Pens and a few pennies

Below is a story my friend narrated to me over a few WhatsApp messages. As I reached the end of the story, an appalling realization dawned upon me.
I am sharing the story, in my words, with a similar hope for you:

Owing to a holiday in the United States, my friend had left his Chennai office early one evening. As he had exited his IT park, he had come across a stunted man selling pens. "Sir! Madam! 2 Pens for 10 rupees!" - the man had continued shouting at the top of his voice to a crowd that had cared more about the life inside mobile phones. My friend had passed the pen-seller, feeling bad for the attention he could not get. After some distance, my friend had come across a handicapped man asking for alms. The crowd that had sleep-walked while passing the pen-seller had woken up when it had reached the beggar. Many members had dropped 1 rupee, 2 rupee and 5 rupee coins in the cloth that lay spread before the beggar. Noticing this, my friend had experienced a mix of joy and sadness. Joy that compassion had won over consumerism. Sadness that a man selling pens had lost to a man selling pity.
A month later, my friend had chanced upon the pen-seller again. Overcome by a feeling of justice, he had walked to the pen-seller and had handed him the entire cash that had rested in his wallet - 120 rupees. The pen-seller had looked at my friend with a grateful smile and then, he had handed him 24 pens. My friend had received them and had walked home with a mix of joy and sadness. Joy that he had tilted the natural balance towards a hardworking man. Sadness that he too had always preferred pity over a purchase.

A melody of melancholy

A beautiful brown sparrow rests on my balcony wall
It informs me about the weather across Bangalore
I look at the sky with an eagerness for my namesake
But dark gray clouds loom large
A grateful gesture to all travelers about to tear up
As my cup of coffee turns a companion to the puddles below
The sparrow departs, waving goodbye with its wings...
I think about an old, battered story book and its torn pages
About an unused, armless action figure and its owner's childhood
A rusted, punctured bicycle and the neighboring roads
An untouched school uniform and a regularly used school bag
A non-functional FM radio and homeless radio waves
A box of broken plastic crayons and a father's locked-away accounts ledger
A forgotten wedding album and one of its lucky photos framed on the living room wall
A lonely mango tree, inside a gated community, and its regular visits from the slum kids
A childless mother and an uncared for orphan
I think about all these and I wonder
Which is more melancholic - To miss or to be missed?

The questions children ask

Two weeks ago, I had travelled to Chennai and was returning to Bangalore with my mother on a train. Opposite to us, were seated a mother and her ~5-year-old son. The mother's father had come to the railway station to send off his daughter and grandson. The train was scheduled to leave at 3:35 PM and about 2 minutes before the scheduled time, the grandfather got off the train. He walked back on the platform to reach our compartment and confirmed with his daughter that she had water bottles, biscuit packets, sufficient cash, napkins, her government ID card, and lord Murugan's picture with her. She nodded for every item he mentioned and when asked about sufficient cash, she took out her purse to hand him a thousand rupee note. "Even if not for you, keep this for mom's sake" she said, forcing the thousand rupee note into her father's hand. He accepted it with the guilt of a father and the need of a family man.
"Why are you giving money to grandpa? Does he not have money?" the kid asked his mother, curiously. An awkward silence prevailed in the compartment for a few seconds.
The mother finally broke the silence, answering her kid, "Grandpa had given me a lot of money when I was in school and college. I am just repaying it now. It is always good to return what you borrowed, right?" The grandfather's face put on a forced smile. But the kid seemed convinced with his mother's answer.
"How much money did grandpa give you?" the kid asked his mom, after a minute. The mother's face expressed the helplessness of not being able to give her son a mathematical answer.
Before the mother or grandfather could come up with an answer that would satisfy the kid, he looked at his plastic watch that had spider-man casting his web from the center. He then turned to his mother and asked her with a serious face, "It is already 3:45 PM. Why hasn't the train started yet?" The passengers present in the compartment could not help smiling.

The train started its journey 15 minutes after the scheduled time. The kid's face remained pressed against the window rails for the next hour. And occasionally, he also turned to his mother to pose an interesting question.
"Why do people build houses amid rain water?", "Why don't people become happy when they see a train passing by?", "Why aren't farms and fields seen in cities?", "Why are there so many hotels? Don't all mothers cook food at home?", "Why do people feed crows but not dogs?" were some of the questions I remember now with a smile. As much as I fell in love with the kid's questions, I also felt sad for his mother. How do you explain to a kid that an adult's world is far removed from a child's world? Still, the mother responded to the kid's questions smartly, giving out answers that would not let the kid lose hope on humanity.
"The people who stay in houses amid rain water like to play with paper boats", "The people who see trains passing by are sad because they are not able to travel in trains", "There are people who stay far away from their mothers. These people go to hotels. And sometimes, mothers also need rest, right?" were some of her answers. Science shows that smart parents pave way for smart kids but this interaction between the mother and the kid made me wonder if the opposite also holds true - smart kids pave way for smarter parents.

Half an hour later, an old man stopped at our compartment asking for alms. The mother did not mind the old man and looked out the window. The kid could not understand this. "Why are you not giving money to him?", he asked his mother. An awkward silence prevailed in the compartment for a few seconds. The mother then took a ten rupee note from her purse and handed it over to the old man. "Why isn't anyone else giving money to him?" the kid raised a question, looking at us. An awkward silence, again. Slowly, the passengers fetched 2 rupee and 5 rupee coins from their wallets and handed it over to the old man. The old man looked at the kid and joined his hands in worship, shouting, "Live long, my lord". The kid smiled and waved goodbye to him. "Why did he call me a lord?" the kid asked his mother after the old man had left. The mother smiled and replied, "Maybe because he knew your name is Ishwar."
After ten minutes, an old lady stopped at our compartment asking for alms. All the passengers turned to look at the kid. He was looking at the old lady with a widespread smile on his face. A few minutes later, the old lady passed our compartment, shouting, "Live long, my lords".

