The great war of Lilliput

They stood around in a noisy, spirited huddle. The war was about to begin. Lightning and thunder rolled loudly above. Rain had started pattering down.

“This is the right time”, Tom said to Harry.

Harry nodded in agreement, “We must take our revenge. We should make him regret for our Dick’s blood.”

“He’s down”, Tom said looking at the huge figure of Gulliver lying a few meters away from where he was. “You charge!”

Harry moved close and sparred. Straight at Gulliver, hitting his forearm. Indeed Gulliver was down, he was caught off hand. Blood sprinkled ever so slightly from his strong forearms. Then Tom repeated the dose. Gulliver, in spite of his huge frame was helpless. His weapon hung from his fingers like a paralyzed limb, useless.

A host of their soldiers, waiting in the hiding, sprang into action, injuring Gulliver all over. The smell of victory was enough to gee them up, young as they were.

An old warrior, the senior most one, rebuked the spirited youngsters. “I’ve seen all these, boys”, he said, “Gulliver is dangerous. I feel we should plan the war on another day.”

The young blood hardly paid any attention. They kept on sparring at Gulliver.

The old warrior hid in a corner, face overcome with fear, looking at his young boys.

Suddenly Gulliver sprang into action. With a swipe he killed Tom, who crumbled in a heap on to the ground. Harry charged and got a similar swipe which invalidated him. In Gulliver's hands, the weapon swung like a rapier which swished through the air in expert arcs.

Gulliver pressed the weapon against Harry’s dark, incapacitated body. He was dead. A vein sputtered loudly, red blood flowed out and solidified. Without their leaders, their loyal army was vanquished in a trice.

The old warrior sat cowering in a corner, alone.

Gulliver said to his wife, “Ah, It was the battery. The bat is fine now with the new batteries. They are done with”. He blew a dead body from the mosquito bat, tossed it onto the table and crept into bed. His wife put an arm around him and snuggled close.

“Still they are not fully killed”, said she, listening intently. “I can hear a buzz”

“It’s alright, let’s sleep”, he said.

Gulliver and his wife slept peacefully that night. The old mosquito buzzed around, sadly, looking for a gap to launch at least a token attack. Sensing there was no hope, he escaped after a while, silently, through a crack in the window pane, vowing to come back again, to exact revenge for his beloveds' blood.

Together, alone.

I first met her in the deserted corridors of my school. We sat on the dusty steps leading up to the library and read a book which told a tale of a young man who fell in love with a fairy.

From far away, I could hear the squeaks of delight from children who played on the grounds, under the summer sun.

We met again - Under the giant oak tree near the deserted basketball court. At the corner seat of our library, behind the book shelf from where I could see the radio tower in a distance, majestic and alone.

I guess I was in love with her. One day, she broke my heart.

"I have many lovers", she squeezed my hand and said, "but call me any time, I'll be there for you."

I thought she was bluffing me, but she wasn't.

Like the quintessential genie, she materialized whenever I wanted her to.Those were lovely moments. I hated people when they butted in and spoiled our heaven.

Time went on.

One day I squeezed her hand, just like how she had done to me years back. It was payback time.

"I have some lovers now too", I said with a smirk. "Still I love you."

"I will excuse you", she teased. As she stood up, her hair brushed against my cheeks. "Don't forget me"

We didn't see for a while. In fact, I didn't think of her. I was too busy to do so.

Several friendships, love affairs and years later, one rainy evening, I thought of her. There was one near me other than a cup of steaming coffee.

She didn't fail me. Immediately, I felt her soft hands hug me from behind and her moist lips on my neck.

"How have you been, my darling?", she whispered, flirtatiously.

I pulled her around and looked into her eyes.

"The time without you", I said, "it wasn't worth it."

I kissed her on the lips.

Breathless, I looked into her eyes. She looked at me coolly, as if she had seen all this before.

"I love you", I said, "I love you, My dear Goddess of Solitude"

In reply, she just held me tight, silently.

I'd rather be here..

No,

I can't stand the stares,

At my attire,

At my mobile phone,

At my clumsiness with which I dig into a slice of jackfruit,

At the odd way in which I have draped my dhoti...

I can't stand it,

When your women giggle at me,

With the back of their palms pressed against their lips...

I can't stand it,

When your men cheat me off ten rupees,

And put that fake innocence on their faces,

And act concerned when they ask, scratching the back of their heads,

"Are you finding everything fine here, sir?"

I'd rather prefer,

to be here,

in my dusty, dirty, immoral city,

which, by night,

would pull me in,

seduce me,

under the cloak of

its pure, orgasmic anonymity.

Some random morning thoughts

I was in heaven, the cloudy smoke rings all around, sieving the sunlight through them. Ahead, an angel clad in white stood, holding a pristine white cloth. I sat back, watching the spectacle through my half clad eyes. The vision of heaven had never come to me this beautifully - the smoke rings, the bright light, the whiteness, the angels. It was phenomenal. But then, the phone rang in my shirt pocket.

