Heads you win, Tails I lose

From the Frankly Spooking outtakes

Raghupathy looked out his window and sighed. He was an Assistant Manager in his company and things looked up; he would even make it Manager in a year's time if he performed at this rate. But now, a dumb mistake in his personal life was about to cost him his job, and family.

It was a one-night stand as far as he was concerned, nothing more. But he hadn't reckoned it to be such a juggernaut, threatening to engulf him and throw him off the cliff. But there it was, and he couldn't ignore it.

As all cliched one-night-stands go, he met Pramodini on a business tour. Her pull was irresistable, and a few drinks later he'd found himself in her bed...not to mention life. Initially the arrangement was convenient and worked well for both. No strings attached, just some good ol' rolling in the hay once a while. But knowing the ways of the world, Raghu hadn't quite prepared himself for the emotional barrage that would eventually emerge. Pramodini wanted more than a fair share of her pie. And Raghupathy didn't have the time, energy or guts to fulfill her wishes. And he couldn't just wish her away. She was after all flesh and blood. And he didn't want to belittle himself and her by offering monetary compensation.

He'd tried it once, subtly though. But she'd seen through it. "Is this about money, huh Raghu? Don't push it, Mister. If it were about money, you'd be a pauper by now. Just be thankful for that."

And they'd left it at that. Would he leave his wife for her? "Pramodini, you know it's impossible," was his argument.

And it went on...and pretty soon, his worst fears started making brief appearances in front of him, like those annoying mosqitoes humming right into your ears. Only these weren't annoying, they were most likely to give him a heart condition. Pramodini threatened to go to his wife, Shilpa.

"This is going to ruin her life too, and you can't sit smug about it. She has a right to know the truth. And if you can't do it, I'll do it."

Shilpa was extremely senstive. And she couldn't bear to take the news. But he knew Pramodini was a determined girl, and one day she'd do it. He pursed his lips and headed back to his desk, thinking. Thinking hard.

*******

It was almost 9 in the night, when he parked his car a couple of streets away and walked briskly to Pramodini's building.

They hugged each other wordlessly as he entered the living room.

He walked to the couch as she followed him. He turned. "Uh, Pam..listen. Can you fix me a drink sweety? I'm all drained out..and, I want to talk."

"Sure," Pramodini said, heading to the fridge. "The usual?" Raghupathy nodded and stretched on the couch, loosening his tie.

"What about you?" He asked seeing a single glass in her hand.

"Me? No..you..you go on."

In reply he just rose and headed to the fridge himself, fixing her a drink. "You'll need this, baby, trust me," he laughed nervously, handing her the glass and plomping on the couch again. She was still standing.

"Cm'here," He beckoned her by his side, and pulled her to him soon as she sat. She squirmed.

"Pam sweety, I've been thinking about..you know, what you said..and I agree, it's mighty unfair on you.."

She looked on, her face slowly changing expression. But he wasn't noticing. He sipped from his glass and continued.

"I've decided to leave Shilpa."

He was expecting a hug from her. Instead, she looked at him silently and opened her mouth so say something. He waited. Maybe it was too good for her to believe. He'd always maintained that he'd never leave his wife, no matter what. He would take care of Pramodini as well, but would never ever leave his wife. So, maybe this was unexpected.

"I'm serious honey," Raghupathy continued.

Pramodini was still silent, tears slowly peeping from the corners of her eyes.

"Oh, baby," Raghupath tried to pull her to him. She shrank back. .

He hesitated for a minute, then sat back and continued. "Soon as I go home tonight, I'll tell Shilpa everything. And then..it'll be a while before I prepare the divorce papers, and...you know, the works."

He searched her eyes. Something was amiss. She wasn't herself. She didn't seem to be registering what he was saying.

"Baby, are you ok?" He reached out touching her cheek. She hastily wiped her eyes and got up.

"I'm, I'm fine..excuse me...," she muttered and headed to the bathroom.

She was back in a while and sat down. She gulped her drink in one go as he looked on surprised.

"Raghu..I too want to say something. I thought you'd never tell Shilpa about me. And I didn't want this life, not like this anyway. I couldn't take it anymore Raghu, I couldn't wait forever. So I..."

She could never complete the sentence as she gagged on her drink, clutched her throat and keeled over to the carpet. She had a puzzled look on her face as she coughed, trying to throw up the poisonous liquor that seethed down to her system, quickly immobilizing her.

"I'm sorry, sweetheart," Raghupathy said, fighting back tears. "I didn't have a choice. I..."

The small bottle, knocked by his hand, fell to the floor. She looked at it, her sight blurring slowly as she read the words 'Mortein'. She looked up at Raghupathy, trying to mouth the word 'why'. But he just sat there.


******

Back in the car, he made a quick checklist. He'd taken all the photographs of them together, anything that spoke of his presence in that house, anything that associated her to him and vice versa. He'd made sure no one saw him enter the house. He'd wiped off all the prints. He mentally ticked all these points and leaned back in his car. He felt awful doing this, but he had no choice. Time would heal this. In time he'd get past this and move on. He reminded himself not to repeat this mistake again.

A while later, a strange fear clouded him. Pramodini wanted to say something. Did she have copies of all the evidence? Had she informed someone? She was smart - capable. What if she'd arranged for information to reach the cops somehow. Or even the media. Blackmail. Anything was possible. What if the cops came looking, and found something that gave him away? And then there was the fact that he'd actually killed someone. It wasn't something that you did, as an honest citizen of this country. He couldn't negate the fact that he was now a potential suspect and this could cost him more than just his job and family. But he took a deep breath and crossed his fingers. Let's just get past things one at a time.

The inner ghosts could be handled later.

"But what about the ones outside, Raagu? What about them?" said a voice behind him and he swung back sharply, spraining his neck.

"Shilpa? How the hell...were you inside all the time? When did you..," he tried to speak all at once, words failing him. His mind was reeling. He turned his bewildered eyes on the road for a moment to avoid any accident, and continued to look in the rear view mirror.

Damn, what was wrong with the mirror? He turned it a bit to see clearly. Then his heart almost leapt out of his mouth. He panned the entire back seat with the mirror again. But he couldn't see her.

His hands shook terribly as he turned back to the wheel and realized that she'd reacted to his thought, and not words.

"No point looking in the mirror darling," Shilpa said sadly. Raghupathy stopped the car without looking back.

Then he slowly turned back. There was something wrong with her hairdo. "What happened to your..." he stopped midway. It couldn't be. A portion of her head on the left was...was missing. It was just a big, lumpy, bloody mess.

"It's a bullet wound, sweetheart," Shilpa said smiling sadly. Then she suddenly laughed, before turning sad again.

"It's all over, baby. Pramodini called me this afternoon...and well, I couldn't continue living after hearing it, so..." She pointed sadly at her own wound, her eyes boring his. "I'm sorry..." Her eyes beseeched.

