The Magic that is Disney

I don’t know about you. I can view my life through the moments that flash before my eyes. I see life as many collections of moments. For example, the other day I stepped into an outlet of “Fruit Shop”. The music, the ambience and watching a young couple hold hands and lock eyes took me back to my first love. We , as a couple , used to do that. Stop by the neighborhood Dhabba Express, order the same butter naan, paneer butter masala and for kicks, the usual starter of Salt and Pepper tossed baby corn(or whatever it was called back then) , enjoy that heavy meal and head to the Fruit Shop for the regular tall glass of Jughead Special.

Back then, I thought this was how life was going to be forever. The same girl, the same love in our eyes, our hands held forever together. That dream didn’t last long. The Jughead special drink , however did. Whilst my tale is at least 2 decades old, the drink is a wee bit older than that!!! Who could have guessed that. The shop and the menu would outlive the loved and lost story of mine.

This isn’t about that. After a lot of thinking, I opted to subscribe to Disney+ on the OTT side. I’ve been a subscriber for two days and the initial honeymoon with it is fantastic. The MCU is always a pleasure to watch and re-watch. The classics like “Rescue Rangers” brought back memories of my childhood. That was the age of VHS tapes and I’d hit the Video shop to rent out a tape. It was almost a casual and a routine affair. 10 bucks a tape and depending upon the demand, one could hold on to that tape for days without being hounded by the shop.

And so decades later, I stepped out for my morning jog. The streets empty, the shops closed, I stood still watching. I could almost imagine a time lapse video of sorts, with me standing stagnant in the middle and the world around me moving. If only. That ain’t the truth and I’m not the one to crib about the nature of my life. I’ve lived and continue to live a full on life. I played it wild and I’m still a maverick. I’ve believed in living the moment as it were larger than life. The perfect slow-mo money shots that entice and excite the audience in the movie halls. I do that shit in real life. Walk tall, announce my presence, feel my presence in the room and politely command attention. Been there, done that, sobered up and moved on. These days, I walk in, enjoy the sights, enjoy quiet conversations and observe the mad world rush by me.

The thing is, I’ve changed through the years too. Along with the world, even I’ve moved. Sometimes forward, sometimes backwards. Sometimes, I’ve stood still. Laughed and cried at the progress made and not made. Learnt new tricks along the way and unlearnt a few trades that I’ve been carrying with me for ages. Through the moments, I’ve not felt cheated by time and by my earned experiences. I am because I was and I will be because I am. Had the boy from Dhabba Express won that day, I wouldn’t exist today, in all my worldly wisdom and hard earned and celebrated vices.

The more I think of it, the more life amuses me. We probably are one of the few rarest of rare species in the universe that laments over the time spent and frets and fears the time to come and totally ignores the time that’s in our grasp to dispose of. The pointlessness of it all amuses me. We run away from life and express our desire to have one. The irony is baffling. Maybe it’s the fear of expressing that courage to accept life and move is something that keeps us locked.

For what it’s worth, @ 1500 bucks a year, Disney is here to stay and one wouldn’t feel too jaded by it. Just like us, Disney has had a long life in the industry. Disney has been creating those fantastic lovely moments across the many decades of its existence.

What’s life without a little Magic huh?

Bins and Bringham

” Dear Karthik ,”

Imagine a time , a place , an age where everything was perfect. Imagine the softest of piano music playing in your ears. Close your eyes and imagine embracing something that gives your immense warmth and peace. Imagine that memory. Imagine the tiniest of glimmer in the eyes, the gentle wrinkle that forms on the paradigm ends of the mouth when one smiles. Imagine what it meant , it felt to be blissfully happy.

It was such a time for me. The year , now a faded memory. It probably was a saturday. It had always been a saturday.

The drive back home was the same. I had decided to hit the open highway. The sun was at its warmest best. The car’s bluetooth speaker system had kept the call connected. We were busy continuing the conversation from the previous evening. The foundation of the future had started to appear. The road ahead felt like it would be a two year stint in the United Kingdom. Was I excited ? Not really. It was an escape at the best. The excitement or better still, the anxiety had come from a different direction. Like a dense thick monsoon rain in Kerala, the call had come after a draughted haitus of more than a year. It was the year when I was the most miserable that I had ever been. Now that I look back, I’ve endured worse years now. Back then, it was the worst.

The phone had rung. The nice pleasantaries had been exchanged quickly at great epic pace. The question of what’s new hopped over the horizon. UK.

” Always remember “

The conversation around the UK had spilled over to the next day. The previous evening I had a good laugh over her reference to ‘BringHam’. It was the magical land of chocolates and even then I knew Bringham didn’t exist. Birmingham does, Bring ham is verb and an object. I didn’t see a point to correct her. I enjoyed the folly. It was a rare oddity to catch her blunder. I remember the moment to be sweet. She spoke at great lengths about the chocolate factory. She walked me through her desire of being plagued by diabetes. She’d risk it all for chocolate. She went on about she didn’t care about the effects of such a massive sugar high on her system. None of that mattered.

The day came to a dawn. The call had died. The thoughts had come alive. I had two more days to go before I left behind the past. Or so I thought. There little voice of hope squeaked. If hope was a person, that person would have been seriously and gravely damaged from all the beating and bruising endured. I had grown wiser and smarter. I had learnt to respect reality. Things just didn’t Happen. I had managed to suppress hope and steer ahead with a poker face. Two more days and we could continue being strangers. Two more days and we’d no longer exist in one another’s universe. Two more days.

” That I “

The music turned back on, the car sang a lovely soothing lullaby. With hope dying a very slow dramatic death, with pragmatic mind sitting depressed in another corner, with life singing a tune of an optimistic new tomorrow, the music abruptly stopped. A call had interrupted the sound of music.

I can’t do this anymore, She declared. I’m seeing someone else.