The call was from Airtel and I had to pay my Broadband bills for the last two months. Three thousand bucks.

I remembered an adage: Money is the best vehicle from the world of dreams to the cruel, real one.

Then I rushed to survey my bright, cloudy, angel-inhabited heaven again. It was in ruins. My snuffed out cigarette lay under the chair; the girl on the next house's balcony had gone and her white bed sheet lay there fluttering in the breeze. The only definitive memory I have of the heaven was that it smelled of cigarette smoke.

**********************

On some days like today, when I don't cook my breakfast, the only hotel I turn to is a run down malayalee tea-shop near my house. And daily I order the same menu - 3 poori's with potato masala,a double omlette and tea. The omlette and tea are taken together, bite by sip, at the end.

The potato masala that they give with the tea is so drab and tasteless and it makes me wonder how I keep on having it each time.

It must be because I have a faint memory of having a tasty masala from this shop. It was perhaps the first or second time since I started eating from here. Maybe its the hope of a repetition. Its funny how far hope can take you.

**********************

Today, while I was eating, a lady sat in front of me, washing the plates. Daily she operates a grinder, staring ahead, with a curious impassive expression on her face . There is some undefinable air about her which depresses me.

But today she was sitting on the floor, plates piled up around her.

Suddenly one of the waiters moved around and knocked some plates down and it landed on her. She looked over her shoulder angrily and stared him down. An icy-cold stare. Cold fire.

But the waiter had moved across without noticing and was cracking jokes with someone outside. She was looking at thin air.

For a second, the mood was unique. She had no one to stare at. But she held the stare angrily for a couple of minutes. The culprit waiter guffawed outside at his own jokes, oblivious to what he had done.

Then she looked down and then went back to scrubbing the plates. Harder.

It was depressing. I felt I could feel her frustration brimming over and that it had more to it than just the knocked-down plates.

I didnt finish my tea.

You...

You had been,

In the hushed whispers, falling on my ears over the phone,

on many an hour where the night had started dissolving into the day.

You had been,

In the words, the sentences, the songs, the tunes, the sorrows,

which we shared, Long before we started to share each other.

You had been,

In the fearsome dread we felt, the stupid dread ,

whether the eyes would judge and spoil the bliss

that the Minds couldn't ever do without.

You had been,

In the aroma of body oil which was a perpetual, sweet irritant,

whenever I pressed my face, deep, between your ear and your neck.

You had been,

In the infinitely happy giggle which escaped our wet lips,

when all our body juices had just dissolved into each other,for the very first time.

You had been,

In the pang of sudden guilt - born of meaningless social obligations -

which would melt in the heat of yet another long kiss,

You had been,

In the feel of your soft hands which I prised off my chest,

when the setting sun's golden light reminded me of a journey at hand.

You had been,

In the inevitable curse which was on my tongue on that horrible day

when my careless words made you suddenly realize, that we ,

so far, had existed in nothing but a mere bubble.

But, that was then.

Now, you exist,

In the meaningful silences which seems to fill all our infrequent conversations,

In the memory which now consoles me,

In the memory that I have indeed loved and been loved,

In the numbing hollowness I have now learnt to live with.

Yes,

Now,

You are in me.

More than ever before.

You are me.

And then, he just faded away...

He would walk down those streets, daily. The streets where the lovelorn princesses stayed in dilapidated mansions which had dull paints and sooty chimneys.

Every day or almost every day, as if by design, his roving gaze would meet the eyes of a lovelorn girl. It would only be a trice before she got enamored with his hazel green, delicate, teary eyes which seemed to tell a hundred tales.

Then they, he and the princess, would fly, the girl close to his chest, sleeping like a kid, warm in his embrace.

After flying a while, they would land on some grassy meadows, where there was no other sound other than the chirping of the sparrows and the rustle of leaves in the gentle spring breeze.

Then he would bring forth his magic wand, and with a wave of it, create castles which would stand high, mighty and imposing on the grassy meadows. And then, he and the princess would venture inside the castle.

Inside the castle, they would be trapped in a time warp. Time would stand still outside as they discovered each other, inside the castle. He would merge into her and she into her, till they were nothing but one.

Then one fine day, when he felt he had enough of the princess, he would decide to leave.

Then, as soon as he left, a metamorphosis would start.

The grass on the meadows would go dead. A strong, chilly winter would set in, replacing the spring. The castle would be shorn off its aura and would resemble a deathly prison.

The princess, trapped inside the castle, would become a lonely prisoner waiting for her salvation at the gallows.

And he would fly away, deserting the meadow, to find a new princess, to explore new meadows where he would again create castles with a wave of his magic wand.