"I'm sorry too," said another voice suddenly. He squinted his eyes. Pramodini suddenly appeared beside Shilpa, a white froth slowly seeping out from a corner of her mouth.

Raghupathy turned back for a second, his head throbbing. He grunted and gasped, trying hard to breathe, but he couldn't. He clutched his chest, and quickly tried to unbutton his shirt. A moment later he slumped on the wheel.

*******

Preying Guest

From the Frankly Spooking outtakes

***

Sagarika paid the rickshaw driver and got down. She dug out the piece of paper from her bag and checked the address again. This was it. She’d had to read the ad twice to actually believe it. A two bedroom house as a PG accommodation, just so the landlord wanted someone respectable to live there in the absence of their daughter, who was abroad? You must be kidding me, she’d thought.

But then again, she’d heard a lot of stories about gregarious Albert Town folks who’d gone so far as to even arrange for weddings of their PG tenants, mostly girls who’d grown close to them like their own daughters. These girls would’ve lived in the PGs for more than 5 years, graduating from fresh-out-of-college gigglers to the mature-oh-so-suave-and-smart office-goers who’d gotten themselves boyfriends along the way and then would’ve introduced them to their PG folks first, to their parents – later.

Oh well…thought Sagarika as she ambled along the cross road where the said house was located.  She squinted her eyes to read the house numbers, some were really diffult to make out - smaller than ants, and some bigger than rats. After about seven houses, she came upon her house. No. 378 – ah, there it was.

She looked at the house from outside and almost swooned. Was it for real? A grand Victorian style house built to perfection on a modest 60X40 site (yeah, A good old Victoria on the said dimension was always a tough feat to achieve). She complimented the architect mentally, thanking him, whoever he or she was. She pushed open the iron gate and stepped in. There was a lush garden on her left, with a few trees lining up the wall and a small bench even, in the middle. That was awesome. And the partly cloudy sky made it all look so beautiful, so picturesque.

From the gate, a cemented pathway led a visitor straight to the main door of the house. Sagarika walked slowly, taking in the surroundings. She’d already made plans with the lawn – Where she’d sip her Sunday cocktail, where she’d hang up her hammock and read a novel on those lazy Sunday afternoons. And hey, wouldn’t hurt to invite the old couple to a few barbeque parties she’d throw for her friends.

That is, after  she’d made enough money to buy barbeque grills and earned enough friends in this new city. She laughed at her own chicken, which hadn’t hatched yet. She now stood in front of the door; a small whoop of pleasant surprise escaping her lips. She couldn’t believe they still made that – a large round bracelet-type ring screwed on in the middle of the door, for you to knock it with. She knocked a few times gleefully. Felt good. Oh, there was a doorbell too. She rang it once.

As she waited for the owners to arrive, she looked up and down the house, the stone walls, the creepers climbing up to the rooftop, the myriad designs on the windows. Then her eyes fell on the outhouse to the right. It was slightly smaller, but looked like a residence nonetheless. Probably the servants. And then she saw the window on the first floor of that house open and a woman part the curtains. The old lady was about to open her mouth when Sagarika heard someone clear his throat and turned to look back.

“Another software engineer, I’m sure.” Said an old man, perhaps in his 80s. She looked around and then at him. She hadn’t noticed him earlier. Maybe he was tending to the plants behind the trees.

She raised her eyebrow. “I’m sorry…sir, did you say something to me?” She started walking towards him; studied him. He certainly didn’t seem like the landlord. His clothes seemed old and ragged. Maybe he was that lady’s husband, in the outhouse. And he had an old cap perched on his head. Like the one Sherlock Holmes used to wear.

For a minute he looked puzzled, a little shocked even, like she wasn’t supposed to have heard what he said, but she had anyway. He then stood still, seeing her approach him.

Just then the old lady from the out house called out from behind her.  “Excuse me, child…but have you come for the PG?”

“Oh yes aunty,” Sagarika said walking to her now.

The old lady smiled. “You love plants?”

“Hmm?”

“You love plants,” the woman said. “You were talking to..”

“Oh that, yeah…” Sagarika turned to point at the old man, but he wasn’t there. Must have gone around to the backyard. The woman opened the door and led her inside.

“Come, come, child, come in. My name is Martha.” They shook hands.

“ Sagarika.”

The old lady smiled. They toured the house slowly, looking at each room.

Sagarika was in total awe of the house. “ It’s so beautiful”. The rent was a steal. And Martha had thrown in the morning breakfast too, with the works.

They walked around a bit more. Sagarika couldn’t believe her luck.

“Aunty, you said in the ad that your daughter is in the US. Is she planning to return?”

Martha shook her head, and then shrugged. “But who knows…she might. Her grandfather loved this house so much…this house actually was built by him. And he lived a long life here. Used to love little Lisa.” She looked at Sagarika’s questioning look. “Oh..Lisa is my daughter’s name.” Sagarika smiled.

“Lisa had told her grampa that she would continue living here, no matter what. So..we’re a little apprehensive renting it out, actually…but..times are bad, child. You understand na?”

Sagarika nodded.

“We need the money,” Martha said, letting out a sigh. “So…we told Lisa that we’d only give it to respectable girls. And we’d charge very less..”

Sagarika looked at the old lady sympathetically. They were back in the main hall. Sagarika looked at the huge paintings adorning the walls. Forefathers and other members of the family, she guessed.

And oh, there was a picture of that old man she spoke to outside. Only a little younger. Sagarika smiled at the Sherlock Holmes hat. Too bad he had the same frown on his face, and his eyes seemed to pierce hers. She wondered how she’d put up with him here. She imagined a fussy old man with a long list of dos and don'ts.

Then her eyes fell on the portrait beside him. It was Martha’s.

“Oh, that’s you…” She started saying, and turned to Martha. But the old lady had disappeared.

Suddenly the hall resounded with a low drone gurgle that turned into laughter. Martha.

“Bloody hell,” Sagarika said, looking around frantically. The house now began to change color. It grew darker inside. The walls started looking old, there were cob-webs everywhere; and the floor turned dusty.

Suddenly the old man’s picture fell off the hook and onto the floor with a resounding crash, sending a cloud of dust flying all over.

The laughter died down, giving way to an eerie silence. Sagarika turned and fled toward the door. As she neared it, it made a creaking sound and closed with a thud.

“No, no, no,” Sagarika screamed, rushing to it. She tried pulling it open. “Come on, open up.”

Then she started banging on it – maybe someone would hear it outside. “Help,” she shouted.

“Help.”

“Help.”

She gave up after her hands started hurting. Tired, she turned back, and jumped out of her skin.

Martha was standing behind her, blood dripping from her eyes.

“Please don’t go, child. Please,” She sobbed, slowly walking towards Sagarika.