It felt like an eternity had passed while I was trying to soak in the words that I had heard. I believe she must have walked me through how the bloke was, where they had met, how their innocent casual flirtations had blossomed into something tangible and something serious. I don’t know. I was hearing the words. I wasn’t listening. I couldn’t comprehend. Grief had took over. Pain had conquered once again. Tears had swelled up. I parked the car. I knew it wasn’t the time to pick a fight. It was the time to be an adult and accept.

Why are you telling me this dude? I asked

I can’t talk to you Karthik. Talking to you makes me feel guilty. It feels like I’m cheating on him.

Imagine all the peace in the world that you read in the begining. Now imagine HULK smashing it all to a million tiny bits and pieces. I wanted to lash out. I wanted to beast out. I wanted the comfort of screaming at another human. I wanted the peace of dehumanising myself for a moment again.

Remember, I said. The last time we fought, you said all that you were left with was the ugliness of the fights. I wanted to part away from your life with a few happy memories. I wanted to separate from you with you smiling. If you want my blessings for the new relationship, you have it. Best of luck. I really do wish that when you turn back time and look into the past, all you remember are these two days.

These two days we’ve smiled. We realised that we were good friends who enjoyed each other’s company. We realised how nice it felt to be together. Like all nice things come to an end, I’ll just call this the end. It would have lasted for two more days anyways. Thanks for being a part of my life.

Karthik….. I heard her say one last time. I had cut the call. The phone never rang that way ever again.

“Smile my best”

It’s been a decade now. I had the fortune of bumping into her at a mall back in chennai. She wasn’t my girl anymore. She was a wonderful mum of a bright young lad. Words weren’t spoken. Glances were averted. The silver lining, I finally got to meet her mother. She had a nice smile. It runs in the family.

All the regrets and pains of the past, I wouldn’t change a thing. There is the merit to have tried and lost than never having knowing what it meant to feel an emotion. Winning and losing are an outcome. The journey of experiencing emotions, the cycle of tears and smiles makes me a human. Acknowledging that fragile existence is so enlightening. Each failure of the past feels insignificant when we stack up all the failures in a chronological order. Every new day, we do something bigger, something newer. Each new defeat is first met with a worthy battle of a challenging fight.

One such new challenge was moving houses. I’ve never moved homes. I had to pack, unpack, sort and unsort things. My eyes fell over this battered piece of envelop. The envelop was handed to me. I was instructed to get home and read it. There wasn’t a point to ripping it open immediately and gorging through the sublime mundane words that might have been etched in ink on a common piece of writing paper. For years, through life’s many storms and broken dreams, I had kept it protected and cherised.

” When you are around.. Yours…………….. “

I picked it up. For a brief moment I had travelled backward and forward across that span of the decade. Enjoying the memories, burdened by them, pained and saddened, smling at the simplest romantic jester that I had been. I didn’t want that anymore. I gave it a read one last time.

” Dear Karthik

Always remember, I smile my best when you are around.

Yours…..

“

Bringham didn’t exist back then, I didn’t see a point in giving it an extended new life. I reached out to the black bag and binned the letter.

And just like that, a part of me that I had kept alive for the better part of the last decade Died. No tears were shed. A silent insignificant death without a soul to witness the departure.

There is no changing the past. There is no changing the future. There is no point in lamenting in the present. I had bigger challenges to overcome. Bags to pack, house to vacate and a new home to step into.

Karthik

A wish upon a star

I laughed it out loud. I knew that the universe had many a constants. This constant was timeless, dogmatic and right about now, Ridiculous. 
I placed the coffee mug neatly back on the coaster and sank back into the chair. I was waiting. It had been a wait that had taken almost 40 years in the making now. I was way beyond fears, apprehension and anxiety. When you are pushing your 70’s, You are expected to have lived a full life. There aren’t many fears loitering in the mind. There is the big D but It wasn’t a bother yet. I hoped I still had time to sort that out , when the time came around. Presently, I had better things to do. Like Wait. 

The cup was gracefully picked up from the table and it made its way back to the kitchen sink. No new incidents there. In the meantime, I had ample time to ponder about the constants of life. 

Give or take 40 years, and so 40 years ago, there I was. Sitting on a similar chair. Only this time around, I wasn’t as relaxed as I currently was. I was a twenty year old and nervous. The edge of the chair felt like it was the edge of the world. I had every reason to feel scared. I knew I had everything to lose and given my odds, that failure seemed all but imminent. I was accelerating towards a brick wall. It was a moment of push coming to shove and shove it did. 

It was one of the biggest interviews of my life back then. The house was a house like any other. A very typical middle class house. The hall housed a sofa, a few chairs, a stand that had a television set. The TV was tuned to the news when I had walked in. It rested on mute for a while and I don’t know who had the sense to switch it off, but it was apparently switched off at some point in time. I hadn’t made a mental note of that event. There was another event that was unwinding. 

The usual coffee was served. Under normal circumstances, I’d joke about the special ‘reserved for guests’ ceramic cup in which the coffee was served. None of that nonsense today. The agenda had been set. There weren’t any surprises there. The coffee was served in the usual , sober, ever-silver tumbler. Nothing fancy. It was a piping hot cup. I tried a sip and respectfully placed it on the coffee table. There weren’t any coasters on the table. Not that it mattered anyway. 

“Hmmm” the voice pierced through the tensed silence. 

“I know what you are asking for” the sentence started. It felt like a sentence that had followed through an extended period of deep contemplation. 

“Yes Uncle”, I stopped myself right then and there. It was a hard stop. “Yes, Sir” I corrected myself. Sensing defeat and seizing hope, I mustered the audacity and courage to steer the course of the conversation. 
“And……” I paused. 