For the remainder of the train journey, the kid continued his questions and a few of us continued our compassionate acts. Like how Carl Sagan had said, "We make our world significant by the courage of our questions and the depth of our answers", our compartment grew significant through the journey by the kid's questions.

I fall into a coma.

Money times money is money squared
Money times data too is money squared
I am terrified of the square in squared
It is a prison for passion
When it should be imprisoning poverty
The walls are windowless
Not different from our cars that honk away beggars
Shoo! Shoo! Shoo! Faces in plight are like houseflies
Poor housefly! It has 360 degree vision
Amazing humans! Our vision is focused
Money times money is money squared.

Math and meth keep some men happy, according to the statistics
And the trend line goes on a rapid rise
The target just got taller
What beverage does the corporate brain drink?
Smarter and smarter it gets
Without satisfaction
'Enough' and 'equality' are endangered species
Can somebody tell me the population of white tigers?
I just boarded the statistics bandwagon
Does the white tiger treat the white peacock as its equal?
Which is more beautiful? Which puts a smile on others faces?
Oh you dangerous Darwin! Look at what you have done
Dystopia's day is around though survival of the fittest keeps surviving its end
The pie chart has just two categories
Oh you sad storyteller! They are not good and bad
The small chunk is bad and the larger chunk is worse
Am I talking about the earth?
But isn't the earth flat? 
Just wait for a 100 memes and 1000 re-tweets - the earth will become flat
Science stands no chance before social media
Please! Do 'Like' this poem!

"May I help you?"
Who's that quoting Shakespeare?
"Dude! You don't know even this?! (Sara)Haha"
Now, that's my boy
Let me introduce him, or rather his opinions
Introversion - Inability
Compassion and care - Cut the crap
Humility - Head back to your hometown
Love - LOL
My boy is a proud programmer!
Who pines for poets anymore?
For (i=1; i++; i > Poets)
My boy loves his machine
It is very obedient
Unlike some people who have to be understood
Try {relationships} - Catch {reasoning}
Isn't man-machine interaction easier?
Can somebody tell me the rise in percentage 
Of man-machine interactions over the last 5 years?
The statistical evidence is arriving in a blood-red Mercedes Benz
I love the logo, and even the car
I decide to buy it for my boy, and I begin my computer code
If ( desire = Mercedes Benz )
My fingers continue birthing variables
And invariably, I fall into a coma. 

A writer's voice

More often than not, I find talks by writers to be interesting. Be it the can-potentially-change-an-artist's-approach-towards-creativity TED talk 1 and TED talk 2 by Elizabeth Gilbert, or the can-potentially-prepare-an-artist-for-an-unexpected-future talks by JK Rowling and Neil Gaiman. 
An important reason for this can be attributed to the choice of words by the writers. And also the choice of their thoughts. 
Unlike in many professions, a writer is required to think for a living. A single social issue or a single historical fact is subjected to multiple arguments and counter-arguments inside a writer's head. From this trove of diverse thoughts, a writer gets to comfortably choose a viewpoint to present to the audience. As a result of which, my beginning statement. 

I experienced this last weekend when I attended the 6th edition of the Bangalore Literature festival. One of the talks I was looking forward to - 'The writer's role in speaking out' by Paul Zacharia - offered me more than I had expected. 
Paul began his talk by pointing out the characteristics of a good writer. The most important characteristic, according to Paul, was that a writer remained a reformed man inside himself, free from the forces trying to control his thoughts. He then listed and elaborated on some of the thought-control devices prevalent in our society. Religion. Caste. Political parties. Media. 
"I fear the media more than a politician today. We can hold the politician accountable at least once in five years but not the media", he said. And he made a brief mention about a short story he had written earlier, about a robot that could identify the truth and lies in a newspaper. I imagined the state of some newspapers and news channels if they were to be scrutinized by a similarly designed supercomputer, and I could not help feeling sorry. 

As a parallel thought, I recall the TED talk by renowned journalist Christiane Amanpour. When asked the question - What would be the one idea she would want to plant in the minds of the audience gathered - she replied, "..really be careful where you get your information from; really take responsibility for what you read, listen to and watch..."
This seems to be of utmost importance now, especially after 'fake news' has been declared as the 'Word of the year' for 2017.

****

My visit to the Bangalore Literature festival, after Paul's talk, only turned happier owing to the wide range of books that were on display. One of the books I purchased from the extremely-harmful-to-your-wallet collection was Perumal Murugan's Songs of a Coward. The book is a collection of poems written by the writer, during the difficult period in his life, following the ban on his book Madhorubhagan/One Part Woman. 
As I traveled across the different poems in his book, it saddened me that a writer had to be silenced because the society had not matured enough to agree to disagree. 

It is as imperative to stand up for the right voice as much as it is to suppress the noise. Else, we might reach a future where many writers are forced to command their pens, as Perumal Murugan does in one of his poems. 

I have commanded my pen
that the ink-drip from its ball-tip
shall happen henceforth
only for signatures
accounts and 
journal entries.

As the Diwalis get quieter...

I have never been a huge fan of bursting firecrackers. I have always been governed by the notion that the soul of the Vodafone-advertisement-pug resided in every cracker that I set fire to, and so, every cracker would fly towards me and burst beside my body, showering affection and ash powder. 
I also felt very uncomfortable taking a walk on Diwali days because it made me pity the heroes of the games 'Temple Run' and 'Subway Surfers'. 
A lit firecracker there. Run left. A lit firecracker here. Run right. A small girl is about to light up a 100-wala. Run straight.  