Then as she stood inches from a petrified Sagarika, the old lady’s lips curved into a grin.

****

Frankly Spooking now has a face

Ok, so the count-down has kind of begun and in all good spirits (no, no..that pun was unintended. Honest) the book now has a face. Well, some parts are still missing, but yeah, more or less.

Here it is!

Frankly Spooking on Facebook

And as we inch closer to the release date, I'll keep the page updated with news, ads, and other tid-bits. So, come all, come ye, spread the spook...err, love.

All are invited.

Wait...that sounded too formal, no?

Come on over then, what're we waiting for? Bring your folks too :)

***

'You're selected'

From the Frankly Spooking Outtakes

***

Virkar squinted his eyes and looked at the monitor, concentrating deeply. His face wore his usual frown when he was deciding something. Saakshi sat beside him and stifled a yawn. She looked up at the clock. 2.30 AM. Gosh. But this profession was such. And she knew what it meant to be Virkar’s assistant. He was a hard task master.

They were looking at screen-tests of candidates for Virkar’s new movie.

“Sir, which one do you think fits the bill?” She said finally, unable to control herself. Virkar didn’t like interruptions when he was at work.

He frowned some more and muttered something to the tune of ‘rich kids, useless, they think they’re all salman..’ etc.

He reclined in his seat finally and stretched, a loud yawn escaping his lips.

“I don’t know Saakshi. What do you think? I go with number 23. For the guys, I’ll put my money on 16. He’s not the best, but much much better than the rest. Everyone else is shit.”

Saakshi moved the cursor back to number 23. The girl was reading out from the script, and then she was enacting the scene as told to. Saakshi looked at her test for a while and pursed her lips, nodding.

“You’re right. She’s got the right kind of look, and also it doesn’t look artificial. No?”

Virkar nodded and rose. “Ok, I’m off. Do you want me to…?”

“No sir, I’ll doze off here itself. I’ve informed Saahu, he gave me the keys,” Saakshi said with a tired smile.

Virkar shook his head and waved at her before walking out of the studio.

***

Saakshi decided to look at the applications again before hitting the sack. She settled down on the couch and grabbed the writing pad with the applications from the center-table, resting the sheets on her chest, flipping through each one. The test video was still playing on the system. Some guy was doing his ‘salman’ act.

She came to no. 23. She read the details about the girl. Then she slowly sat up with a puzzled look on her face. The girl in the photo looked somewhat different from the one in the video. Was it the hair?

She pulled out the sheet from the lot and got back to the laptop, pulling up the test video again.

She saw the girl in the video and looked at the photo in the application. It was a totally different girl. How on earth did that happen? She looked back at the screen.

The girl was now looking straight at her, her eyes piercing Saakshi's.

“She fell ill, Saakshi – so I took her place. I’m good, no?” She said, coming very close to the camera now.

Saakshi's heart felt like a huge piece of lead, trying to thump its way out.

*****

Be on Time...

From the Frankly Spooking outtakes.

****


The jogging track was hexagonal, roughly – though one couldn’t really ascertain that for sure. It just closely resembled that particular shape. Joggers came in around 5 am, when the park gate opened, and one could see a lone soul or two, still jogging, even as late as 11 am. The shady trees around the track made things easier. The same routine repeated in the evening, starting around 5.30 pm, till almost 9 pm. That was when that scraggy old security guard came tapping his stick on the cement track, shooing the health freaks out. Of course, evenings also were a time for the kids to go screaming all over the place and couples to cootchie-coo to their hearts’ content, on the benches alongside the track, a little away from it.

Suresh came in at 4 am and jumped the compound wall. The security guard was not to be seen in his usual spot. It was still dark, and he wanted to make the most of it. Got too damn crowded afterwards. He quickly warmed himself up in the park and stretched a bit using all those parallel bars in the play area. Once he was breathing a little heavily and his limbs had loosened up, he stood by one of the benches and sipped some water from his hipster.

He completed two rounds on the track and slowed down a bit for the third one. He looked at his wrist-watch. Good time.

Somewhere during the fifth round, he heard footsteps behind him, accompanied by that all-too-familiar heavy breathing. Ah, it begins now. Soon the place would be teeming with joggers. He wanted to quickly finish his jog and move on to stretching. He had a favorite corner where he did that. Five more rounds and he was done. The gentle breathing behind him continued, but he didn’t look back. He moved to a side of the track – maybe the fellow wanted to overtake. Didn’t happen, though.

He was onto his sixth lap when he suddenly felt his speed increasing. Like someone had just given him a good, firm push. He slowed down and looked back. What the hell…

There was nobody behind him. Huh? Maybe it was his own breath, echoing in his brain or something. He continued jogging, puzzled. At the end of the seventh lap his feet picked up speed again. This time there was no sign of slowing down.

“Hey,” he said involuntarily, and ordered his muscles to slow down. Nope. The speed only increased. He was running very fast now, his heart fighting to cope, and his lips going dry. He winced and tried to run off the track, but his feet were stuck to the track and he just couldn't control his muscles and veer away.

He wanted to scream but he couldn’t. All his energies were being taken up by his heart, pumping blood through his veins, like a locomotive. His eyes were watering and head pounding. For a bystander, it would look like he was doing a 1500 meters sprint, only faster. The speed kept going up. He wondered how his feet were still on the track. His knees cried out and his lungs were about to explode.

Suddenly, the speed reduced until he was back to his normal jogging pace. But he was done. He ran off the track and collapsed in the middle of the park, on the grass. As he lay there, his breathing sounding like a hand weaver’s loom in overdrive, his eyes still adjusting to the view above, he heard the footsteps back on the track, and the heavy breathing.

“Who….who’s ….there?” He managed to say in between the heavy panting.

No reply, just the footsteps and the breathing.

A while later, when the blood had returned to his face, and his limbs (though beaten) were not groggy anymore, he rose and walked slowly towards the gate. It was still dark, but the gate was open. Shit, the guard is here.

He was about to walk through when he almost bumped into the guard, who was blocking the gateway.

“Damn, you scared me, man” Suresh said. The guard just stared back and stepped aside with a grunt. He glared at Suresh. "You are jumping wall and going. Not allowed. See?" He said and pointed at the sign-board.

Park Timing: 5 am – 9 pm

Suresh didn’t have the energy to argue with him and just nodded. “Yeah, yeah, I know.” He walked past the guard.

"You running very fast. I see from here. Don't run like that, that also so early morning. Mist. Cold. You will die.”

Suresh turned. "Huh? You saw me running?"

The guard grinned a toothy grin and nodded. Then he pointed back at the board.

"5 am. You come. Not before. Ok?"

Suresh brushed him aside and started walking away. “Ok, ok".

The guard laughed behind him and remarked. "Otherwise tomorrow you will run more fast."

