The stranger

He was sitting on the park bench by the side of the tree that was shedding the last of its leaves. He was staring at none in particular. He had this calmness, a saintlike calmness on his body and yet he  seemed agitated. His hands would remain silently rested on either side of him while his eyes showed pressure. His pupils dilated and expanded continuously. He was not drunk. The man with the brown coat was observing him from the bench that was a good five yards away on the opposite  side of the street. Their eyes met. The man in the brown coat came towards him and extended his hands. He reciprocated and asked him to sit next to him. They remained silent for a while.

The man in the brown coat could not hide his curiosity and asked him, "What do you do, sir?"

"I live", came the reply.

He seemed to be giving a reaction of having given a more than satisfactory answer.

"What do you mean you 'live'? So do I and a zillion others.", said the man in the brown coat. And that was the cue for him to start listening and the other guy to start talking.

"I live. By which I meant I live in a world where the zillion others you mentioned merely exist. What do you do everyday? Wake up, brush, have coffee/ breakfast, go to work and come back. You might have a family. A wife and probably a couple of kids. You might get to hug them, everyday. You kiss your wife goodbye on the way to work. So do the zillion others. Occasionally you get to drink, for you don't seem like someone who is an alcoholic. You might smoke  five? ten? may be fifteen cigs a day. May be more. You might get some sex once, twice or may be thrice every fortnight. If you have kids who are infants or toddlers that probability goes down. For all I know you might not be married. You might have a girlfriend. You go on a dinner date may be every couple of days. Probably you have a ring tucked inside your coat pocket for weeks together now. All this could be you. You are one in 13% of the country. The remaining 87% is divided into many such similar groups of similar people doing similar things. And yet you proclaim you live. Life is not a routine. That Darwin guy? What did he say. He said life is an evolution. When you and I evolved from unicellular grime. That was because the world needed change. We have been humans since a million years ago. We will be the same. May be more learned, more sophisticated. Yet the men give into the calls of women. All a man does is breathe, fuck and multiply. You asked me what I did. I'll tell you. I wake up. I take a look out of my window. Everyday I see different people. I sit and study them. They are all similar. Sometimes I wonder how two people have almost the exact same lives. Even our fingerprints are not the same. The music in no two songs are the same. There are 6 strings in a guitar. A billion combinations. There are 60 million cells in our body, yet a handful of people. Stereotypes. You asked me what I did. I dream. I dream of a different life everyday. I break all stereotypes. How many different dreams have you had? Being rich? Marrying the most beautiful woman? Living in the biggest mansion? My dreams are different everyday. I dream about trucks. With eleven wheels, four on top in case it topples. I dream about butterflies which are changing colours depending on the object they touch. I swear I can show you a purple coloured fella. Life is finding the needle in the haystack. The mistake that you commit is you are approaching it by neglecting the wrong areas. I live it differently by approaching the right ones. Equivalent labour, more probability of success. I live"

The guy in the brown coat spots two men at a distance. The other guy asks, "Have they come yet?" 


He asks "Who?"


"The two of them. I can sense it. I'll have to go now. Start living. Search for the needle"

The two men come near, give him his daily dosage of medicine. He hallucinates, faints, lies down without any struggle on the stretcher. The van at the end of the street reads "Central hospital for mental health and allied ailments"

Bedtime story

This could've happened.

The phone rang. It was picked on the second ring. 

"I'm not sleepy", said she.

"I shall tell you a story", came the reply.


"About what?"


"I don't know. In fact I don't know who the story is about, how many characters are there or how it will end. All that I know is there was a little boy of four who lived all by himself in a castle surrounded by huge walls the size of giraffes"


And thus starts our story. We don't know if its big, small or that first line is all that he has. Lets not waste time, she needs to sleep.

***

There was a little boy of four who lived lived all by himself in a castle surrounded by huge walls the size of giraffes. Everyday the boy used to wake up, play and eat the food that presented itself on the big table in the dining hall. And that day, as usual he was playing and loitering around the castle. He seemed bored. So he thought he'd go to the terrace. He sat down wondering what to do to while away time. He said to himself 'If only there was someone nearby to talk to him or probably tell him a story'. Suddenly the place turned all dark. One of the clouds floated towards him and started speaking to him.

"Feeling bored are we?"


"Yes", said the boy.


"Do you know why Sun sets when the moon shows up and comes back only when it leaves?"


"No I don't" said the boy.

"Let me tell you why", said the cloud and started its narration.

" The Sun and the Moon were once happily married. And we clouds were close friends of the sun and the moon. We were the happiest when they got together. They led a happy life and as a result of their love for each other they were blessed with seven children. Years passed by and their children grew old enough to take care of themselves. They moved out of their houses and went off to stay at different places.

The Sun and the Moon decided that they'll  visit their children once every week. And split the seven days among each one of them. It continued for sometime and then came the fights. Winter came and the Sun would oversleep. He would go to bed early. The Moon was growing old too. She did not like it. The Sun missed visiting the kids on more than a few occasions. And then it grew big. They quarreled, stopped talking to each other and they split.