But over the last few days, I have been setting out on uncomfortable walks of a different nature. 
The streets and the apartments around my house, in Bangalore, present a sight that would be any photographer's delight. The houses and their balconies have been lined up with lamps and little light bulbs. 
But it has been a very silent Diwali.
And, strangely, a part of me misses the non-stop noise of cracker after cracker after cracker. A part of me misses becoming a 'Subway Surfer' hero on the streets. A part of me misses the sight of colorful pieces of paper crowding the road.
I hear the adult in me saying that this might be the way to celebrate Diwali, going forward. For the sake of noise pollution. For the sake of the environment. For the sake of the street-sweepers.
But the part of me that wants a noisy Diwali recalls my mother's childhood stories, which she keeps narrating every Diwali with uncontrollable joy.
"From a week prior to the Diwali day, we would start bursting crackers. There would be intense competition between my house and the neighboring houses. Your uncle and I would be the representatives from my house. Every evening, we would ensure that we burst more crackers than the surrounding houses. The number of pieces of paper that lay outside our houses were the measure of our might. And we would never let my father or grandfather sweep the pieces away. Even if they did the cleaning when we were asleep, we would gather the paper pieces from the garbage and disperse them all around the house. Winning the Diwali-cracker-contest meant a lot."

I ask myself - Why the fondness for crackers when I am not exactly a fan?
My mind seems to be behaving like a college student on his farewell day, not wanting to leave the professor who had scolded him the most through his college years.

As I ponder upon the reasons for the reduction in the magnitude of bursting firecrackers, something which I had seen even in Chennai during my college years, I cannot resist the thought that my parents' generation had had a simpler taste in life. 
For them, going to the movie theater had been an event. For them, going to the restaurant had been an event. For them, bursting crackers had been an event. 
They seem to have led their lives listening more to their hearts than to their brains.
Which reminded me of the debate topic in the special talk show shown on Sun TV yesterday.
Which attains more importance in a home? Intelligence or love?
One of the speakers narrated a beautiful story to argue why she considered love to be the winner.
An old couple is seated on a park bench. The wife suffers from a memory disorder. She forgets her husband's identity every 20 minutes. But the husband remains seated beside her, holding her hand, and explaining every 20 minutes who he is. Why would the husband do this? Because he had had the smartest wife? Or because he had had the woman who had loved him the most?

I smiled after I heard this story. And I smiled now after I typed the story. 
I reread the entire piece above. I realize that most of it has come from the heart and very little from the brain. 
Maybe I belong more to my parents' generation. Or maybe I am just emotionally charged in the middle of a quiet Diwali.

A chore of compassion...

She entered the house after a long day at office. As she switched on the kitchen light, her eyes fell upon the kitchen sink. There lay a heap of unwashed utensils from morning. "Poor Rangamma! How exhausted would she be after all the work?" she pitied the maid about to arrive in 15 minutes, and she started washing the utensils. 

My every day Wonderland

After meetings that go better than expected
But worse than the manager's standard..
When a mail rests in my inbox awaiting a reply
That would result only in a midnight-damage-control session..
When the eyes start composing frame after frame of the coconut tree visible outside the window
Turning a blind eye to the overlapping charts in the dashboard report..
I walk to a corner and draw a magical pattern
A green hole in the shape of a word bubble opens up
"Did you respond to the client's doubt?", "Can you review this modified SQL query?", "Is the tracker tracking the daily tracker updated?"
I set up a barricade blocking these questions
And plunge into the hole, the hole of hope.

I wish everyone would get a chance to visit this world

This world where ghosts are lovable
This world where buffaloes are the most adored pets...
This is a place where ego evaporates in seconds but possessiveness persists for centuries to come
This is a place where conversations can be one-sided
Not because a partner is dominating
But because the understanding is so deep that an exchange is not necessary
Here, we blow up balloons to play with sleeping saints
And we ride behind baby bikers... Trrrrr....
Here, we worship Brain pickings and also a few nitpickings
We also fall in love with 'Aananda Yaazhai' and 'Ennaku piditha paadal...'
Rain is celebrated and so is Rumi
The Prophet is a Superstar as much as The Alchemist...
I wish everyone would get a chance to visit this world
This world where new words are birthed, and at times, poems
This world where a robot is transformed into a kid every day
Thanks to a guardian angel
A spirit who wipes away my pain and paints a widespread smile.

A proverb a day...

We tend to resurrect proverbs only when the days get difficult. Why don't we respect them even during the happy hours?

Freedom of Expression

Whenever I visit my maternal uncle's house, I make it a point to join my 13 year-old and 8 year-old cousins in finishing their homework, which they get to sadly, after cycling and cricket and carom board.
My 8 year old cousin starts making faces when she has to solve complex multiplication problems and at such times, I would want to tell her that life and society have a lot more in store than just multiplication. But I would stop myself, realizing I am not a news reporter releasing harsh realities of the world into every living room.
I would enjoy helping them out in all subjects but my happiest stretch would be when we got down to the English homework. I would go through the poems and short stories and envy all the English teachers. How fascinating would it be to recite a 'In the bazaars of Hyderabad' or narrate a 'The gift of the Magi' to a class filled with blossoming minds, and initiate a discussion about the thoughts birthed?!