Suresh turned. "Hey, listen it's none of your goddamn..."

There was nobody there... and the gate was locked.

****

'Like'

From the Frankly Spooking outtakes

***

Nidhi sat in front of her laptop, her hands poised on the keyboard, face contorted into a knot of fury. Just what did these dumbos think of her? She was the nerd of the class, but that didn’t mean they demean her in this manner?

All that talk about ghosts and supernatural beings got to her earlier in the evening. They had managed to make her bunk the last language hour class, but at hind sight she felt she could’ve as well attended it. Couldn’t these people find a better topic to talk about?

It all began when Priya started talking about how her sister saw a ghost in her hostel bathroom. And that was it – everybody had a story to tell. Somebody’s aunt saw a ghost, somebody’s uncle saw one, heck – Rajiv’s brother even got to dance with one. Nidhi rolled her eyes as she recalled each one of those so called ‘anecdotes’. Losers all.

And when Nidhi asked them if they personally had seen even one ghost, none had an answer. That alone proved that there were no ghosts. Nidhi was smug about it, only to be rebuffed by them all. To the extent that they said she couldn’t see ghosts because ghosts didn’t like intelligent folks. They seemed to draw strength only from weak minds and hence tended to harass only them. So Nidhi would never get to see or talk to a ghost. Ha, what a genius explanation.

Now, as Nidhi opened her Facebook account, she decided to post about it. She sat in front of the screen, her mind a blank. Then she started typing.

About two years ago, my brother came running down from his room and whimpered to my parents – there’s a ghost in my window, there’s a ghost in my window. My papa went up with the scared little mouse that my brother is, and discovered the ‘ghost’ in the window was nothing but the shadow of a branch right outside, falling on the glass pane. It shook gently in the wind, thereby giving a feeling of ‘someone’ instead of the real thing – something. That is, the branch of the tree.

Which brings me to the question – do ghosts exist? Do they really exist, or are they just fragments of one’s imagination. After all, come on – I mean, nobody has seen God, right? I’m not comparing God with ghost, but the phenomenon is more or less the same right? In my opinion, unless you personally ‘experience’ something you cannot really say it exists. At least not with the confidence with which we so easily believe in the existence of supernatural beings which can’t be commonly seen with the naked eyes. We humans are so funny. On the one hand, we would not like to believe something which happens right in front of our eyes, but something such as a ghost, we’re only too ready to believe in.

I think it’s time we changed. It’s time we became aware of our own stupidity. And what for, all this? It does nobody any good. The weak just get scared, and the other folks just derive pleasure out of scaring them. So, I would like to take this opportunity to start a little contest here. In the comment box here, come up with an original ghost story. The best one wins a prize. The prize is a secret, and only after the recipient gets it, is he or she allowed to reveal it to the world. Howzzat? So come ye all, put on your best spooky hats and start penning away here.

She then added - Those folks who feel the comment box is small, could also email me. My email ID is the same as my FB ID. So get cracking folks.

She let out a sigh and  sat back, reading her post once again. After making a few changes, she hit the ‘Enter’ button and saw the post appear on her wall. She smiled. This should be fun.

She was about to leave to bed when (eyes slowly widening) she saw the cursor on her screen move on its own and click the ‘Like’ button.


***

Thus spooked Phatichar

Ok, the word is out, at least from HarperCollins’ side. They were not kidding when they made me sign on the dotted line and told me that they’d print the book. Amen to that.

And here’s proof. Of course, in all good earnestness I shared this link on my Facebook timeline (at the marketing head’s behest). And for those who haven’t added me on their friends list yet, or for that matter, have no intention of adding me ever, here it is:

http://www.harpercollins.co.in/BookDetail.asp?Book_Code=3889

Funny title isn’t it, for someone who likes to spook the *@#$ out of folks (I didn’t purposely write the first letter because there are too many ‘comfort’ swear words people like to use these days so they can replace the letters with whatever they prefer, be my guest) . See, I’m such an accommodative spooker. No, really..frankly speaking.

Ahem. Over to more serious business then.

What I’ve been told is over the next few weeks, the publishers are going to do the following, not necessarily in the same order, but..well, more or less – get the books fresh off the press, release the electronic version of the book cover, garner some interest by way of teasers, contests (hopefully not, I can’t imagine anybody wanting to participate in spooky contests), get some ‘important’ (I surely hope not ghosts) people to share ideas and opinions about the paranormal etc., release some sort of an ad campaign for the book, all of these on their Facebook profile. And oh, yes – reviews. A very important part of any promotional activity, nothing new about that. The book’s gonna go to some select publications, personalities etc, and receive some feedback from them. Things such as ‘This guy’s a freak, what sort of a healthy, normal thinking person in their sane minds would write stories like this, gimme a break’, or some such thing hopefully. And yes, I might have to do some interviews, hopefully during daytime (if all goes well after the reviews, that is). On second thoughts, if something spooky happens, they might wanna speak to me all the same. Hmm, never thought about that. Shudder.

And! After all this, if people still have any inclination at all to get spooked  any further...

They’ll release the book to the various book-stores, online and offline. After that, you know the rest.

Nice, huh?

Count down

‘The book’s gone to print,’ my editor said a couple of weeks ago. It was only then it sank in (well, to be completely honest, it still hasn’t) that from here on, I had absolutely no control over the words I wrote for the past 6-7 years, and a few I wrote some months back.

It has its own destiny to face now.

A grueling month it has been. Edits, rewrites, discussions, late night chats with editor over the nitty-gritties of plot, blah, blah, and blah. Phew. As I reclined in my seat and absently counted the number of stories that I had sent, I went ‘huh. This many?’ Yeah, I’d sent 83 stories to be precise. And they picked up how many? Thirty. Thirty that the editor ‘felt’ were the best of the lot. That speaks a whole about the effort I’d put the last so many years. Thirty lousy stories were worth it. That’s all? I grimaced. But then wait a minute. Isn’t blogging all about that? Of not having to worry about best or worst, and just keep at it so you satiate your creative appetite? Be that as it may, I was (guiltily so) somewhere in the back of my mind, happy that I was done with it. Finally. It’s done. There won’t be any more of those ‘hmmm, wonder how this story would look in a published book’ kind of thoughts running in the back of my head. There'll be stories for sure, but they'll be different.

So. No big deal really, right – you blogged, now you published. And you had it all made. The package was all there, waiting to be picked up.

No siree. Uh huh.

It’s not that simple, unfortunately. Writing on the blog and writing for a book are like looking into the model of the planet rotating on a plastic axle and looking at it from up above the sky. From up there, you can only look at it (once it’s done) and either draw in a breath, or spit out a frustrating scoff. Well, either ways, it’s too far away to be actually able to do something about it. One can’t really fix those craters visible on the moon, right?

