The limbo betwixt love and lust

The old folk know of 12 ways of counting stars. Not one of them works though. She wasn’t one to be deterred by such facts. She had to know just how many there were. So much depended on it…

SyncMaster’s druidic dodecahedron glowed impatiently for the star count before opening the portal. The warmth of the glow lit up the cavern and made the symbols shimmer on the scrolls. The cavern blurred as the tears welled up in her eyes. Anguish wept in her soul filled with bitterness. Her love ached in search for her imprisoned Chullain and cowered away from the out stretched tendrils of Samildanach’s lust.

Tears dried as her heart hardened with resolve tougher than the dodecahedron’s diamond. Summoning the wisdom of her race across the expanse of several time planes had morphed her into the cavern. The scrolls of Medb would show her the path to her beloved held in limbo.

The incessant urging of the dodecahedron coaxed the portal withholding the scrolls’ knowledge. It smiled and asked of her a simple poser. How many stars twinkle in the sky? The old folks counted the finiteness imposed by their finite life spans. Their count and the ways were in vain. The skies of infinity twinkled with stars of souls churned by the gales of the many time planes flowing like gales through eternity.

SyncMaster’s sacrifice to rescue her ardour was fresh in her mind. His reduction to oblivion should not be pointless, she thought. Before oblivion consumed him forever, the gift of summoning the collective consciousness had passed to her soul, repealing her mortality. In his passage to oblivion, SyncMaster had achieved through her, what he could never accomplish. The transformation to a god allowed her to cross the threshold between the worlds of the living and the dead. Her love had fuelled and ignited her resolve to move the collective consciousness and morph her into the cavern of Medb. She knew the answer now.

Samildanach hadn’t learnt of defeat till now. He yearned for her to be at his side and watched her with interest through the vision before him. Not too many things were going his way. The object of his lust loved his son from a forgotten dalliance. Imprisoning him had not diminished her love. His compatriot SyncMaster had chosen oblivion and her over continued prosperity. She yearned to release Chullain from his clutches and now was almost a worthy adversary as a god.

He sighed realizing that she would soon find her way and free Chullian imprisoned in limbo between all time and the netherworld. All this just made her more desirable. The destiny of all eternity rattled in the rocks in his palm. He pondered and chose one of the rocks. His loins still yearned for her amidst imminent defeat of his intentions.

He had done his best. But a man must know when to move on. He blew softly on the little rock and everything changed forever.

The first rains of monsoon...

For the last three years I’ve been party to a ritual.

It begins like another day, trapped in a ‘air-conditioned’ box moving through the day like zombies. A shiver of excitement runs through the people and many get drawn to the windows. Gasps of excitement and dilated pupils indicate of the general adrenalin rush.
A gush of people run out and most run up to greet the torrents. The thunder crashes and the gusts of wind threaten to blow people off the terrace. People rush to the nearest shaded area and get drenched anyways since the strong gusts of wind don’t really care about the people (who it must think are idiots) not getting wet.
The plate glass windows frost up and the rivulets start dripping inside our hastily and badly made office. The chai-wala does fabulous business for the day, pouring out endless cups of hot tea to drenched revelers who would not normally even contemplate a sweetened quaff.

It happens on the first day of every monsoon I have spent in Maximize Learning (still cannot reconcile to calling it Aptara). It still arouses a special feeling of excitement every time it happens. A predictable magic that never has lost its charm.

After this one moment of magic it is all about trudging through a wet rainy three months. About braving the slush. About wet clothes. About the front brake constantly caked and clogged with mud on the Royal Enfield. About the longings in the heart to not go to office when I wake up and stare wistfully at skies which prompted Meghadutam. About all such things which one can crib about monsoon.

But the first rains are ALWAYS magic undiluted.

3 AM

I tilted my head up at the inky sky to look for Orion's belt and remembered a whole lot of '3AM moments'.

3AM is a cusp in the urban human rhythm. Save, colicky babies, and the old mongrel fighting to retain territory from invaders, the world in general decides to drowse off, if not float through REM.

I rode home yesterday and felt like I was in a dream sequence of empty roads waiting for the rumble of traffic.

At 3AM, it feels as if the cityscape is gently exhaling. Rejuvenating from the pounding of a day bygone and bracing for the one ahead. There is a certain dip in the temperature which invites stupor.