In such a state of mind, I opened my 13 year-old cousin's English composition notebook. After 3 exercises of letter writing, I came upon an exercise of paragraph writing.
"In no less than 250 words, write a paragraph about your family. Use words such as which, whom, whose in your paragraph."
I could not control my excitement. I had never gotten to know what my cousin felt about my uncle and aunt. I had presumed that he was not yet mature enough to discuss about family. So, I blessed my cousin's school for gifting me with such an opportunity, and eagerly started reading his answer.
"My father is a doctor and he practices medicine at Bombay. My mother is a homemaker..."
I paused. I was confused. My uncle is an industrial worker and my aunt, a school teacher. I closed the note book to check the name on the label, wondering if my cousin had brought his classmate's notebook for reference. But the label showed my cousin's name. I returned to the 'paragraph writing' page and continued reading. The family described in the paragraph could not have been more different from my uncle's family.
"Why have you written this answer?" I asked my cousin. "My class teacher wrote it on the blackboard and we all copied it down in our notebooks", he replied. "But why?" I asked him. He threw me a confused look.
I apologized to my cousin for wrongly questioning him instead of the system.
I felt sad for my cousin's English teacher. Despite a golden chance to get an insight into a child's thoughts about his family, the teacher had opted to train the students to score well in the exams. Why spoil the delight of evaluating creative answers with the routine of just checking for known spelling mistakes and grammatical errors?

I wanted to be different from the teacher and so, I glanced through my cousin's English text book and stopped at a chapter titled "On being an Indian". I looked at the 'Questions' section after the chapter and one of the questions excited me.
"Do you feel happy or sad to be an Indian?"
I read it out loud to my cousin. Immediately, he replied, "I feel happy being an Indian because India is a country that expresses unity in diversity."
I could not help but smile. I told him that I did not want the answer given by his teacher but I wanted to know what he felt. He was silent. I encouraged him to just speak out his mind.
"I feel happy", he answered. "Why?" I asked. "Because my mother and father and sister live here" he replied.
"What if your mother and father and sister moved to Australia? Which country would you like then? India or Australia?" I asked him. Without a moment's hesitation, my cousin shouted, "Australia!"

I fell in love with his answer that shone bright in authenticity. But I also realized that my cousin's English teacher is great and selfless.
Maybe she is in the pursuit of safeguarding her class, by stopping her kids from doling out honest opinions and unpatriotic thoughts in this country at this time when they might cost a person his/her life.

The things I cannot write about

One of my dear friends was texting me about his travel experiences from a trip he had taken the previous weekend. As he finished describing the locations, he moved on to the dishes he had gotten to taste on his trip. He started,
"The taste of Haleem - You really can never describe its taste to anyone. It's weirdly like that!! It's amazing! Trust me. Things just melt in your mouth and it's super rich in nutrients. Your body just craves it as you have it. All of what I said does not come remotely close to the actual taste though."
And then he added,
"But if someday you get to taste Haleem (don't dismiss the idea of tasting meat and keep it as a possibility in your head), do take an attempt to describe the taste of Haleem to me."
I could not help smiling. I considered the possibility of me tasting Haleem, or any other non-vegetarian dish, and it seemed very bleak. I felt sad that there was a very high chance of me never being able to describe Haleem to my friend. 

As I pondered upon this, my mind slowly moved on to other things that I have not been able to use in my writing, owing to my non-experiences of them.
The hangover after a long night's celebration. The slow-motion-universe after getting high. The inability to make a comparison that went '..it felt like the inside of your mouth after you had smoked the third cigarette in a row'. 
The thoughts gradually climbed the stairway to the next floor in my mind.
The smell at Manikarnika ghat in Varanasi. The touch of snow. The fear of flight. The waterways of Venice and the alleyways of Paris. The terrors and wonders lurking in nooks and corners of the Amazon rain forest. The never-ending stretches of Sahara. 
The thoughts climbed another flight of stairs.
The sleepless night in a fully bombed city. The slow acceptance of memories as reality post the death of a loved one. The joy / fear of having a life in my womb.

I realized that I still had a chance to experience some of these. But some were not under my control. 
The more important question was - Do I have to experience all of these and a lot more to make my writing wealthier?
Perhaps yes. Even if not my writing, my life would remain poor if not for some of these. 
Which led to another question - Do we not cherish art for this very reason?
Do we not devour paintings and photographs and books and music and films since everyone cannot experience every emotion and every relationship in every continent?

I understood that art served as a gateway to enter new worlds and to enhance one's own understanding of the existing world.
But in parallel, I remembered Robin Williams's lines from the park scene in Good Will Hunting.
"You’re a tough kid. If I asked you about war, you’d probably throw Shakespeare at me, right? “Once more unto the breach dear friends”. But you’ve never been near one. You’ve never held your best friend’s head in your lap, watch him gasp his last breath looking to you for help.
I’d ask you about love and you’d probably quote me a sonnet. But you’ve never looked at a woman and been totally vulnerable, known someone that could level you with her eyes. Feeling like God put an angel on earth just for you, who could rescue you from the depths of hell. And you wouldn’t know what it’s like to be her angel, to have that love for her, be there forever, through anything, through cancer."
The difference between learning and living, I thought. Or perhaps, the difference between knowledge and wisdom.

Colors

I was thinking about the possible ways
Of making the world a more colorful place
Celebrate Holi at a global scale every week?
Turn every building into a kid's canvas?
Increase the population of butterflies?
Grow different flowering plants beside every streetlight?
Manufacture cars and motorbikes that changed colors at every traffic signal?
Design clothes that changed shades depending on our emotions?
I liked the last thought
Borrowing ideas from 'Inside Out'
I imagined a crowded street where the clothes turned emotional chameleons
Yellow in joy, Blue in sadness, Red in anger
How many faces would adorn a smile even when the shirts turned blue?
How many faces would show calmness even as the saris continued turning redder? 
I badly wanted to walk that street
Apart from the colors, for the emotional truth
But I told myself
I would walk that street only if black was assigned for pain
How else would I get to be happily dressed in my favorite color day after day?