Unlike me, He hadn’t rested his cup of filter kaapi. He had held it all the while. I’m sure that the hot cup would have left behind an uncomfortable blister. He was prepared to endure it. He had. He took a quick sip. A decision had been made. A decision was to be conveyed. He finally rest the cup on the table. What came next, left me in decades of emotional toil and unrest. 

“illa pa. It’s not going to work out”. Never before had sentences managed to shatter dreams in this effect. Two sentences and a combined word count of eight had sealed my fate. Ah Houston, we have a problem. Crash and burn. Epic Burn. 

There wasn’t arguing or delivering a heart rendering closing statement that would overturn that decision. What had been decided was spoken and what went spoken, there wasn’t a way to undo them. What was said was said. 

“I understand Sir” I acknowledged , both my defeat and tears. 

I got up to leave. 

“And please understand, I don’t want you coming here anymore. You know how these things are right. It might..” 

before he could complete the sentence, I offered to complete it. “I get it uncle. I also have a sister.”

It was an amicable separation of sorts. There wasn’t a big drama to it. There would be one later though.

And so there we were in our usual coffee shop. The usual order made. 
“Come on, I don’t give a damnn. Between the two of us, we are 50 years old. I think we are old enough to make our own decisions” 

The protest went on deaf ears. Ours wasn’t going to be that kind of a story. We weren’t meant to be two folks against the whole wide world.

She returned from the kitchen. Sat on the chair beside and smiled. “What am I going to tell my family da?” she asked. 

“Between the two of us, we have 140 years now. I don’t care what anyone has to say. Besides what family are you talking about? Your kids are in the USA. You meet them through Skype. What else is holding you back? The words of your long departed dad? The society that is waiting for you to die? The kids who text you wishes for functions and every year promise to take you home and break them quicker than the time it takes to make them?”

The point made, I held on to my peace and promised myself to neither make a fuss nor push hard for a decision. A few hours later , I reached home. I didnt know what the future held. 

Two months later, I stood where I had stood 20 years ago. I had wished upon a star, wished upon the river Rhine. I had flicked a heavy coin and made a wish. I dived deep into my pocket to pull a similar coin. The long wait now over, I handed a coin to her. 

“Some say that when you put your heart to a wish and toss the coin into the river, the universe conspires to make that wish come true.” I said.

“Ah come on. Don’t be so cheesy!!!! Do you expect me to believe that pile of make-a-believe?” she smiled as she accepted that coin.

“Well, we are both here, right now, this moment aren’t we?” 

She smiled. Her eyes twinkled like how they’ve always had. She closed her eyes and made a wish. 

The River had one more wish to fulfil. 

The two held hands supporting one another and continued walking into the vast beauty that Switzerland was. 

Karthik 

Hey

How long must time flow before once stops calling a table the usual table’, I sat wondering. The table had always been the usual table. The brands had changed, ownerships swapped, contracts renewed, and the location of the usual table had always been a near constant. Right by the window. During the summer, the window would be left, ever so slightly open, to let the warm breeze through. The winters were no different either. Different season, the same old warm breeze to gently kiss our faces and leave behind a moist comforting warmth. 

It had been a while though. Five years to be exact. I was surprised that the coffee house was still open. I was even more surprised to find out that the layout remained the same. Some things are better left unchanged. I placed the order and took the usual table. While I was traversing through the many thoughts of the past, the present , the multiple what ifs, the order was served. I was a stranger in my own ancestral home of sorts. A new face that didn’t not attract the familiar warm welcome smile. The bloke stood around waiting to see if I’d request for any besides my order. I offered a smile to close the transaction. Without any words wasted, the event came to a finesse close. The piping hot cup of hibiscus tea was steaming in front of me. The vapours carried the pleasant smell of fruity flowers and it filled the table with its aroma. Uplifting. Yes, that’s how it felt. I sank comfortably into my chair. The train of thoughts had arrived at the station. 

All aboard, I silently screamed. 

Five years is a respectable period of time where stuffs happen in life. Five years, I’ve gained and lost and gained and lost weight. The face now is littered with wrinkles of worries and the million thoughts pondered. The hair line had fallen back by a bit. I stared into the tan exposed on my ring finger. 

Thud-Thudd.. My heart started racing at the mere thought. I still remember the day when I removed the nice silver ring , threw it as far as I could. I screamed from the bottom of my lungs and attracted quite a lot of stares from the onlookers. I distinctly remember not giving them a moment’s thought. Never did ever after either. 

Thud-thud.. The mind ushered a rushed montage of the fight that led to that action. I was surrounded by the demons of my past. The moment long gone, the memories still fresh and nearly ready to start phasing into a fade, the pain and the misery felt horribly fresh. My heart kept beating faster and faster as I descended deeper into that long isolated, distanced memory. 

Thud..thud, and just like that my mind forced me to visualise the first time we had met. The details of the world around had eroded away in time. Her and everything about her never quite did. Floral. The colour whose name I never did make an effort to learn. For me , reds are still reds. Pink is pink. Yellows and blues. Blacks and whites. Every other color is one or the other color that I knew. Everything else was a transient state on my love drenched eyes. Everything else had forever and always remained illuminated. If only there was a color to denote light, the brightness it casts upon the eyes, my eyes. The weightlessness of the shade, the brightness and luminance of the shade of sun’s honey-glazed rays. Yeah, the moment was as vivid as I had first experienced. 

Thud……………………thud. The warmth slowed the beat and filled me with a certain happy, satisfying melodic lullaby. The kind of song that wasn’t meant to put a child to sleep. But to soothe it, comfort it, assure it that it was a beautiful world and that nothing would ever go wrong. 

