on this labyrinth of a book. How convenient, no one came over with flattery of how easy the assignments of others books (Camus, Ishiguro, Calvino) were. Also, I totally endorse your complains of taking the bestseller book Ikigai in such a senior class as yours but I hope you will pardon me for the idea was to introduce the Japanese culture to you. Next year we will delve deeper in the aesthetically maddening culture of Japan. Hope you have all submitted your last assignments for the year on the documentary"Jiro dreams of Sushi".

Travel wise, the year would have been definitely better for you. We managed some funds and traveled to Europe, a continent whose classical literature and films we were most familiar with. Prague was as charming as in the books of Kafka, Kundera or Hrabal. And those blue skies, white mountains and majestic landscapes of the Austrian Alps and the charming pebble streets of Bratislava, I think all of these were soulfully humbling.

Always remember what Pessoa says, life is what we make of it. Travel is the traveler. What we see isn't what we see but what we are!

Tender resolutions, Vacillating hopes and Formidable Plans

"To be great, be whole;
Exclude nothing, exaggerate nothing that is not you.
Be whole in everything. Put all you are
Into the smallest thing you do.
So, in each lake, the moon shines with splendor
Because it blooms up above."
                           - Fernando Pessoa

Now looking forward to 2020, we will intend to read more, travel more and listen more. We have more poetry coming in your syllabus next year, also we have applied for funds for the trips to Nepal and Turkey. The trip to village in the Rann of Kutch area has been sanctioned. The idea of this trip would also involve stargazing, apart from the village hikes and soaking up the stillness of the salt desert.

This year's course also teaches you how to simplify your eating experience. There is no love sincerer than love of food.  Apart from the food course, there are some really good chapters this time like how to spend money. Earning money is easier than spending money and very few know how to spend money and not be enslaved by our consumption. Also we will be back to few chapters on music appreciation this year. There is another chapter on how to master technology, chaos and lower your worryability (Yes, Calvino!). In the books section, we will take on further books by Marcel Proust, Nabokov, Italo Calvino, and Bruno Schulz.

Some of you will also be volunteering to be mentors to the new joinees and will accompany them to various trips. Show them how to see beauty and help them "mature" into childhood.

I will not detail this year's course further and steal any further thunder of it. Hope you have a great year ahead and enjoy the little things. For in the dew of little things, does the heart find its morning and is refreshed!

Happy New Year!

-Yours.

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In the local train journey

"Abiding in the midst of ignorance, thinking themselves wise and learned, fools go aimlessly hither and thither, like blind led by the blind"
                          -Katha Upanishad

Part 1: He tweets and believes

Everyday he boards the same Mumbai local train from the Ville Parle station and stands at nearly the same spot close to the gate leaning on the seats. He would take out his mobile phone and open the twitter app. Everyday, without fail, during his daily travel, he becomes a social media warrior, vehemently commenting against anyone who had tweeted against the current Indian Government. He is a die-hard fan of the current Indian Prime Minister and is one of his biggest silent crusader on social media. His everyday thirty-five minutes local train journey is his tribute to the nation and in making this country a better place. At least that is what he firmly believed!

Part 2: They play and hope

The two boarded the same Mumbai local train from the starting station and that is how everyday they managed to get a corner seat by the window. Everyday on their fifty minutes local train journey, they would play ludo on their mobile phone. At times she would win and at times him. And in that losing themselves in the losses and wins, they would hug, peck, pat, emote. Few times, celebrating his victory, he would kiss her on the cheek and she would nudge him by reminding him that they were in local train and not some private space. And in love, playing the game of luck, they would reach their respective offices (probably same or different) gleaming in hope of a common destiny together...

Part 3: He sells and prays

He would board the train relatively for a shorter period of time. He had the loudest voice of them all and wore even a louder sandalwood paste on his forehead and neck. He had a melodious voice as often he would sing hindi religious bhajans to himself. And in between the bhajans, he would take out his phone and put his tiny earpods which were so invisible that if anybody didn't know that earpods existed would think that he was crazily talking to himself. Most of his phone calls were sales calls where he sold expensive flats to people. He would negotiate hard smooth-talking, exaggerating, cajoling and once his call was over, he, like a devout, would touch his forehead and then his heart as if asking God to intervene and help him close the deals. And then post his mini-prayer, he would mumble few abuses to his clients for being stingy and few to the Government for killing the real estate market in Mumbai. Finally when his destination came, like a daily ritual, he would again touch his forehead and heart, walking back to his office, hanging his lunch box, singing his bhajans and praying for a sales closure...

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Epilogue:

And in this daily clutter of life, she reflected on her life and realised her sense of loneliness in that endless ebb and flow of that crowded local train. She smiled at the thought that each one of us are ultimately islands, in our universe, running to barely manage our own businesses of living, far beyond the grasp of others, hoping, thinking, praying for solace from these daily ephemerals.. 

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And it rained

Part 1:The Office

The clock had hit few minutes past six in the evening and she rushed to finish her work so that she could step out early and spend some time by herself. As she was trying to concentrate on her last mile of work, one of her colleague came and asked her as to when was she leaving for the day. She responded "just a few minutes and I am done." To which her colleague smiled and left for her day. It was only a minute later her another colleague arrived and asked her as to when was she leaving and that why had she not left. She responded "just a mail sweety and I am done". Her colleague also left with the satisfaction of having reminded somebody of the work-life balance she very well deserved. And just few minutes later, third colleague arrived and reminded her of why she should leave and that the company didn't pay her extra for sitting any longer. She patiently responded she would leave in a minute as she had some work and that she will be done soon.
And before any fourth colleague came and reminded her of anything further, she packed her bag leaving her work unfinished and left for the day. And in the lift, on her way out, she forced herself smiles to the people heading homewards...


Part 2: Marine Drive

Rather than heading home, she took a taxi for the marine drive, as if the sea was pulling her. The marine drive wasn't that far from her office, her tiny 1bhk flat was. Sitting calmly at marine drive, unwavering thoughts kept coming to her like the tides in the violent sea. Her thoughts trembled from her failed past relationships to the couple sitting next to her, from her difficult boss to the old man strolling with his dog, from her best friend leaving the city to get married to the three ladies wearing scarves passing by her. It was in those pelting thoughts, it started drizzling and everybody around (the couple, the old man, the dog, the scarf ladies) started running for a shelter. Contrarily, she decided to sit and get drenched in the rain. And as the rains grew stronger, her thoughts had changed to the beautiful yellow streetlamps necklaced at marine drive, to the music she had last danced to, to the carefree street children playing around. After few hours of having soaked in rain, wind and light, she decided to head home and effortlessly, she was smiling at everyone around..

Part 3: Home
Footboarding on the local train, jumping on a puddle near her society gate, greeting the old security guard, she reached home all drenched. She ate her dinner which somehow tasted better today. She realised that she hadn't called her parents since long(they were the ones who always called her). Her parents felt relieved by her daughter sounding calmer and happier. In the phone call, her mother even warned her of not falling for any stupid guy again to which she laughingly responded that her taste for men had improved. And as the day was about to end, she switched on her old radio and smiled to the serendipity of the song:

Ek ladki bheegi bhaagi si..

Tan bheega hai sar geela hai

Us kaa koyi pech bhi dheela hai

Tan ti jhukti chalti rukti

Nikli andheri raaton mein

Mili ik ajnabi se

Koyi aage na peechhe

Tum hi kaho ye koyi baat hai

Ek ladki bheegi bhaagi si..

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