Work-life balance | Weekly Status Mail | 04 August 2017

Please find below the updates for the week starting on 07/31:

Temporal Processing Tool

• Continuing from the previous week, the current week also had its every passing day caught in its own strange rhythm 
• The mornings seamlessly flowed into their nights and the nights blended into their mornings. The input parameters for wall clocks were set to zero but still, the 'hour' hand seemed to follow a steep and consistent rise, as normally observed in the 'second' hand 
• Some of the key findings: 
• Facial hair was trimmed every couple of hours
• A cup of coffee was sipped every second minute 
• WhatsApp statuses of friends got changed every 20 seconds 
• Initial presentation to the stakeholders about the 'rhythm of the days''received comments as below: 
• A plastic token in a tiny eatery that keeps travelling from the bill counter to the parcel counter and back to the bill counter 
• Water in a fountain that keeps spraying out and seeping down the drain back to spraying out 
• A lift operator who travels to the top and to the bottom and back to the top 
• We plan to observe the patterns for the next two weeks before concluding that the ‘mundaneness’ metric has reached its tipping point 

Interpersonal Interaction Performance dashboard

• US toll free numbers dominated 76% of the ‘Most Frequent Contacts’ monitoring, Indian toll free numbers following with 14%, leaving a meager 10% to other personal contact numbers 
• In the ‘Most Frequent Messages’ word bubble, we observe that there has been a reversal in the first and second positions 
• Caught in a meeting.. Ttyl – 47% 
• Sorry for the delay in replying – 34% 
• Belated birthday wishes :) - 11% 
• Other responses - 8% 
• Microsoft Outlook emerged the clear winner in the ‘Most Active Mailbox’ monitoring, for the 7th consecutive week, with the heat map indicating that the most preferred time for mail responses is 12:30-2:30 AM 

Weekly task completion status

• We observe a radically different picture of the completion statuses of the official deliverables and passion projects 
• The statuses of the official deliverables promised this week resemble a satellite image of the Amazon rain forest, whereas the statuses of the passion projects planned for this week resemble a satellite image of the sun 

With the above mentioned updates, we are very happy to end another week with >100% productivity achieved towards improving the quality of work, continuing the trend of very little to no effort directed towards improving the quality of life.

We have refreshed the tool, dashboard and the status report in their respective locations. Kindly let us know in case of any queries.

Regards,
Someone torn apart by an equal love for work that pays and work that satisfies

War, fiction and time

There’s a scene in the first 15 minutes of Dunkirk where a large gathering of British soldiers, awaiting their return journey home from the shore of Dunkirk, hear the sounds of German bomber airplanes and hurriedly cower on the shoreline, covering their heads under their arms. Bombs begin raining down from the sky and as they explode one after another, we see sand and arms and legs and heads getting scattered.

For a moment, I imagined myself lying on the shoreline, amidst the bombings. 

Would I have been patriotic then? Would I have still stuck to my atheistic opinions? Would I have agonized over my life possibly ending because of the fight between egotistical men in power? Would I have wished that my end happened in a flash? Would I have died of the sheer anticipation of a bomb that would blow my body to pieces?

The chaos continued on screen as a different chaos erupted in my head.

I asked myself if I would enlist to serve the army, if a war broke out. The response was a feeble ‘No’. 

Am I a coward for wanting to be by the side of my loved ones as the end approached, instead of being on a foreign battlefield? Am I a coward for wanting to be beside groups of children, wanting to stop the theft of their childhood by war, instead of being beside men who are forced to let go of the humanity in them? Am I a coward for wanting to record the horrendous happenings common people are subjected to, thanks to them being born within this border or that, and wanting to let the records out for the future generations to learn the extent of man’s insanity? Am I a coward for wanting to live?

There is a scene in Dunkirk where the characters of Tommy and Gibson use a wounded soldier to their benefit, trying to gain access to a ship by pretending to be medical men. Though their actions put a weak smile on my face, deep down I realized the cost of survival.

****

Victor Frankl writes in his severely haunting Man’s Search for Meaning,
“It is a peculiarity of man that he can only live by looking to the future – subspecie aeternitatis. And this is his salvation in the most difficult moments of his existence, although he sometimes has to force his mind to the task.”

In Dunkirk, more than once, it is referred that the British soldiers could practically see their home from the shoreline. I wonder if the soldiers would have gotten the will to survive the deadly onslaughts one after the other, if they had not had their home within their sight. I wonder if an alternate outcome would have resulted had this happened in a shore thousands of miles from the British mainland.

Neitzsche also comes to mind – “He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.”

A happier home. A lasting love. A pleasurable pursuit of a passion. 
Thinking about a man’s why shows man’s fondness for fiction. What is a man’s future if not fiction?

As Yuval Noah Harari points out in his TED talk, man would have been unable to rule planet Earth if not for his belief in fiction.
The fiction of religions. The fiction of nations. The fiction of wars. The fiction of money. The fiction of time.

Is there another filmmaker today who is as obsessed with the concept of time as Christopher Nolan is?

Memento dealt with a man’s quest for revenge, revolving around his time-bound memory disorder. The Prestige dealt with the rivalry between two magicians, but deceived the audience by crisscrossing timelines. Inception had its final act structured around a multi-layered dream sequence, heightened in its intensity by the time differences across each layer. Interstellar had a father-daughter relationship being shaken at its roots by the time differences owing to space travel. And in Dunkirk, we literally feel the dread of every passing second, thanks to its background score and crisscrossed timelines.

What does Nolan find fascinating about the concept of time? 

Our never-ending fight against it? The varying storylines that pop out of alternated timelines? The changing cycles of cause and effect?

Whatever Nolan’s reason(s) might be, when one begins to consider the cause and effect of war, one cannot help but feel sorry for mankind.