Five years, I had lived a life without that rhythm. The music had long faded away, the curtains had fallen, the stage cleared, the audience had returned home. I had endured and survived the isolation of an empty auditorium. I had filled myself with echoes of my making, echoes of my breath, murmurs through my silence and thickness of my isolation. The time had been kind enough to fill my world with people, whose faces I had forgotten as quickly as their names I had stored on my phone. I had lived on a borrowed time of pretend smiles and forced laughs. I longed for a moment of a sincere smile. The moment where I could be myself. The real me, without my gilded guarding walls. 

Time had made a man of me. Strong, stiffer upper lip. Poker faced. Cold at heart, colder at mind. The cynic was the last to die. The romantic had died first. The realist died later. The pessimist faded away. I remained a shadow of a former glorious self. I remained. I wasn’t a prize, but survivors aren’t often one. It was the best that I could muster. A de-stringed instrument, discarded, discorded. An instrument nonetheless. In time the anger had dissipated, regrets ignored and then forgotten. I had learnt to live with the present. I had learnt to live with myself. I had learnt to live past the longing and the eyes had learnt to look past it’s desperate desire. 

Thud..Thud… The heart picked pace at the thought of the time my eyes longed. The truth is that the eyes had never ceased to stop longing. I had pretended to stop. I had pretended a lot. As the moment approached, the Five years were now taking a toll. 

What would she say? Would she say she missed me? Would she lie? Would she pretend? Where would it leave us? Where would I be, where would we be. Would we separate again? The questions were many and the answers were scary. I could give myself a happy fate and sit with the happiest of answers. I could lie to myself. I would be happy for a moment longer. I couldn’t bring myself to it though. I could assume the worst, it wouldn’t be far away from the truth. I could, but I sat frozen in thought. Frozen in fears. Frozen. 

There wasn’t much to do but wait. I reached for the cup of steaming tea. 

My eyes strained as I tried to focus on the one walking towards the table. Tears welled up, blurring my sight. Emotions welled up , blurring my existence. A void swallowed me whole and robbed me of words or sound. A ringing sound deafened my ears in that moment of first sight. Everything felt illuminated , once again. Everything was illuminated. 

“Hey!”

I finally managed to call out. 

A silence ensued. A million paragraphs went unsaid, un-typed, unspoken. A million words lost in blackened obscurity. A few seconds of eternity, engulfed in wistful separation , distanced and held together in hopes of a reunion.

‘Hey!’

The world had sunk into darkness while I was drowning in light. 

Karthik 

Inspired by this wonderful couple that I met on the tube the other day. I reckon one was leaving and the other held on, staring into her lovely dark eyes. I couldn’t help but wonder about the million things that went unsaid between the two. 

[Book Review]: Siddhartha

Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse is a fictional take of the journey of a life. Written in the 1920’s, The tale has stood the test of time and does come out shining bright as it always probably has. 

I’d brave to call this book a spiritual fiction. It beautifully marries a fictional journey of life and core principles of spirituality. The audience is neither expected nor forced to accept the path laid out in the book. It only recounts the path taken by the protagonist. Where it works is the fact that the protagonist wanders through life. He makes his own decisions, lives to deliver the consequences of his actions, learns from it, unlearns from it, and eventually manages to elevate himself through the vicious cycles of life.

Born into a family of educated , Siddhartha masters the scriptures and soon awakens to the fact that he has learnt all that he could from the books and that there isn’t much to grasp from it. He makes up his mind to leave the comforts of his house and spend the time with Samanas, who live a saintly life in the forest. Siddhartha is accompanied by his dearest friend, Govinda. 

The ascetic live teaches Siddhartha a better perspective into life. Once again, he is faced with the challenge of stagnation. He walks away from the Samanas’ way of life. The duo chance to meet Buddha. Deeply moved by Buddha’s teaching, Govinda embraces the Buddhist way of life. Siddhartha and Govinda part ways. There is an itch, deep rooted in Siddhartha’s mind that keeps him detached from embracing Buddhism. The protagonist argues that the path of the one is through discovery of self and that there is no teacher who can unlock that mystery on behalf of the pursuer of that truth. With this in mind, Siddhartha, once again, leaves the comforts of a routine. 

Life does take a turn from here on. Siddhartha meets Kamala and in order to spend more time with her, he gets into the business of making money. Caught into the cycle of wealth, wine and wonderful woman, Siddhartha evolves into a very successful business man. His midas touch is spoken about through the land. 

Rest of the tale is about Siddhartha’s quest to discover the self. Does he eventually find peace? The book has the answer to it all. 

I loved the book and mostly because I do tend to view a lot of the traits of the protagonist in myself. I like to learn through actions and experiences. I don’t enjoy the comforts of an instructor led liberation. I’d rather fail on my own accord than succeed by nodding my head and walking without understanding the way of the world in a manner that makes sense to me. 

The book presents the best example of life that can ever be expressed. In life, one thing always leads to another. There is always a path to choose. What we do with that road, often determines the kind of person that we go on to be. There aren’t good or evil folks. There are just folks. Who either carry their actions or don’t. Both , action and inaction, lead to consequences and we enter a cycle of cause and effect , action and consequence. Some of us find ourselves trapped. Some , not so much. 

Then come the multitude of spiritual philosophes throughout the book. I shall not bore you with them. The simplest philosophy that is worth writing about is probably this. 

Believe in yourself. Heed to the inner voice that guides you. Fear is a by product of comfort. When you shed your skin and walk away from your comforts, the first to embrace you would be your fears. When you let that fear go, rest of the world’s million wisdom come running to you. 

Siddhartha’s journey of life is a one with many highs and many lows. It is easy and human to let ourselves get distracted. Getting distracted is not a sin. Getting distracted is pretty much alright too. If that brings you happiness. If that brings you the kind of happiness that sustains. Siddhartha had to go through a series of character defining sins in order to break away from the traps of life and elevate himself. It assures and confirms my faith in the fact that one has to do em all, saturate from it in order to reject the illusion. The book , to me, is a wonderful reminder that salvation is not for the elite. Salvation is only one thought, action, intent away. Rest are barriers made by the mind. 

