Life as we know it, sometimes becomes too lifeless or rather over-bearing in a way that it feels more like death. Death brings peace, the end of all woes. Then maybe, it doesn’t feel like death, its more of the path leading to death. And that’s what life really is.

So, in a way, life decides to “act” like itself at certain points in time. It decides to drop the façade of being something extra-ordinary, of being something which is very beautiful. Which in fact it is not. It is the path leading to death. Nothing more.

This makes me reach a point in thought where I’m forced to believe that like all humans, life too suffers from “identity-crisis”. It is simply being human by behaving as if it were kind, just to be a more acceptable facet. Even though, the truth is much deeper than the skin of it all.

On a day when questions overcome emotions, when emotions overcome fact and when fact deceives dreams ; my recluse is the couch that sits in the lobby of the house which belongs to our family.

I surf through TV channels in a seemingly vain attempt to distract myself from life, loss, dreams, death and et all. I make the attempt with as much energy and enthusiasm as would rest with an Indian football team facing the Brazilians in world soccer finals. But thankfully, the outcome isn’t as horrendous as that.

In fact, I’m forced to wonder and wonder endlessly as to why is the “television” regarded as the idiot box? What’s wrong with being the idiot anyways? Why should people who spend time paying heed to the boons of the tube be regarded as couched potatoes?

I submit myself to the tube, watching back-to-back comedy on star world. While watching it, I wonder whether it is recommended as therapy anywhere in the world.

It’s a nice way to escape the escapades of a life less extra-ordinary, a life that is nothing more than a mere path, a life which undergoes identity crisis of its own. Even though its not like wonderland or an equally pathetic place, but it feels just the same-for the time that the viewing lasts.

Life, once more, adorns the garb of a less gruesome enemy-a friend of sorts; until the crisis is shattered, the identity revealed, the path rediscovered as just a path. Nothing more.

CoMpELLed!

“ she is bossy and aggressive and therefore a born leader. She slapped AN ELDERLY GENTLEMAN WHO PINCHED HER CHEEKS. SHE IS OUTSPOKEN AND CAN BE VERY LOUD AND SHRIEKY. AS FAR AS PERSONALITIES GO, SHE IS COMPLETE OPPOSITE OF HER BROTHER. BOTH ARE EXTREMELY HONEST.”

And thus explains joyshri lobo her “Present-generation” grandchildren.

“She slapped an elderly gentleman who pinched her cheeks.”

There’s something about these black eyed blocks that translate a thousand thoughts. They force me into submission to a moment from a fictional non-fiction existence.

There’s a girl on top of a bench. There’s a crowd. Batch mates. Classmates maybe would be a better word for them, morons. They who are speaking a million syllables in a single breath.. They, who don’t know that the girl on the bench has been forced to be there. The force emanating from insolent pestering by those who forget to acknowledge her in their blabber race . They, the ones who don’t know that she’s been sleeping 2 hrs, maybe less, with each passing day. They, who don’t know that she can get high by way of will alone. They, the “batch-mates.”

“SHAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHTTTTTT AP PEEE- PULLLLL”

Seconds of silence, perplexed looks, shocked embrace of sullen eyes. She knows they will listen now. Will the silence last and the command vibrate through a few more seconds of utter bliss?

Compelled.

It’s a strong word, but not fictional. She is compelled... She stands, not on the bench, but in the shoes of a 5yr old. On the porch of house where she would spend most of the 21yrs of her life growing up. This time there’s a girl in front of her, an entity-someone who would be a close friend in the future. Someone, who as of now is a cousin, an irritating, over-liked rival. An adamant soul. But then there are dew drops on her cheeks. Dew drops on a hot sultry summer evening? But that’s how they look-her tears.

Probably then, the girl who will stand on a bench one day, feeling like a maniac, pretending to be no one else, wanting to be different, is a sadist way before she knows the meaning or the existence of the term.

Sadists don’t have a conscience. Or am I wrong? An existence without conscience, is it like an actor who doesn’t know that the world’s a stage?

The child of a past- that engulfs the future. Is the sadist the future of the grand-child? Will the children of today face the sadists’ approach to life? Will she-whose cheeks are pinched today because of her countenance be compelled to be a maniac?

Will the countenance of someone’s present hide the flaws of an irate mind of the future, as also, the flaws of a parent who is lost because they are a part of an inexplicable plot ?Would the world of her future not remember the cheeks from a childhood when she slaps herself back?

Is it possible that force has a magnified multiplied reaction?

Mulberry Trees

There’s something about lazy Saturday mornings. They often bring out memories of an unforgotten past. A past that dwells somewhere deep down within us, but one, which is veiled by the turmoil of day to day life.

Its only when it hits us like a tennis ball in a game of "pithu" that we come to terms with the fact- that we too, are as susceptible to the brunt of harsh reality as everyone else.
Its on one such Saturday afternoon, that I find myself reminiscing about games played on "extinct" summer afternoons .An assortment of varied rock plays in the background while I read the first few lines of Khaled Hosseini's-The Kite runner. And then, a thought hits me from a distance. its one which I didn’t predict, nor one which I can comprehend.

There’s a memory which lingers in my mind. Something that dates back to the afternoons of a childhood much forgotten. Grown ups often yearn for their long lost past, which often appeals to them like a box of chocolates lying across the table to an obese on a diet. Probably then, I'm either not a grown up or the past is too far away to entice me in any other way than to make me wonder.

The snapshot is one of children climbing a mulberry tree in the compound of a public school in the neighborhood; each clinging to the most fruitful branch. Some trying to make their way up the rather huge wall which does little to deteriorate their overenthusiastic souls. Scratched knees only make the mulberries' more delicious.

I fail to remember anything more. For children who share the memory with me, I don’t remember who you are. The best I am able to do right now is to guess your presence on the tree only from estimates of your existence during different spans of my life.

Maybe I have traveled more than any of you through this last decade, maybe you have had much more.