Where there is no way...

Whenever I stepped into the Chennai Mofussil Bus Terminus on Sunday nights, the heart would get heavy for two reasons.

• The feeling of leaving behind a home and a Metropolitan that get closer in 2 days than a flat and a city that stay together for 28 days 
• The sight of countless old, destitute men and women 

In the 20 minute spare time that I would always gift myself with, before my bus ride to Bangalore, I would seat myself by a corner and look around the terminus. People would rush with their baggage and babies to board buses scheduled to leave 10 minutes earlier. People would rush with their baggage and babies, having deboarded from buses that were scheduled to arrive an hour earlier. And amidst this wave of incoming and outgoing people, who would always have a destination to reach, one that would be different from the one in their hearts, seated or sleeping would be a large group of men and women with no destination to travel and reside. These people also possess their own baggage, but more on their minds than the ones below their heads and beside their bodies.

Strangely or perhaps not, a line from the Tamil song 'Vidai kodu engal naadae' comes to mind.
"Thalaiyil konjam, nenjil athigam, sumaigal sumanthu pogindrom."
A line used to describe the Sri Lankan Tamils, many of whom were forced to become refugees, seems appropriate even for the men and women who carry no bus tickets inside the terminus.

At times, as I would survey this group of men and women, certain people would grab my attention. Like a 50-60 year old man, who I noticed during 3 of my visits, constantly reading a newspaper. Like a happy old couple lost in conversation and time. Like a very old woman with a smile glued to her face.
I would wonder about the cause for their destination being the terminus.
Death of the last remaining family member? Ignorance of every remaining family member? Lack of a proper financial planning for their old age when they were young? Globalization? Urbanization?

An article that I came across some time ago explained the adverse effects that globalization, through its creation of nuclear families, was projecting on the older Indian population. Which made me ponder upon the plight of numerous old fathers and mothers, who suffered not from lack of money but from lack of care. With sons and daughters working in faraway cities, with ambitious loans resting comfortably at their backyards, with brothers and sisters scattered owing to corporate convenience, these fathers and mothers do not seem to lack a destination but just a proper home, unlike the earlier group who have neither.

I wonder why the destitute men and women choose a bus terminus as their home. Maybe for the easy access to food and washrooms. Maybe in wait of the day when they would get a destination to board a bus to. Maybe to serve as reminders for the sons and daughters, who travel to their hometowns once/twice/thrice a month, of the state of a lonely parent.

As these thoughts flood my mind, I silently walk to the bedroom where my mother is sound asleep. I had felt happy that I had made my mother shift from my native city to my work city in just 2 years since I started working. But with these thoughts, the 2 years make me experience a sense of guilt. I just whisper 'Sorry' and exit the bedroom, realizing that it would never suffice, neither for the 2 years nor for the countless old, destitute men and women at the Chennai Mofussil Bus Terminus.

Contact

It is 1987

I cry and cry, rolling inside the cradle

My father understands that I want to communicate

He peeps in and offers me a tiny smile

Slowly, he leans forward and whispers something

I pause my crying

I understand his love though not his language

He had understood my want though not my language

I stare at him blankly for a few seconds before smiling

He whispers something again, and I begin laughing

We continue our conversation for sometime

Language is left languishing over the bedroom attic...

 

It is 1998

I hold his letter in my hands and I can feel his wrinkles

The paper is stiff yet the written words start trembling

The ink soaked in the paper competes with the warmth soaked in my heart

I smile looking at the two dots at the end of each sentence

"I never like using periods in my letters to you" my grandfather would say

"Why not use commas or semicolons?" I would retort

"Life needs those tiny pauses" he would explain

No wonder he loves the French and Italian films

He also loves Tom Clancy and Robin Cook

Which shows itself in his writing

Every paragraph leads to a breathtaking revelation

I love the smell of the words - the Parachute hair oil dripped words

And the smell of the wooden table that the letter had rested upon

I often get scolded by my school teachers

For using a black ink pen for the entire answer sheet in examinations

"Black ink is only for highlighting important words" they say

I refuse to change to blue ink

At least till my grandfather does...

 

It is 2007

I am on a phone call and my mother is on the other side

The eardrums reach beyond the reception levels

The brainwaves strengthen the weak network signals

My mother always speaks softly

Like how courage whispers to a bird on the brink of its maiden flight

Like how passion whispers to a man lost in a mundane existence

Like how childhood whispers to a mother arranging her daughter's scattered toys

But her silences are my precious treasures

They reach me sooner than language

They describe me her crowded train ride, her spicy lunch

And the half kilo carrots that had accompanied her home

"Then?" she would always ask

I would want to share the million happenings I had hidden from her

Inside my maturity locker

A broken tooth had been a three-day headline 15 years back

And a broken heart seems an unnecessary triviality now

"Then?" she would always ask

"Nothing more" I would reply and wait for my mother to end the call

Her silences are my precious treasures...

 

It is 2017

The WhatsApp icon lights up my dark mobile screen and my heart

185 seconds had elapsed since my previous text message

What would she have replied?

I spend another 185 seconds creating a list of possible replies

Another 185 seconds in affirming that she would have sent the most ideal reply

Another 185 seconds in fear that she would have sent the worst reply

There is a pleasure in these anticipations

Pleasure that delays clicking a button and ending the mystery in a second

Pleasure like when you have added the single missing semicolon in a 500 line code

And happily wait with a God's pride before executing it

Pleasure like when you chance upon a lovely sight

And cherish it before pulling out the camera

I believe I love texting her

More for my anticipations than for her replies

The unopened message where I love the idea of her

And the opened message where I love her...