I remember it well ever since I was preparing for my ICSE. It was the same while Chandu and I decided to open the last quarter of santra. When I walk out now to the comforting coolness of the night on the terrace... When I reach Dadar and fit myself into a taxi and nurture happy thoughts of snuggling with Josh after dinnner... When even the slave driven child labourers of the reataurant below the Ripon Street house manage to steal a moment of slumber before being beaten up an hour later... When the 3AM hunger gnaws at the innards... Never before or after. Only at 3AM does this hunger raise its demands.

It is time I went out to the terrace and took in the last vestiges of another 3AM...

Summer. Rain.

Lactocalamine on parched skin cannot compete with untimely rain in the middle of an unusually early and aggressive summer.

Riding through the undecided rain is hell. The still born slush makes the bike slip like drunk catfish. But then ... everything has a price.

I got out of the room and walked out to the terrace to experience the bliss of the sapping moments of night, melting into a coldish Pune morning.
The puddles on the quenched concrete, the shivering leaves of the almond tree, and the eucalyptus swirled in unison with the aroma of fresh rain.

A zephyr swishes the unseen mist-coldness around ankles. I can't seen the stars like a summer's night but a moon glowing bright behind some still cloud fluffs.

Such a joy. Rain.

Rat??! Drat!!!!

"So... How are you going to get rid of it?"

That was the "Ummm" moment inflicted by the girlfriend/wife soon after I confirmed that ratty IS there. En passant and as swift as a samurai sword's deft swish through the gullet.

Of course. It is is chewing up my bedroom door trying to get out.

Again these are moments when regret flashes through the mind. Catty would have been VERY useful. Sirrah! Go cat Go! Your next meal/game awaits within that pile under the bed.
Wishful thinking, with catty doing a 'salutation to the sun god' stretched supine next to the voice across the telephone.

Still does not answer the question though. True. Valid. And truly confounding.

Besides the rat does not like Hungarian sausage bait in a mouse trap. Damn!

Everytime I walk into the bedroom and ginderly open the door I hear the quick scurry and a jump onto something. I almost feel like I am intruding into the private captivity of the rat.

What remains to be seen is how we shall rid myself of my scurry friend...

A Dragon Ride

I stuck my head out a wee bit more and peeked at the dragon’ head. The night split with the glow from its head. A blurred landscape whistled by and grit got into my eyes, watering a little. The light glinted on the wires strung on the poles like a swarm of fireflies and embers in rushing pell-mell out of a blender sans the lid.

 

I wedged my foot a bit more firmly and craned my neck to see the dragon rush headlong on its serpentine trajectory. Here I saw the head and then again the nape of the neck as the dragon writhed to either side as it sped along. The speed and movement made the sides into streaks of blue, red, and white blended into the night’s inky horizon. The vibration shook the earth and frightened stones scuttled away behind us.

 

The movement slowed. The distant bluish glow grew in intensity and definition as I smelt the brakes grinding in to the polished steel. We slowed even more and coasted in to the station. I got off the steps and moved back in to train compartment as a portly man irritably craned his neck and pushed me with this protruding belly and luggage to try and squeeze onto the platform.

The cactus on the digital window sill

Josh was telling me how people now seem to live their lives in display windows.

I wonder why people still feel and react to governments spying on people. The compulsion to declare more about even the inner recesses of our beings seems almost overwhelming. Facebook and Orkut statuses, picture stories, wall posts, and scraps. Laid out like lurid dirty linen of our individual participation in the digital reality show.

I blog and twitter. Facebook statuses showed 'single' even before anyone could ask when Akhilesh and Puja 'split'. Piyu had a kid. So did Agnes. Picture stories on Facebook shared the joy. Smriti poured out her heart and life story of loves, men, and cities. On Joe Pinto's blog. I traced Esha trawling through LlinkedIn and a few more social network sites.

I wonder why we still feel edgy about privacy when we are ready to broadcast anyways.

Of frequent adieus...

They say it is a recession. Every time someone goes away from the office and sends out a bye-bye mail I feel a little tingle. The layoffs were a jolt. It feels weird when you are expecting to speak to someone for lunch and realize that you won't see him the next day.

It's only fair for the business. It doesn't feel so good somewhere near the soul though.

The silent whip has left a welt on the backs of the collective minds. My mind at least. I see people crowding more urgently near their PCs. Scurrying harder around the floor. Working more for less to be spared of the scythe.

A vacation does not seem so settling anymore. The glint in the eyes of the project managers are fiercer. The uncertainty is hanging like a shroud and stifling the sheer joy of working. All 'large' process driven organizations seem to work like this. I still don't see how many people really love their work anymore.