Believe me, it's nerve-racking. But then, was it fun? I guess it was… at hindsight. While you’re in the eye of the storm, all you want to do is get it over with. But now that I think about it...yeah, it was fun.

So, then what next? Well, for starters, the book is scheduled for an August release which is like a month away. The marketing head contacted me and rattled off some things that sounded like marketing-speak  - like it should. Only I can’t claim to have understood it completely. I’ll let it pass. Suffice to say I understood the important words like ‘online promotion’, ‘media reviews’, and some others I don’t remember at this point. I’ll be probably talking more about it in the days to come.

And I’ll need your help. Because, I for one, suck big time at marketing and promotion and publicity and all those things that help sell an ice-cream to an eskimo. I’d rather just hand over my ice-cream to a guy astride a camel in a desert (not sell it). But then I know we’re in the real world. And especially in today’s world, we do need to have the capability of selling ice-cream to an eskimo. And whether or not I like it, the book is now a finished product.

I just hope the people out there read it. And enjoy it. Just like how you all did.  That’s what matters to me. So, you'll help spread the spook..err..word when it comes out, won't you? I’m counting on you guys here.


 And oh yes, I'll be back here. This is home. Really.

Mr. Prefix

For several years, many thought the ‘Sri’ in my name was a prefix – as in Sri (xyz), or Sri (zyx). Many of them still do. And every time somebody wrote my name, I had to point out, ‘Err..the ‘Sri’ is a part of the full name, please’. It got to me after a while, and I became immune to it. So, in non-government organizations and other places where it didn’t really matter, I just let the guys knock themselves out prefixing the ‘Sri’. Big deal…

You see, though my name is primarily a Sanskrit word, fairly pronounceable, or should I say, ‘should be fairly pronounceable’ by Indians, I realized a particular letter in the name was just as hard for my north indian friends (and classmates when I was in school) to pronounce (There are two ways of phonetically saying ‘na’. It’s there in the hindi script as well, but well – many of them don’t use the other one colloquially, so..we were back to square one). One blogger (many years ago though) even thought I was a woman! Said the name sounded like a woman's! (I still haven't been able to figure this one out)

So they’d take off a vowel before ‘n’, flatten the 'na' some more and suit themselves. Even that was OK with me.

But problems cropped up again when I joined the software industry and had to work with my American and European counterparts. And now, the very ‘prefix’ which used to get my goat, became a balm of relief. 99.99999999% of these guys couldn’t get even a part of my name right, forget the entire thing. So, this time round, Mr. prefix came to my rescue. ‘Uh, you could just call me ‘Sri’’, I’d suggest, and they would go ‘Oh. Sri! Yes, that works, that’s cool. Hi, Sri,’ they’d say over and over again (Shwee, Shwee that is)  as if they’d got hold of their PT master’s whistle.  And I’d go ‘Ah, what the hell..’  Big deal…again.

And over a period of time, the shortened ‘Sri’  became quite the norm – my mom, sister, wife and many close friends call me that. And yeah, even you guys know me by that name. It’s probably just as well, because it’s easier to say Sri than try and roll the entire name off your tongue. No complaints.

But when I was small, I’d frown at my own name. ‘Why couldn’t my parents have given me an easier name which could be easily pronounced?’ This one was so much drama. But then as I grew up I realized, though a little difficult to pronounce by a few people, this was a name that was my identity. And my parents had some (my mother mostly) emotion attached to it. Of course, in southern India, this name is not a big deal at all. I know many folks having it. But in a global platform, when people have to pronounce my name, and fumble, all I do is spring up Mr. ‘Prefix’.

After all, what’s in a name, right?

How am I driving?

So, I make a mental note of this phone number and call.

After a few rings …

‘Hello?’

‘Yes, took this number from the back of a cab. Your guy is driving rashly. Could you connect me to someone I could report this to?’

‘Sure.’

I’m connected to another number.

‘Hello.’

What the hell is the noise in the background?

‘Hello, yeah..this guy, he’s driving rashly. His number plate… (I give the number)’.

‘I’m the driver.’

Huh?

‘Why’d they connect me to you? And why're you driving like a maniac?’

‘Ok, sorry.’

Line disconnected.

???

The butler did it

‘XYZ did it’.

Three simple words. Some idiot wrote this on the notice board of a college years ago, spoiling the fun for hundreds of students who wanted to catch the latest murder mystery that weekend. No, I'm not naming the actor, or telling which movie. I'm sure you guys'll figure it out. This piece of news, more than the movie, made a lot waves. :P

Point is, when it comes to suspense, and that surprise ‘twist’, we humans are a funny lot. While the majority of us get a kick out of that twist revealed to us at the end, I’ve also seen that sometimes it’s not just about the suspense, but the way it builds up in the story, and the way it is revealed to not just the audience, but also to the other characters inside the story. Which brings me to the question – What exactly is ‘good’ suspense, if there is such a term at all? And what is it that really plays havoc in our brains? The twist that is kept from us, or the fact that the rest of the characters in the story are kept from it.

Funny, isn’t it? When I wrote ‘Façade’, many liked it. It was a typical 'suspense'. But then there were some who told me, ‘we wanted to know about the actual perpetrator earlier on in the story’. That intrigued me. It proved that there was indeed a segment of readers (viewers in case of a movie) that wanted to be kept informed of the proceedings. So then, how does one keep the audience/readers engaged, despite telling them about the culprit right away?

And then I remembered that a few years ago, I myself had sat through a movie biting nails, when actually the story was really very simple. It was about a crime, and we knew who did it. But the story was the real hero. It made me conclude that there indeed was a third angle to this all. Suspense, or twist, it all depends on what is being revealed that really does us in. And it’s actually this angle that makes a story nail biting. It also made me conclude that there indeed is a kind of duality to the way we think. And more often than not, it is the type of crime and the nature of the culprit,  that decides whether or not we care more about knowing who did it, or cared more about how it was going to affect the other unsuspecting characters. Usually, the suspense, or the effect of suspense is heightened when a character we totally trust and care about throughout the story, turns out to be the actual culprit.

For those who have read the story ‘Murder on the Orient Express’, you will remember that the denouement comes in the end, but by then you as a reader pretty much  knew what was going on, and who all were involved. The way Agatha Christie revealed that plot to us was the unique factor. I did a quick mental survey of those kind of stories that revealed the culprit in the end, and those that revealed that person to us early on, but kept us hooked with something more intriguing – The final stakes. Which then brought me to the conclusion that there are two things to the whole aspect. The suspense. And the thrill. Both work on different levels.

But ultimately what usually works better is the thrill.

The word 'suspense' itself, ironically, becomes predictable  after a while.  But getting to know how it is revealed to the other characters, is what makes the ride worthy. It’s like when we were kids - chancing upon somebody else’s secret place, and sitting behind the bushes waiting to know how the ‘other’ people reacted when they chanced upon that place.  Making us an accomplice, almost.