 

It is 2027

I stand at my balcony, in my Indian flat

My partner is resting on his couch, in his Spanish home

My thoughts pause themselves as his come flooding to me

Each of his thoughts begin to get mapped to their rightful node in my network

My network expands like a floating jellyfish

As our thoughts come together, I see the big picture and also the solution

"This is great" my partner thinks

"I thought so too" I respond

No common server platform, no whiteboards, no discussions

A faulty algorithm has been debugged and solved with just our thoughts

Happily, I rub the tiny circular device attached below my ear lobe

The thousand thought networks inside my head glow in a gentle light

"I wish you guys were with me in Paris" My sister's thought reaches me

"She's lying! She's totally enjoying her vacation there" my brother's thought rushes in, bumping her thought

"Why should we be there? I am enjoying Paris as much as you" I respond,

Letting my sister's Paris-thought network in my head lighten up

"Still..." she lets float an unfinished thought

Thoughts of love and family begin to race forward and recede like waves

I pull out the circular device from below my ear

And begin talking to myself

A strange new world this is

Communication happening through thoughts and introspection happening through words...

A Separation

There is a beautiful scene in Asghar Farhadi's A Separation in which the daughter Termeh, looks silently through a window, at her mother who is about to leave the house. Termeh's parents are on the brink of a divorce. 
Having collected her stuff and grabbing a hold of her baggage, Termeh's mother throws a final glance at Termeh, then at Termeh's father and steps out the doorway. As soon as her mother steps out, Termeh turns to look at her father. She does not utter a word. She does not cry or let out a wail. She looks at her father in a state of helplessness. 

I was reminded of this scene two days ago when I came across the following incident on my way to office. 
A family of three was standing outside an apartment. The mother was attired in formal outfit with a handbag garlanding her shoulder. The father was in a casual outfit, carrying a little, excited girl in his arms who would have been around 3 years of age. The girl was playing with her mother and the father was a silent and happy spectator. Very soon, a Tempo traveler approached the family and the mother waved goodbye to the father and the daughter. I could notice the daughter's face slowly changing and as her eyes closed and her nose shrunk, I readied myself for a wail. And a moment later, it happened. 
For a few moments, the mother stood frozen between her daughter and the Tempo traveler. But the father convinced her to go ahead and walked inside the apartment, trying to console his uncontrollably crying daughter. 

I could not get the little girl's wail out of my head for sometime. Not because it was haunting but simply because it was unadulterated love. 
The little girl could not bear the separation from her mother for a mere 9-10 hours. 
I smiled thinking about this innocent possessiveness. But I also felt sad because of the realization that with age, our tolerable duration of separation increases. 
Days. Months. Years. Death.

I tried imagining how it would be if I had turned the 3-year-old girl during all the separations in my life. 
Maybe a few departures would not have happened. Maybe a few people would have stayed behind, preferring love over purpose. 
Would that make me a selfish person? Probably yes.
But I ask myself the question - Would I want to stay an understanding, selfless person storing a reservoir of longing or would I want to be a selfish, possessive person securing the physical proximity of my loved ones?
The answer is not clear.

I feel that as adults, we tune ourselves to let go of people easily. 

Maybe we need to put up a few more fights. Maybe we need to let out a few more wails.

Would that be wrong? Probably yes.

When you ask a 3-year-old girl what is wrong and what is right, she would say that lying is wrong and praying is right. But life would show you that she is right in a sense and wrong in another. 

So, why not be a 3-year-old girl for the rightful sense?!

As I think about this, I also recall a beautiful quote of Kahlil Gibran's.

And ever has it been known that love knows not its own depth until the hour of separation.

I would agree because I realized how much my mother meant to me only during the mornings and meals she was not beside me rather than on the days she was nearby. I realized how much a friend meant only during the evenings I was accompanying him in my memories rather than on the days we spent together in the present. 

Then, is separation necessary? Are we well off being empathetic 30-year-olds than being yearning 3-year-olds?

The answer is not clear.

Maybe that is why Termeh looked at her father in a state of helplessness. Maybe that is why she did not utter a word or let out a wail. Maybe she was torn between selfless love and a childish craving for closeness.

Asghar Farhadi is truly a genius.

Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more

I looked at my left hand. My middle finger was missing. 
Strangely, I felt no pain. That night made me realize my anger's might.

I looked around. Four of my men stood covering me, firing hopelessly at the charging enemy troop.
The strength of the enemy troop was 43. We were 5 in number.

We had been 7 when we had set out from our camp. Two of my men now lay dead at my feet. As I looked at their bodies, my anger amplified. "Why did you have to follow my order?" I cried out, in my head. 
A bullet whizzed past me.
Bullets. Blood. Darkness. Death.
Standing there, I could hear my mother's lullaby. I could hear my lover's laughter and my enemy's hatred. I could hear my conscience shouting that I had wronged my men. 

We were not supposed to be surrounded by the enemy troop at that time. That had not been the plan. But who respects plans?
We, at our camp, would occasionally prepare false plans in order to mislead the enemies. Of late, I had started wondering if many of our plans had begun misleading even us. 
The two beautiful souls at my feet were a result of one such erroneous plan.

My commander had called me to his tent two hours earlier. 11:02 PM. 
"There has been a new development", he had started, "We have received orders from the high command to capture the enemy camp at RM before midnight."
I had remained silent.
"As per reliable sources, the strength of the enemy troop stationed there is 10 men. It should be a walk in the park for you and your team", he had added.
Silence.
"Assemble your men in the next 10 minutes", he had ended.
Silence.