More castles, more love sessions, more prisoners. More immediate, cold winters. It went on, on and on.

One day he woke up, and realized with a shock, that he had lost his magic wand.His hazel eyes had lost their charm and had become pale.

He flew. His sudden ineptitude frightened him. He flew far and landed on a meadow which he had left long back. The castle was still there, looking less gloomy than when he had suddenly left it. With a relief, he realized that the chilly winter had given way to something which was less strong, more bearable.

He could make out strains of a song coming from inside the castle. She was singing. There was a refreshing freedom in the lines. A tone of relief as if celebrating newfound hope.

He moved with unsure steps towards the castle. But then, as he groped at his waist, and realized that he had lost the keys to the castle.

He stood helplessly for a while. Then in a stray wind which came that way, he just melted.

Vanished without a trace. As if he had never existed.

The strains of the song were still audible from the castle.

Musical Nonsense

I loitered on the platform, outside the train compartment, waiting for the railway staff to come and stick the passenger list. Come they did and I checked out whether my seat was mapped rightly to my name. Yes, seat number twelve and the name was mine.

Then, as always, I went on to scan the list, making a mental note of who my fellow passengers were. Most were nondescript Tamil names, but one, on seat number nine, was a Miss.Veena Krishna (F23, F for female :P), was chartered to board from Katpadi and to get down at Chengannur. There wasn't a malayalee name alongside hers and that was real good news. It meant she was traveling alone.

I didn't really have an idea of where Katpadi was, so I kept looking out at the station nameboards at each stop. It took a while coming, this Katpadi. It finally came when I had just woken up after a nap, to find lot of people swarming in to and out of the train.

I took out the comb and shaped my hair, regretting that I had forgotten to oil it in the morning.

She came soon – tall, dusky and shapely. Long hair as well. But she was talking to someone, that too in Malayalam. I cocked my ears. She was talking about seat numbers and a guy was answering from outside my line of sight. The hero came into view then - fair and handsome with a nice goatee which suited him just fine.

Then they snuggled into the seat opposite to mine and started talking. I focused hard on my copy of "How to Kill a Mockingbird", but my ears were glued to their mouths. Just out of college, they were. And the girl was chattering like a non-stop train: about studies, about affairs, about others affairs, about other guys. She did it with such a flirtatious smile on her lips. And I got sick.

I get sick when I see these girls and boys cuddle together and talk. It just makes me squirm in my seat. It must be jealousy, or maybe the frustration that I hadn't really been able to do all these candy floss stuff while in college.

Then I noticed that the guy had his elbow dangerously brushing her hip. I grew more and more uncomfortable. To make it worse, the guy started asking me some perfunctory questions as well. I replied in kind, making sure that I looked and sounded as if I was way past their age. And that I was least interested in what was happening between them. I acted it out rather well, I guess.

But the girl's chatter and the guys smiles were really making me agitated. Then I found my solace. My cell phone and my headset. I plugged it into my ears, stretched out my legs and played the first album which my aimlessly moving fingers took me to.

Kishore Kumar started singing. The girls chatter was still faintly audible. I pressed the volume control and send the decibel levels soaring in my ears. Kishoreda filled my ears. "Chukar mere man ko..Kiya tune kya ishara". I looked at them with the song pumping in my ears.

"Badla ye mousam, lagey pyaara jag saara.." when the high pitched rendition filled my ears, I could no more hear anything of the girls chatter. The song had drowned her completely.

But, now, it was lovely. My ears were full with a beautiful, awesome love song. In front of my eyes, the pretty couple smiled and snuggled romantically together. It was in sync, perfectly. Now since the girls bubbly chatter wasn't audible, the whole picture was perfect. I noticed them a while, sitting happily opposite me, with Kishore Kumar providing the perfect background for the romantic spectacle. It was so dreamy a sight that I dozed off.

A climax was necessary. But what came was an anticlimax. And it came when I woke up.

My phone battery had conked out, which meant that Kishore Kumar wasn’t singing in my ears anymore. I noticed that the girl had leaned away, but with sugary expression on her face intact. The guy was peering sleepily into his mobile. Still talking though.

"So many in our batch getting married", says the guy.

"Yes, Aswini getting engaged too, did you know?", she replies.

"Yes I did. Someone told me. When is yours?"

"Mom keeps on looking, might happen anytime", she says with a smile. He answered with another smile.

I was shocked. So they were not couples? Really?

They went back to talking some crap, which I didn't listen.

I didn't listen because I was busy. Busy mourning the colossal waste of so many things. My mobile battery. My valuable time. My imaginative juices which worked overtime, to give Kishore Kumar background to their inane chatter. Oh, so many things.

Pissed off, I took a trip to the bathroom, pissed, came back, apologized to Kishore da’s soul and slept.us