And that gives a kick. Always.

****

Boomerang

We all have at some point in time, left things, some precious, some expensive, and some not so dear things in public places, only to lament about it later on. Well, life goes on after all and we forget about it. But I always think about the object that got left behind. Who would be using it now? Would it have sat unnoticed for a few days till somebody noticed and picked it up? I like to use my mental camera and zoom in on that lone object. And I think, if it had life, would it also lament about its owner in the same way?

I say this because something weird happened years ago, which I will never forget.

I had just graduated, and come down to Bangalore for a trainee job in an ad agency. I had made the trip on my scooter, much to my mother’s dissent, but anyway…it was great fun. Since I had a week at hand before joining for work, I and my friends planned on riding out to the countryside, make a few trips to some undiscovered locations, and generally do a road trip of sorts. We packed our bags, myself and couple of other friends on another bike, and off we went. The trip itself was great – we covered more than 1500 kilometers over a period of three days and were returning to Bangalore on the third day. It was around 8.30 pm, we decided to have supper at a roadside Dhaba. Since we were already tired and wanted to hit the sack before midnight, we had a light supper and decided to hit the road.

But when I went to my scooter, I saw somebody had stolen my helmet. In those days, helmet wasn’t mandatory in the state, but I always wore it while riding. I wasn’t emotionally attached to it or anything, but that night, I felt something tug at my heart strings. I’d worn the helmet for more than three years. It was my very first one; my father had bought it for me when I started riding the scooter. I’d not felt anything for it until now. I bought another one a couple of days later and life moved on.

A couple of years later, as I was riding home from work, it started pouring, and to top it, I had a flat tyre. I had no choice but to somehow drag it to a side and take shelter under one of the sun shades of a closed shop. There were a few others huddled in the same spot. I jostled for some space and stood like the rest, waiting for the rain to subside. An elderly person standing next to me, started making small talk, generally offered his sympathies for my flat tyre, and informed me about a guy who fixed tyres round the bend. ‘Go there as soon as it stops raining,’ the old man said. I smiled and thanked him. In the meantime I’d taken off my helmet and placed it on an elevated cement block to my left. Around the same time, another biker ran in from the rain and stood beside me. I didn’t even look at him properly. A half hour later, when the rain had reduced to a drizzle, most of the guys ventured out, but I and the old man continued talking as we had discovered some common interests, and I was in no hurry to go. He was narrating an anecdote and I was listening intently.

Soon, it was time for us to leave. We shook hands, he left, and I turned to my side to pick up my helmet.

It was gone. My jaw dropped. ‘Not again,’ I groaned. But surprise of all surprises, there was another in its place. Clearly a case of mistaken ‘helmet’ identity. The guy who ran in from the rain had taken off with my helmet, and left his. I shook my head and smiled. With no other choice left to me, I picked up the old helmet and walked to my scooter.

My tyre was fixed a few minutes later. I paid the guy and was about to slip the helmet over my head, when something on the helmet caught my eye. I did a double take and then looked at it closely.

‘SM’. My initials. Like the one on my old helmet that was stolen. I had absently scratched the letters at the back when it was still new. My sister had even teased me about it. Surely, it was just a coincidence, I thought. But upon closer inspection, I realized it was indeed the same inscription. And the same helmet. I had never noticed it until now. Maybe because it had a new visor and inner padding. But it was unmistakable. My helmet had 'returned' to me.

I laughed out loud in disbelief. Passers-by looked on amused.

I looked at the scratchy old thing one last time and put it on, still shaking my head. I’d heard about lost children returning to their parents; even lost pets returning home.

But this?

I think I still have it, stashed away somewhere at my Mysore home. Some day, I'll pull it out, dust it carefully and tell about it to Aayu's kids.

***

Special Class

Mandira walked back to her bedroom after supper and opened her laptop. She had to file that report about the school valedictory the next morning. She navigated to the folder where she usually stored all her extra-curricular files and frowned.

The valedictory file was missing. That’s strange. She rummaged her bag for the pen drive and plugged it in.

Nothing. No files.

She sat back and rolled her eyes. She could’ve sworn she’d copied the file from Shwetha at lunch break. Where the hell was the file?

She ran a search all over again. She had named the file ‘Valedictory_0125’. Nothing came up. Still frowning, she picked up her mobile phone and dialed Shwetha’s number.

“Hi Shwetha?”

“Helllo, darling,” Shwetha said in her usual cheerful tone.

“Hi..had supper?” Mandira asked.

“Yeah..just about now..so, what’s up? Jittery about tomorrow,huh?”

“Arre, no. But you remember you gave me the presentation file during lunch break?”

“Yeah, you copied it in a thumb drive if I’m not wrong?”

“Yeah, but you know what..I don’t seem to have it now. I mean..it’s not on the thumb drive as well yaar.”

“Really? That’s strange.”

“Do you have it on your system, sweety?” Mandira asked, biting her nails. Shwetha lived a stone’s throw away from Mandira. “I’ll come over and copy it, if you don’t mind?”

Shwetha exclaimed. “Shit, the laptop’s with my sister, Mandy.”

“Oh no,” Mandira groaned.

“Yeah. She said she’d drop by to school tomorrow and return it. It had some movies Atul had stored, and neither of us had a hard drive. You know the old one’s conked, don't you?”

“What do I do now?” Mandira said. It was more a question to herself.

“There’s another way, but I don’t know if that’s a very wise thing to do,” Shwetha said.

“What?”

“It is on the office system. I saved a copy there.”

“Oh, bless you child,” Mandira said. “I can collect the keys from Sumana and..”

“Sumana..?”

“Yeah, all office keys are with her. At least a duplicate I think. We can do the paperwork tomorrow. I can cite the Valedictory reason, do some pleading and head over there now. Do you wanna come?”

“Umm…Meeta’s sleeping, and Rohan also isn’t around…” Shwetha started.

“Ok, no problem. I guess I’ll go alone then,” Mandira said, shutting down her laptop and getting up to go already.

There was a pause.

“You sure you want to do that?”

“Yeah, yeah. There’s no other way. I have to make those changes tonight. I don’t have time tomorrow. I’ll just copy it on the thumb drive. It’ll not even take 10 minutes.”

“Hmm. Ok..” Shwetha said.

“Chalo, I’ll update you with whatever, yeah?”

“Yeah. Take care, baby.”

Mandira smiled. “Yeah..bye.”

***

Getting the keys from Sumana wasn’t a problem. After about a half hour, Mandira parked her scooter in the school compound and walked to the main entrance. She looked at the time. It was almost 10 pm. This would have to be done fast. She explained her situation to the school guard and got entry into the main lobby.

“Ok, I’ll take it from here,” she told and proceeded to the staff room.