What could I have said? That my men had had a long day? That my men deserved some rest? That my men were just men?
"For the country", my commander would have replied. 
We had all enlisted ourselves for the same reason during the start of the war - For the country. But we had all reached a point when we no longer understood if we loved it or hated it. 
We had fought and killed so much that in some days, we had lost the need for a reason to it all. We had reached a point wherein every morning, we arose, lifted our rifles, ran into the battlefield, shot down our enemies, and returned to our camp, wounded and exhausted. We had become so accustomed to the killing routine that most of us no longer remembered the dreams we had carried before we had enlisted ourselves. 

I had left my commander's tent without a reply and had walked into the resting unit of my team. 3 of my men had been fast asleep and 3 had been on the verge of it. I had clapped my hands loud enough to get all of them on their feet in the next minute. I had briefed them about the mission and they had immediately begun dressing up, without a hint of a refusal. Watching them ready themselves up for a senseless mission, I had realized my mistake of having narrated them story after story of the victorious senseless missions I had been a part of. Their respect for me had extended to their want of following a similar path as mine. 
Ten minutes later, my men and I had walked out of the camp, obediently following orders and secretly wishing that our lives would one day matter as much as the country's pride.

A bullet whizzed past me.
Bullets. Blood. Darkness. Death.
Standing there, I could hear my mother's lullaby. I could hear my lover's laughter and my enemy's hatred. I could hear my conscience shouting that I had wronged my men. 
"Stop firing!" I ordered. My men lowered their rifles and turned towards me. 
"I am sorry", I admitted. A faint smile spread across each of their faces as the enemy's bullets blasted through their flesh and bones. One by one, they all fell beside me. 
I stood there with six beautiful souls resting at my feet. "If only I had not followed my commander's orders and if only they had not followed my orders", I repented. But if it had not been for my men and I, it would have been some other team under some other leader. 
When would this end? Why did man have to bring upon himself this destruction?
A bullet hit my forehead, ending my questions and my anger and my struggle. I fell slowly upon my men to crown a heap of bleeding and lifeless bodies, our heap serving as a symbol of man's stupidity.

Boom!
I snapped out of my imagination and returned to the present, at office.
Two of my teammates were ruthlessly keying in commands on their laptops. My laptop screen was blinking with a message from my onsite. "How much longer before you deliver the ad hocs?" was his question. I repeated the same to my teammates. "15 minutes", came one answer. "20 minutes", came another. I sent him the reply and I checked the time. 01:37 AM.
I rose from my chair and walked to the washroom to freshen up. I closed my eyes and splashed water on my face. As I opened my eyes, I noticed the sink turning red. 
And then I heard it - A feeble gunfire growing louder by the minute. 

The road to the top

Last Sunday, at around 8 AM, I was standing atop Nandi hills. The 10-member-group I had traveled with was some distance away, enjoying the aerial view. 
I was more interested with the view above my head. It made me feel closer to the universe. "Hey you! Are you somewhere out there?" I asked, looking above. I had a lengthy list of topics I wanted to talk about. I had a lengthier list of questions I wanted answers for. "I badly want to believe in you but you seem to be putting very less effort to convince me" I explained. A mild breeze blew in response.   

Before me, a lonely tree swayed. It had nothing special about it but I could sense a poignant poem dancing around its leaves. As I looked at it, I was reminded of 'Boulevard of Broken Dreams' that had played during the car ride to the top. 

My shadow's the only one that walks beside me
My shallow heart's the only thing that's beating

"You remind me of myself" I told the tree. It continued swaying - I took it as a smile in return. 
"Do you feel grateful for your life or do you feel it could have been better?" I asked the tree. The swaying stopped. Maybe it had not expected the question. Maybe the answer was a painful one. 

I asked myself the same question. Standing closer to the sky, surrounded by a group I loved - it seemed the right place at the right time for the question.
The journey had not been an easy one. But it had also made me meet travelers who had traversed harsher roads. "Why couldn't you have just made it easier for everyone?" I asked, looking above. This time, there was not even a breeze.
I thought about the roads I had crossed. I thought about the roads my friends had crossed. Each of our paths had been different, the starting points had been different, the fellow travelers and the unexpected shelters and the overwhelming hardships had been different. But somehow, we had all reached the same road now. 
Some of us had less baggage and some, more than one could carry. 
While I felt happy that we had all chanced upon this road, I also felt bad for not accompanying some of my fellow travelers upon their journeys. 
"You cannot accompany every traveler you meet. You have to travel your own journey. And not accompanying everyone does not also mean that you go around carrying them in your baggage. Always travel light" - I remembered a friend's advice. 

I thought about the journey that would have resulted had I taken alternate roads every time I had been presented with the option. Maybe I wouldn't have reached Nandi hills. Or maybe I would have reached Nandi hills but the group I had traveled with would have been an unknown crowd. 
I thought about the journeys that would have resulted had every member of my group taken alternate roads when he/she had been presented with the option. Maybe none of us would have reached Nandi hills. Or maybe we all would have reached the top and we all would have been strangers to one another. 
I couldn't help smiling thinking about the scenario. 
I also realized that the answer to my question lay in me wanting or not wanting the scenario to be a reality. 

Without thinking further, I walked ahead and joined my group. There was an ongoing discussion about the path to take to reach the other side of the hills. 
"Let's take that path. It seems more adventurous", shouted one friend, pointing to a steep, rocky road. "No! Let's take this route. This seems a better path to roll this guy down the hill, the next time he cracks a shitty joke", commented another friend, pointing to a route along the edge of the hill, and looking at the shitty-joke-guy standing beside him with a sheepish smile. One friend seemed more interested in selfies than in the discussion. And another friend seemed more interested in recording the beauty of the aerial view from all possible angles.
As I looked at the group, I couldn't help smiling. I had gotten my answer unlike the tree. 
I looked above and gently whispered, 'Thank you!'. 
Few seconds later, a mild breeze started. The lonely tree behind me swayed, smiling.