In fact the crux of the book is that even barriers made by the mind aren’t real. Matrix called it right. ‘THERE IS NO SPOON. THERE NEVER WAS’

Are you a spiritual enthusiast, or a literature buff? Either parties would love the simplicity of this book and the warmth in the tale conveyed. Give it a read, There aint much that one stands to lose by reading this ! 

Karthik 

A greener grass

The routine has always been the same. I close my little shop around 5 in the evening. I head home. The road towards home takes me along a park. I usually make it a point to spend a little time in the park. In fact, it’s the best part of my day. I get to sit on a bench and observe the beautiful world. Kids usually run about there. It’s always the boys with guns made of either pretend or plastic, shooting at one another. Girls run without a defined purpose. When the kids are not playing pretend war on the streets, they hang around the jungle gym. They swing, jump or bounce. It’s always a pleasant sight. Kids are so full energy that never gets depleted on the playground. 

Moms talk with other moms. Dads talk with other dads. Some read books. Some lie down and bask in the glory of a shy sun that comes to play, once in a while. It doesn’t matter who you are in the park. Everybody comes there to relax and let the time fly by a little. I’m no exception to that cause. I rest in careless bliss. Looking at the present. Looking towards the future. Leaving behind the past. 

Things weren’t like this always. There was a different place that I used to call home. I think I still call it a house, but I know the difference. I won’t head back any time soon. Home used to have parks like the one in front of me. It used to have kids playing in them too. It used to have mothers and fathers babysitting and supervising. It used to have lovers, both young and old, holding each other’s hands. It used to be a magical place where dreams were conjured and wishes made to keep those dreams alive. Peace used to run amuck , back at home. Peace then ran itself dry. 

Peace was soon replaced by war. Love got substituted with hate. Trust got cast out and Insecurity and fear took its place. People stopped believing in each other. We viewed at our world through the eyes of fear and uncertainty. We could never guess who the villains were. They were everywhere. They concealed guns, strapped make shift explosives and left behind a legacy of hate, red , dust and charring remains of varying degrees. The explosions would often shake the ground and the ground did shake frequently. Kids used to play pretend war and then they just played war. Young teens and adolescents lost their innocence. They were soaked in red. They couldn’t see the scar that got left behind in their souls. To them, I wondered if all of it was possibly a game that was all too real. It might as well be the only means to continue existing. I never knew the reasons. Honestly, I hadn’t cared. In retrospect, none of us had cared enough to nip the malice when it was beginning to bud. We were all occupied with life. 

My life was a simple one. Small family of a wife and a kid. It was all that I had and it was all that I really needed. When the grounds began to shake, the fear of people missing kept growing. It was still a fear that I had shared and never experienced. One day, that changed. Things weren’t just news. I return to an empty house. Back in those days, an empty house prompted only one of two natural responses. Panic or Panic and fear. I panicked and rushed to the nearest hospital to see if there were any traces left to identify. Looking back, I did find some solace in returning home without finding my family scattered across the floor. I never did find my family. I never knew what had happened and where they had gone. I never got to know what happened to them. I was left behind. Left behind in both hopes and despaired sorrow. 

The place that I called home had left me with nothing. Not even with the courage to die. Not even with the cowardly strength to endure. One morning, I left everything that I had lost and walked. I didn’t turn back for that last nostalgic glance. I kept walking till there weren’t sights of debris. I continued walking through the barren land. I walked till the sea and someone shoved me into their boat. 

The new land was the same as how the old one was before the ruin ran rampant. Greener grass. Kids being kids. Moms being moms. Dads being dads. I found work and the day was occupied by labour and the nights embraced in nightmares. I shook, I shivered, and there were nights when I cried in silence. This became a routine. The routine gradually changed. The crying was the first to stop. The nightmares still continue. Unlike the nightmares of demons and devils, I’m haunted by the most beautiful smile that I would never get to see ever again. 

The new land became home. It had accepted me, a stranger, as its own. I stayed there for a while. I left it behind for another land. Then another and another. Lands ceased to matter. Homes weren’t home anymore. I found shelter and soon lost the strength to wander. I settled down. That was years ago. 

The routine is now here to stay. I run a shop during the day. In the evening, I help wanderers like me, who are in pursuit of peace and are lost along their way. In between those two routines, I take a moment to pause in the park. I’d like to believe that one day, I’d find the smile. I’d like to believe that the faces would have aged, the wrinkles now prominent, but the face to be there around. I scan through the park, hoping against hope, I find the many happy smiles. I participate in that spree of spirited happiness. I passively let myself get invited to their joys. Present, but never a direct part of it. I’m happy with that. It’s the best that I can afford. 

Karthik 

Inspired by this elderly couple who were playing table tennis. couldn’t help but conjure a tale around the sight.

A world of many worlds

“Breathe in….” I softly whispered to myself. I took a heavy heave. I paused as I could feel my lungs fill up. “Breathe out” I silently thought the words. I exhaled. I repeated the steps a few times. A few iterations later, I stopped feeling dizzy. Dizziness is a natural symptom, or something along the lines , I did remember being told. Or was it something that I overheard , I wasn’t sure. Not that it mattered anyway. I gave up on that immediate chain of thought. 

The lavish field of brown and green was in front of me. A gentle breeze blew that swayed the crops. The view was mesmerising. It was a scene that I knew I’d cherish. I had viewed similar frames on the telly and the big screen a billion times before. The earliest that I could remember was from the movie Gladiator. Russell Mr Crowe would walk in such a field. His sword dripping red, the violence of his life was a beautifully juxtaposition over the peace that nature’s best could offer. 