We clouds cried so hard. We were very close to them you know, we couldn't bear it. Then the seven children decided they should get together and do something about it. So Violet, Indigo, Blue, Green, Yellow, Orange and Red came together and made a rainbow and bridged the Sun and the Moon together."

The boy had slept.

***

He held on to the phone for a whole minute. Heard her breathe into the phone. She was sleeping. He was smiling.

This could've happened.

My little girl

It was an ordinary day. Cars moved, men and women woke up and went to work,  children went to school, stocks crashed, flights took off, birds sang, flowers blossomed and fruits ripened.


He did not feel ordinary. He had the widest smile, tears were running down his cheeks. He was holding her in his hands. His own, his daughter.

6 months:


She was smiling at anyone she could spot. He came near her. Tickled her, turned her smile into an hiccuped laughter that made his day. She made a faint sound. Opened her mouth in a small 'O' and tried to imitate him as he was speaking to her. A muffled 'Pa' came out of it. He couldn't sleep that night.


4 years:


It was July and the rains were slashing hard. He was sitting next to her by the bed. She was shivering beneath the blankets. His hands could not keep her warm. Her temperature was shooting up every fifteen minutes. The doctor had promised to come as soon as he could. He was cursing the none in particular for having spared him and decided to hurt his daughter. The doctor arrived. It took three days for her to return back to normal. Three of the longest days he was ever through. On the third day, she held her hands and smiled. That moment he knew he'd never leave that hand.


7 years:


They were walking through the market. She suddenly stopped by a window. A teddy bear, pink in colour. All that she wanted was that and he couldn't get her. He promised her "I 'll buy you everything in here someday" Another sleepless night for him. He was the reason she cried, he was the reason she didn't smile.


10 years:


He used to take her for walks after dinner everyday. That was a busy neighborhood. He had plenty of stuff to tell her everyday. They discussed his work, her school, his colleagues, her friends. They were yet another dad-daughter one will find but in the world of theirs there were only two people and they had each other.

She used to run with him, walk on the side of the road where he wouldn't want her to. He'll chase her and persuade her to walk on the safer side. She'd smile, laugh and ultimately refuse.

He'd tilt his head, smile at her and say, "We can't play catch on the road" She'd retort back saying, "Yes we can"


Yes we can, three words to hear which he'd climb a million mountains and swim through a thousand seas.

12 years:


His daughter was not a 4 year old anymore. He had to make his stories less sillier. She started asking questions. She was growing up. She was making him proud. While being daddy's little girl all the while.


16 years:


It was her birthday. Her day. Her dad wasn't home yet. It was late in the evening. The phone bell rang. It was her dad. He asked her to check if there was a file on his table. Before she could answer the line got cut. She went into his room only to find it filled with all the things that she asked for when she was 10. The teddy bear was beaming at her from his desk. He had kept his promise.

25 years:
He was struck by pneumonia. The doctors lost hope. She was sitting next to him, holding his hands. He tried speaking, his voice was faint. He had a few minutes to say what she meant to him. It was like asking you to describe every beautiful thing on earth.

"I won't be able to get you gifts for your next birthday. I'm leaving you with the hope that I have given you all that you asked for. But what's so painful is deep in my heart I know that even too much is not good enough for you, my princess. My little girl"


:)

PS: Thanks to blog adda this post got picked as one of the spicy saturday picks :) 

One short

'Sachin's on 99 international centuries' 

This news has been on air for a while now. The whole world of cricket fans come to the edge of the seat whenever he comes to bat and hopes beyond all doubts that he'll score it in that particular match.


Well, I, though am one of them million( read gazillion) fans of SRT who are waiting for the 100th 100, recently a certain other 100th something has grabbed my attention. Yes, this page has grown in size, boredom and levels of facepalmness and would soon be playing host to my 100th post. As I have been posting in milestone posts about what the milestone is and there by losing the opportunity to give the readers something worthwhile to go through, here we go.

What started as a fancy just because everyone had a blog has now become an obsession, a prized treasure. I have been speaking stuff like how awesome a career in writing would treat oneself. That joy when someone likes the link when I post in on facebook, its priceless. Twitter made a revolution to my blog. Brought in readers only because the twitter celebrities retweeted the link. The number of page views never fail to make me smile.


After all these changes, improvements in my view, there are still a few things that remain unchanged:

- Few people without whom the blog would not be what it is today. You, the one reading it, you know its you.

- Me wanting to write a post. Though I knew I'll come up with something as lousy as this I didn't stop myself from writing.


- My hundredth post has already been drafted in my mind. Yes, one of those rare occasions where I plan and write stuff.


- This point has been added just to keep the game going.


So see you all on the other side of the century. And yes, just like you are hoping for Sachin to score his 100th 100, do hope for more posts to come :) A big thank you to everyone who has landed on this page. You guys are awesome.