The school was square in shape with a courtyard out in the front. There were four floors of classes facing the courtyard on all four sides. The main office and staff room were on the ground floor on the far east. The security guard switched on the lights of the main corridor. She didn’t want all other lights to be switched on.

Keys dangling in her hand, she briskly walked to the staff room. The tapping of her sandals reverberated in the empty corridor. She looked around and suddenly realized the school looked quite ominous at this time of the night, with no lights on. She felt the shape of the right key and was about to enter the staff room when she stopped, and craned her ears.

Somebody was laughing.

Since the school was closed on all sides, except for maybe loudspeakers, no sound could enter the premises, not even the sound of traffic. It was like a fortress. Moreover, it was too late for any special classes, which ended latest by 8 pm, according to school policy. 

She decided to ignore it. She fiddled with the key bunch, selected her key and bent to open the lock when it came again. A little louder this time. Sounded like several people laughing together. Huh? She quietly placed her bag and keys on the corridor railing and slowly stepped out into the courtyard, looking up on all four sides.

It was dark everywhere, except for the one side of the lit corridor on the ground floor, near the entrance. She was about walk back towards the staff room when a classroom light came on, up on the fourth floor.

Maybe the guard knew something about it. She walked across the courtyard to the security booth. But there was nobody there.

She waited a couple of minutes, and then decided to investigate it herself. That was the only thing to do. She cursed the security guard for having vanished just like that. Probably went out for a smoke. And she didn’t want to waste time hunting for him.

She took the flight of stairs and reached the fourth floor, slightly out of breath and walked over to the side where she thought the light had come on, and stopped. It was all dark. Strange.

Maybe a faulty tube light? It had happened a few times earlier. The housekeeping staff forgot to switch off lights simply because at the time all lights seemed off, but suddenly, one light that wasn’t working properly, would come on after a while.

She slowly walked to the right wing, above the staff room. She stood there in the darkness feeling a little stupid now. She turned to leave – when the light came on again. Ah, there. She walked over. Definitely a bad tube light.

The door was half open, though. Great, they had forgotten to lock it as well. This was going straight to the weekly report.  But as she went nearer, she heard the same laughter. Coming from in there. She stopped dead in her tracks, her pulse racing now.

“And..now, we will begin with…” somebody was saying. She couldn’t hear properly. She took a step and then stopped.

Hell, it was a special class – but surely the security guy knew about it?  Maybe he thought that she knew too. She slowly edged towards the light.

The voice continued speaking. Every once a while, she heard another voice, and some other voices too, like they were discussing something. An entire class was here. She was confused. Nobody told her about this. She was the teacher - student co-ordinator, and the least she expected was the Principal telling her about this ‘evening’ class for the teachers. It didn’t make any sense.

She decided to peep in. Worst case, she could excuse herself out. The talking grew louder as she slowly inched toward the door.

The door creaked softly as she pushed it open. The room grew silent. Obviously they knew someone was there.

Damn, this was embarrassing.

She then opened the door fully wide. A gust of cold wind struck her face, making her shiver for a second.

The classroom was empty.  

What the hell…

Confused, she took a step out and looked at the neighboring classrooms.Closed. She could have sworn this was the room. The lights were still on. She stood there, her eyes panning the length and breadth of the room. There was an open book on the teacher’s table. The other desks had books as well. She slowly stepped inside and walked to the table. She stood over the book and looked at the open page. Strange. She was about to pick it up when the door slammed shut, making her gasp. She quickly walked over and pulled the door knob. It was locked. Panicking, she tried to pull it with all her might. Nothing. She banged the door several few times, calling out to the guard.

***

A while later, the security guard descended the staircase, puzzled.

He could’ve sworn he heard a door banging on the fourth floor. But all the rooms were locked and the lights were off.

He cursed himself for stepping out for a smoke. The lady had left without returning the keys to him. He shrugged. Maybe she kept it so she could complain about him the next day. He decided not to think about it a lot. Switching off the corridor light on the ground floor, he walked out of the building.

Across the courtyard, in the darkness, lay a bunch of keys and a handbag.

****

Night'mere'

We have dreams, and then we have nightmares. Well, technically, any dream or nightmare is just our mind replaying all that crap we thought about during the day. And dreams are good. Sometimes we wake up smiling, and realizing just how nutty we felt watching the dream and behaving as if it were real and all that.

But last night, something funny happened. I was watching a horror movie earlier on (rolling eyes..so what’s new, huh?), and well, some weird images replayed in my head when I was asleep. In the movies, you’d see the guy wake up sweating profusely, panting heavily etc. In my case I was going through the whole rigmarole (in a dream we’re usually like the characters of a story, right..detached from our real selves) knowing fully well it was a nightmare, and that I was just dreaming the whole stuff, and not actually in it. And all this when I was right in the middle of the action, not when I'd woken up. So when the other ‘characters’ in the nightmare assumed weird identities and terrorized folks, I was just side-stepping them, or maybe even sniggering thinking ‘what duds, they don’t even know all this isn’t real’, and being very smug about it.

Huh..so much for playing a spoilsport.



***

One world?

Ok, ‘rantish’ post alert! :P

Around this time nine years ago, I posted this entry in my earlier blog, some of you might have read it already. Funny how a lot of it, no almost all of it, still holds good. I’ve inserted my notes inline – kind of like walking through the experience with thoughts on it today.

A world apart

If age is in the mind, then the Internet has given this adage a whole new meaning. In the online world, despite age differences, there's a certain commonness. Take blogging for example. We visit each other, we talk, we laugh, cry, express ourselves, react; we have different sensibilities and points of view, but still bound together. There's something in it that makes us come to this world each day (ok, maybe not every day) with renewed vigour. You're down under, away from the blog for a few days, your fingers begin to itch (This might’ve reduced a bit – what with other things to keep us busy, FB, Twitter etc). You want to come back and make that connection with the rest of the online world (mostly true, right? Some of us still feel that need). It's amazing. Imagine if all of us had met at a party, say a real one. I’m sure in no time, we’d have broken up in small groups based on say, age or interests. Right? But here it's different. Here, you never age (ok, maybe these days we’re more aware of that; we tend to write things more relevant to our age; especially with young students and single folks who talk more about their relationships and insecurities). Even though you age physically, you're never too young or old to say something. There've been times I've gone through the 'by now cliched' quarter life crisis ( Ha ha, maybe it’s now time to change that to the even more clichéd ‘MID-LIFE’ crisis. Nah, I’m kidding), I have contemplated staying away from this online universe for a while, come to terms with who I really am (Yeah, there was a period when I was grappling with this thing. I was new to this experience and used to wonder about my real identity, and let me confess, have said stupid things to upset people on- and off-line. Thankfully, the picture is much clearer today). But like someone mentioned the other day, you are who you are, no matter where - online or offline. It shouldn't matter. Really, it shouldn't (Holds good today as well, only difference is, the online world has become a more acceptable sphere of interaction with the advent of social networking. I’m not really sure if we’ll reach saturation there, but for now that’s how it seems ).