It almost felt that. I almost felt that juxtaposition. Only, I couldn’t elaborate the things I was comparing the field to. Was it my inner turmoil as opposed to the pleasant view that surrounded me? Was it the stir of the gentle breeze as opposed to the storm that was raging in my mind ? Was it the intellectual arrogance that I knew the word Juxtaposition and was desperately trying to play it cool by using it? I wasn’t sure. I’m also told that this feeling of staying lost and confused was common. 

I took a stroll through the field. I thought that the experience might make me feel epic. It was and then a few steps later, it wasn’t. It felt like the other billion roads that I had previously walked in. The magnificence of the moment soon expired and I was left with the mundane reality of the present. I was all alone in a field, which was probably in the middle of no where. I probably walked a mile more. It was long before I stumbled upon another fellow bloke. He was dressed in red and blue. He was a worker. His attire made no attempts to disguise that fact. He was a man of the soil. He had probably toiled the land for all his life. He had a pleasant face. He carried a warm smile. I couldn’t place his face but deep down, I knew I had seen him somewhere. Maybe in a different life , in a different time. He seemed familiar and I would vouch for that familiarity. 

We exchanged a short burst of greetings. We crossed our paths and walked away in opposing direction. I didn’t make much of that anymore. And soon my feet carried me to a small shop. Rusty and dusty building that probably sold the essentials. Water, bread, fuel, USB charger! I could almost imagine the state of the shop from the inside. I knew with a sort of certainty that my imagination wasn’t far off the mark. I entered the shop and immediately felt a buzzing sound humming inside my head. 

“That wasn’t bad” I exclaimed. I removed my VR headset. It was a bit bulky. The landscape exploration APP that I was working on was slowly getting into a decent shape. The textures felt real. The lighting, the cast of shadows, felt real. The physics engine was nearly spot on. I wasn’t sure about the gravity engine. I hadn’t made an effort to notice how the dynamics behaved but I made a quick mental note to observe if there were any flaws. The testing department of monkeys would find flaws anyway. I knew their existence served a singular purpose of making my life miserable. The apes would pile up their work stack and clear them off just when I’d have my vacation plans. They were consistent at this monkey business. Certain things never did change. I was mentally gearing up for that confrontation. 

Satisfied with the beta run, I wrapped up the day’s work by shooting out pointless emails. Status updates to folks who either didn’t care or didn’t care enough to key in words to acknowledge that they had caught up on my day’s worth of work. None of that mattered. It was all a part of the job. 

I exited the building. I stood facing the city. Barren. Treeless. Nature-less. The city was a void. It had been that way for centuries now. Somewhere in time, someone had mucked up. One by one, the water had first vanished, plants and other flora were next to go. Fauna followed suit. I think the bees were first to go. Sparrows next. No body gave a damnN about them fishes, but they vanished too. Within a blink of an eye, in that splice between three generations, the big ball of blue reduced to a big dust bowl of brown. The surface is now blisteringly hot. We burrow ourselves. We no longer reach for the skies. We reach for the centre of the ball instead. Everything is artificial. Internet, or the web as we call it, exists. That’s all folks apparently needed and desperately wanted. Give them a web and they’d endure through inferno and beyond. It kept their appetite for pampered distraction satisfied. We no longer have water or natural food. Everything is assembled to resemble things that once were. 

I made it back home. Ate the usual pot of goo. I’m told that the goo resembled spinach. It wasn’t green and I don’t know what spinach tasted like. To me everything tastes like sand. We are forbidden to taste exposed soil. I don’t know what sand tastes like. That’s a guess that I can fathom. I turn off the lamination in my capsule and close my eyes to rest. 

I see a lush field of green and brown. 

Sometimes , I don’t know which of the world is a real one. 

Karthik 

[Book Review]: The bridge of clay

The Bridge of Clay by Markus Zusak. 

” What’s the point to life if there is no love in it? Importantly, Can you imagine the magnitude of life that rests beyond love? ” – Katz 

The bridge of clay is a slow burner. It’s a tale written with the sole intent of consuming your mind. As we dwell deeper into the tale, we also dwell deeper into the many billion emotions that we didn’t even know that one could express. While Markus’ previous book, The book thief was all about life, the bridge of clay is just about life. I don’t think I have the words at my disposal to articulate what that statement means. Just Life. The phrase could stand to mean different things to different people. To me, its a glance at how much life , in itself , can at times overwhelm. Life has those many moments of celebrated brilliance. It has its fair share of days when it doesn’t pay to get off bed. There are days when everything falls apart and it’s a given bonus to not sit in corner and cry. There are days when life makes us feel invincible and we feel that the moment of bliss would last forever. 

Bridge of Clay is exactly all of that. It talks about the lives of the Dunbar boys. The five brothers are the heart of this story. Each, uniquely different from each other. Each is very much in love with one another and the boys form a close knitted bond that keeps them together as one. Dunbar boys is not just their identity. It’s their collective life, it’s their struggles in unison. 

The brothers are Matthew, Rory, Henry, Clay, Tommy. The brothers live all by themselves in their house. As a reader, you wouldn’t wander too long wondering why they live by themselves. Theirs is a house that’s seen a whole lot of life. The pets, a golden fish, a mule, a cat , a dog and a pigeon, keep the story fresh. Novacs are the neighbours of the Dunbars. Clay , in his own way, falls in love with Cary Novac. The two share a very unique love story. Clay aspires to be a runner and Carey has her eyes set on being a successful Jockey. The kind of jockey who rides horses rather than bore audience over a microphone. 

The narrative is by Matthew and he carefully exposes the right bits of information in the right enough amounts. The bridge of clay is in fact Clay’s story and is told by his brother Matthew. 

Most of the book is about what happens to the Dunbar boy’s parents and how the love blossoms between Clay and Carey. Every word in the book is about the brotherly love and the bond the Dunbar boys share. The story comes alive with their rowdy behaviour. They are funny, the boys fight like boys do. The boys are as dirty and unkempt like free spirited pigs are. The boys are a product of their environment and their wonderful upbringing. As the tale unfolds, we see the peace and warmth of love and how such a love transcends the boundaries of time, age, and generation. Each generation experiences this warmth and peace. Each generation feels the power of liberation and dreams that love offers. Each generation endures and survives such a love. Each generation, has folks whose life span exceeds that love and how their lives take a turn beyond that love. 

The way the tale has been said is simply fantastic. There are a few hard hitting themes explored in the book. The best and the biggest is about the nature of love. I bet there are billion other books that explain why love is a fantastic thing and how it makes us feel a billion things while we are drunk by its presence. What stands out in this tale is the way cope up with the aftermath of love. 

The other theme that’s expressed is around how we form bonds to survive in this world. The ties we forge in order to cope up a great eternal sadness. The book explores the raw need to have others in our life to nurture the strength to endure. The book talks at great lengths about the nature of relationships. It also speaks of guilt , at varying degrees. The guilt of being alive. The guilt over enduring life. The guilt over letting ourselves smile, from once a while. 

This is not a pessimistic, depressing book. It just walks through the saddest times and expresses the way the Dunbar boys find the strength and courage to cope up and move on. 

I think the strength of the book is around the way it explains how life finds a way despite the death that surrounds it. 

The bridge of Clay will never equal the brilliance that The book thief was, but it doesn’t have to. The bridge stands on its own foot, on its own merit of being a beautiful tale that’s told beautifully. 

I liked it. In fact , through the journey I started growing fond of the tale and felt the sadness of the tale coming to a close. The bridge of clay is indeed a book that fights for Life. 

Karthik 

A tragic Greek or a pessimistic puddle?

I’ve never really struggled with the notion. I enjoy writing in a certain predictable way. The predictable way usually is the most convoluted means of connecting two points, A and B. The characters are caught up with demons of their own making. The self inflicted psychological and pathological barriers keep the characters isolated from one another. A lot gets said through unspoken words. It’s the frustration of the inability to express that drives the characters forward. And then there is the tragedy that shoves the status quo off its rocker. 

Now that’s called being predictable. I’ve been challenged numerous times on that obsession with picking this template. Isn’t it easier to write about sunshine instead? Yes it is. But that’s besides the point. In real life, Sun scorches us, rain floods us, winds blow us away. One endures the elements to enjoy a momentary bliss. One survives the odds to smile at the road taken so far. One smiles, for what ever its worth. It’s the kind of smile that laughs at the irony of being a pointless survivor. It’s the kind of smile that acknowledges the pains of the past, the present and the future to come. It’s the kind of smile that knows the difference between desperation and hope but chooses to not call out the difference. 

Historically, literature loves its tragic heroes. The tragic hero also happens to be an Archetype . The bloke who endures and rises and eventually reduces to ashes. It is the journey of such a hero that captivates the hearts and minds of the million readers who invest their time and emotions into the tale. The final pay off is rather sadistic in nature. We are amused, stirred , and pushed to absorb a tragedy. One man’s sorrow is another’s inspiration. Tragedies make a wonderful candidate for laurels of the world. There is definitely a kind of a misplaced loyalty towards tragedies. One feels compelled to reward them and celebrate them. No wonder, it’s easy to write a best seller that is rooted in tragedy. 

Tragedy, just like Comedy, appeals to our primal instinct. Crying and laughing comes naturally to us. We all find our reasons to shed tears and share those sunshine smiles. I reckon this makes tragedy and comedy a common and a widely accepted currency because of humanity’s affinity towards these primal emotions. Comedy and tragedy, they both sell really well. 

Far away from the land of fictional and sometimes forced tragedies, is the world of pessimists. I don’t know what the contrary belief is , but I’d fathom a guess that tragedy is not the same as staying pessimistic towards life. Tragedy is an outcome and Pessimism is a way of life. Tragedy need not usher a lifetime of misery and the hopelessness , the helplessness and the other million frustrations that accompany that state of misery. Pessimism leads to misery in one form or the other. 

To me, if tragedy is an outcome, it also recounts the series of choices made, decisions braved, inevitabilities challenged. In short, tragedy that sells is the one that arises from actions. Irony is the tragedy of life that springs from inertia of doing absolutely nothing at all. This is under the spectrum of eternal pessimism. The fears of many contributes towards that state of pessimism. The failures of many results in good tragedies. I guess, in short, the difference between the two can be summed up with just a single word. Action. 

Literature has a lot of examples of heroes who are thrust into action. The roads that take to the inevitable tragic ends. The bravery displayed in making choices in the face of the inevitable failure is the stuff of what make legends , legends. I don’t remember the last time I read a book outlining the tribunals of the eternal pessimist. Maybe it was written, but the author might have shied away from getting it published. Classic pessimism, if I may. 

All that’s said, we still blur the two boundaries. The tragic road ushered by pessimism is not the kind of tragedy that gets celebrated. There is no drama in it. There is no life to it. It’s possibly a long string of confessions written out of fear. It is unfortunate that pessimists believe that they deserve their tragic ends. It is misinformed disillusion where pessimists justify their misery through fated destiny of tragedy. That approach, in my opinion, undermines and in fact even insults the fabric of a tragedy. Sometimes we win. Many times we lose. Not all losses are meant to be tragic. Losses are failures that are attributed by a lot of contributing factors. Losses themselves don’t qualify to be a tragedy. 

So what’s your take.? Is it pessimistic to fear tragedy or tragic to embrace pessimism? Is there even a difference? 

An ode to tragedy. I wouldn’t be a wordsmith if not for the million tragedies that blanket this blue. 

Karthik 

Inspired from The Bridge of Clay.. Almost done with the book and still cant make my mind about it. 