I have friends outside the online world. I have a family that I love and care about a lot. Yet, there's also this small place where I go to unwind. I don't visit every day, my day job doesn't allow me to (Sigh, we all know that today the lines have almost blurred. One can be online 24/7 even when one’s not online. There is just too much bandwidth, both on computers and on mobile devices, right?). But gradually as I get older in this world of user names and comment boxes, I realize, this world is here to stay as well. I always wondered about a parallel world. What better example than this? It's a great place to be. And you guys are great friends to be with. (This more or less remains, though the circle is much smaller now. And I feel much older among the current crop ;-))

I like it here. And I love you guys. In my mind's eye? This world is sure as hell young and beautiful. And I hope I'll never leave here. (Well, what can I say? I still hope…though I’m not as sure as I was back then.)

***
PS: Looks like I had a lot of thoughts  ;-)

I thought so

Let’s just say you had the power to read people’s minds. For a day. That’s it, just for a day. What would you do? Would you ‘eavesdrop’ on every other ‘conversation’ happening around you, or invite your best friend to a café, or home and listen to what he or she had to ‘say’?

I wonder how many relationships would jump off the cliff if this phenomenon ever came true in our case. Makes you wonder, huh?

‘Oh, I trust him completely. Oh, I trust her completely. He or she would never think bad of me. I would never think bad of someone else.’

But we all know that it’s not about thinking good or bad about anybody. It’s about what we’re thinking at all, in the first place. Which brings us back to the same question. Are all relationships that robust that they could stand this test? Or are all relationships so fragile that they’d shatter simply because someone you love or like, or …even know, is not thinking what you’d like that person to think?

What are you thinking?

***

Just write

“I used to write about almost anything that came to my mind,” I said to an old friend. He doesn’t blog, but we go way back. There are days when I use him as a sound board; bounce thoughts, ideas, and even my frustrations off him. And vice versa, of course.

And he said. 'So, just write.'

And I told this to him because after a decade of blogging about almost anything that came to my mind, I suddenly found myself at cross-roads. I felt I didn’t have anything to write about. General stuff. Check. Random stuff. Check. Silly stuff. Check. Hell, even fiction. Check. Now I’m sure the human mind is a bottomless pit. You can keep forking stuff out of it an entire lifetime and you won’t even be done a quarter of it, let alone completely. So then why the mental block?

A television channel reruns shows because of the short memory that the viewers have. They like to cash in on that. Refresh their memories. Make them go down memory lane and say ‘awww, they’re showing my favorite old show again. How nice.’

But a blog? Most bloggers blog for themselves, right? There are exceptions too, I know – I was one of them. I started writing fiction because I got tired writing for myself. I turned the ‘weblog’ (diary) into a ‘web-book’, filled it with stories everyone else could read and comment on. So then, does it really make sense to ‘rerun’ your own thoughts for yourself? I mean all I have to do is just dig the archives and read my own stuff. Right? Even visitors to my blog would do that.

‘Ah, but that’s where you’re wrong,’ my friend countered. And he had a point. ‘You know you’ve written random stuff, and you go back to the archives and read it. But there are visitors who don’t know you’ve written random stuff. So why’ll they go there? You’ve been writing fiction for a long time now. So everybody comes to your blog to read precisely that. Stories. And a blog is all about today and now. You write, they read, they move on. The stress being on the word ‘move’.’

Hmmm, makes sense.

I’ve always done things differently, written differently. And it’s not because I want to be different. It’s just how I’m wired. I started writing stuff on the blog because I wanted to vent, I guess. It soon gave way to observations of life. Of happenings around me. And then some. Fiction happened because I could share my stories here without having to worry about word count or deadlines. And then I got hooked on to it. I will surely continue to write fiction, but I guess I’ll also try and go back to being the earlier Phatichar. Just write stuff. Whatever.

I guess finally, I did take my friend’s advice after all. I just came here and ‘wrote’. It doesn’t make sense completely, but at least it got me started.

And I’ve written worse, believe me.

Another era of blogging begins.

***

A decade through the arcade

Ten years. Phew. (Funny, doesn't feel that long).

***

INTERMISSION

Cat got your 'tangle'?

If you’re the kind of person that gets tense over the most trivial matters, you haven’t really seen a kitten with a piece of string, or a strand of a broomstick…or, well just about anything. Give her something, anything and you’ll suddenly feel like your problems in life were equal to a feather that would just blow away at the slightest breeze. But for the little feline, even an ant becomes a question of life and death.

It has to conquer. No matter what. No matter who.

Ok, before you furrow your brows any further, let me get to the point. Today, I saw our neighbor's kitten (that sometimes makes itself at home in our living room) finally meet its match. Yes, ladies and gentleman. The kitten today, came face to face, with its nemesis. The kitten…

Ok, ok, I’ll say it. The kitten met the earphone cable.

One of the biggest and the most mysterious problems I’ve ever faced in my life is the earphone cable. I suspect it was created with the very purpose of frustrating a person so much, that it could easily double up as a hanging noose (that might be an exaggeration, but just so).  But let me tell you this - The earphone was definitely invented by a sadist. Yes, that’s my opinion. I know, you’ll say “come on, it is a modern day wonder, it has made music all the more personal to us and all that blah blah.” Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I kid you not. The earphones might have been a source of joy (still is) for people of all ages, but… the earphone cable. That’s the one we didn’t reckon with. And pssst, you know what I think? I think… in reality – The earphone cable has life in it.

I’m telling you. At one point in time, I even contemplated spinning a spooky tale around it. I might still do it some day. But suffice to say that it is indeed one of the greatest mysteries of this planet. Try as much as you like, you’ll never be able to untangle the head phone cable the way you want to. No siree. It’ll have you in knots before untangling itself. On its will. Not yours.

And today. I watched in pure joyful horror, the kitten untangling this…rather, trying to untangle this mystery. And oh boy, what a spectacle it was. It’s too bad I didn’t have my camera charged (my cell phone camera is a different story, let’s not even go there), else I’d have posted a video here.

But it gave me immense sadistic pleasure in the thought that I was not the only creature having to put up with this electronic serpent. Plus to have finally given the kitten something she couldn’t proudly leave at my feet and walk away with that mockingly majestic swagger of hers. Ha. Toing, Toing (wiggling my bent finger at her face).

I think the next time I see the tiny paws tiptoe into our living room, I know just the thing to dangle in front of it.

;-)


PS: On a totally different note, I’m having to announce with great regret that today, while deleting spam comments, I accidentally deleted all comments, including my own, from my last three posts. Sorry about that. Will be more careful the next time. Damn you, spam (hey, that rhymed). :P