Nose Dive : Where fiction meets fact while history repeats and masses are reduced sheep

The title had to be senselessly long. There wasn’t an easy way around it. Trust me, I thought a while and decided to take the longer obscure road. 

The crux is an insight into current events. To connect the dots, the prerequisites include Black Mirror : Episode Nose Dive. China’s beloved Social Credit ID, a little Roman History, a world of religion, Gods appeased and finally Money that absolves all evil. 

That’s a long ask. Lets dig right in. Black Mirror is a smart , slick, TechnoPsychological series of sorts. It offers a view of how the current state of technology has the potential to shape up the human and social behaviour. Nose dive is a special episode in many ways. Personally, I do think the protagonist is wicked gorgeous. That’s beside the point though. Nose dive is about a society that integrates the life with a social credit score of sorts. Timidly put, the better your score in the digital world of pretend avatars, the better is your living condition in the real world of blood and flesh. The protagonist starts on a pretty decent score and has a means to bump her social standing to a whole new league. Bada boom, things go south. As the social popularity and score plummets, her life starts to take a beating. She’s denied access to public services, she’s blacklisted from using the airlines. She gets a beat down car at the rental agency. While hell breaks loose, the protagonist comes to realise that her life , so far, had been a silly futile façade. The episode ends with her locked up in jail and she finally manages to taste freedom through her imprisonment. 

China, being China, decided to go nuts with the concept. I believe I had spoke about this when I came across the news where China had announced that it had plans of implementing such a social scoring system. It’s been less than a year and on an average, it takes me longer than that to even decide upon a routine, China went ahead and implemented the scheme. I caught up on a news snippet which explained the implemented scoring system. Apparently, blokes start on a score of 1000. That’s rather modest of the Chinese to limit themselves to a 1000. 

Each good deed is awarded by a score. Each rude , unruly, undesired public behaviour results in deductions and public shaming. The score has a direct impact on travel and other aspects of daily living. The news showed that a bloke being blacklisted from a train because of a poor social standing. His mode of transport was downgraded from a super fast express train to a bus ride. 3 hours versus 10, to be precise. 

The implementation is nothing short of an epic endeavour. 3D face scanning cameras installed everywhere. Social tracking through diligent use of the big brother infrastructure. And for a good measure, throw in ‘Social Inspectors’ whose only job is to monitor people and scribe down events and scores. Do you remember the good old days from School. The times when teachers were either absent or stuck in a hang over, the class pupil monitor would rise to the occasion of noting down names. Three strikes later, the usual punishment was a simple means of public shaming. The means of imparting such swift justice was through the teacher beating the bejeebus off you in front of the class. 

Yeah. Good times. I learnt a very valuable lesson growing up. I knew I couldn’t stop making trouble. I knew I was slick enough to pocket the pupil leader too. I’d always have dirt of on the bloke or strings to pull. A criminal with an exit road. Professionally speaking, I had my exit covered. It’s a skill that helps and help it does plenty. 

That was a good detour. So China does that. A steadfast way to climb up the social standing is by being good, staying good. OR, start making hefty donations to the Community. 

Money, once again, was a means to atone for the sins of the past. I do know that this aint something new or shocking or even surprising. Where have I seen this social phenomenon. And then it dawned. Charity always begins at home. 

Bribing. When you bribe mortal men, it’s corruption. When you bribe the gods, it’s devotion. Most humans try to equate their sins with tangible trinket or sizeable donation to compensate for their comeuppance. It’s not as sinister as I call it but the general idea still remains true. From coconuts to promises to travel far to visit the houses of many gods, this practice of offering to compensate the blessing bestowed has always been a legitimate trade. Most of us do not harbour sinister motives. Our lies are white and crimes are usually victimless. The bribe feels justified and normal. 

Not so long ago, a certain pope tried this barter system in the ancient roman empire. Not a long while later, the Vatican is possibly one of the richest conglomerate known to mankind. Religion, ever since or better still forever always, has been a profitable venture. Before technology evolved, humanity had attempted this social credit score by exercising moralities and codes of conduct. I’d like to believe that the system failed. Maybe it didn’t. The general idea is that if the big brother does not remind the folks that he’s watching and keeping tabs, most folks would volunteer and welcome the oppression. 

Decades later, humanity is ready for it and doing it. Volunteer disclosure and surrender of every angle and aspect of life is prevalent. All works fine unless someone assumes the role of the big brother and makes a declaration. Then, all hell breaks loose. We don’t have a problem with staying oppressed. We have a problem when someone rubs our egos with it. 

So back to China, While the intent is there, the technology is relevant , the schemes in play, the Chinese have a herculean task ahead of them. It’s called Logistics. Handling such vast data is impractical and given the current means of shoddy implementation, it is unsustainable. Cant have humans police humans. The technology isn’t mature where the Skynet can fully take over. This ushers us right into a page from the cyber punk dystopia that the future is. China sets the example of how social manipulation can be done through use of cognitive assessment of psychological expression. To simplify that statement, it means, in time, algorithms will try to predict what we’d possibly end up doing. Pre Crime , hello Minority Report. Smart algorithms will enforce control over humanity by constantly policing and monitoring. In time, most of us will adapt and play along. As long as no body tells us that we’d then be reduced to being a herd of sheep. We are probably a century away from such a fate. Or maybe just a few decades away really. The ground work has been done today. Rest is inevitable organic progression. Fear mongering will ensure that some state will be smart enough to render its citizens dumb. Oh, Patriot Act anyone? Or Demonitisation ? History on a constant perpetual loop mode. 

It is funny that no matter what we do, we are still doing the same things over again. While the technology has changed, the human element behind the technology has remained unchanged. Maybe the human trait is a constant and fair enough, humanity has remained doomed , only we refuse to accept that. 

Karthik