This is what I saw in a dream a day back.
Author Archives: Abhinav Bhatt
Nocturnal Talks
What’s the time? Late night? Good. Stop everything you are doing. Go to your terrace. Pity you don’t have one. If you have, forget whatever you were doing. Go to your terrace. Take one bed sheet, one pillow with you. Also, the most important thing: one transistor. Also, don’t take your mobile with you. So go with only one electronic instrument. The Radio.
Clean the roof with a broom. Sprinkle some water so that the heat of the day is soaked up and vaporises into the sky. The sky which has stars. Dark night but shining stars. The word romantic is for gays. The night with stars is just breathtaking. Look at the sky. Give a sigh. Smile. Lay out the bed sheet. Now lie down. Adjust the pillow so that you can see direct up. Settled? Good. Now turn on the transistor. It will be #win if the transistor is old and held up using rubber bands. Now start searching for Vividh Bharti. Don’t rush. Enjoy the noise in between the stations. What a lovely sound it is! The dials doing something electronically, the turning spring inside, searching for the right frequency, with sudden loudness trying to say something to you.
Tuned? Nice. Now listen to old Hindi songs. And imagine. From Devanand and Nootan coming down from the once open Qutub Minar, to older Talat Mahmood songs. From Hemant Kumar’s ‘Tum Pukaar Lo’ via Lata Mangeshkar’s ‘Lag Ja Gale K fir yeh haseen raat ho na ho’ or ‘Rasik balma’ to Kishore Kumar’s ‘Woh sham kuchh ajeeb thi, yeh shaam bhi ajeeb hai…’ Keep staring the beauty of the stars of the coldish silent night. Try to hear some sine-wave horn sound in the distance away. Smile. Relive old memories with the brilliant lyrics. Keep looking at the stars. They move. They say a lot to you. Those starry nights. Amazing.
Now savour these moments. I’ll be silent for some time.
Now while its getting further late, close your eyes. Keep the music on though. Smile more. Try to remember her. Smile again. Don’t regret what you didn’t do. Don’t think what you will do. Just stay silent, keeping your eyes closed. And sleep.
Now if you are in a saner city, around 5 AM in the morning, you will hear some Aarti (not RT) going on nearby. Smile. Ruffle your hair and get up. Try to hear from where this sound is coming. Smile. Stay there for some time, yawning.
Enough. Smile. New Day has arrived. Back to life.
Hope is a good thing, in fact the best thing ever
On 27th February when India tied with England, @VenkatAnanath tweeted that he was about to write an article on “Why India is not going to win this World Cup!”. As a knee jerk reaction, I unfollowed him instantly. Although following and unfollowing is not a big deal in Twitdays world but what I didn’t like was the pessimistic journalism. No doubt, these journos/authors/writers are meant to present the truth to the people in the most crude way possible but I have a philosophy that they have a big role to play when it comes to uplift or degrade people’s morale and mood.
It is not only about Cricket, lets talk about optimism in general. As Indians, we people are very optimistic. Since birth, we have been taught to be optimistic. If there is no water from the tap, we assume that one day will come where our Municipality Department will fix everything. If there are more potholes on the road than road, we believe that one day in future we are going to get roads as smooth as Hema Malini’s cheeks or Deepika Padokone’s leg, if you prefer that. A kid when dreams of becoming a Civil servant, try telling him that he cannot be unless he is some reserved category.
These journos need to understand one thing. India as a nation which is held with the adhesive of ‘Hope’. Their job is to find out the flaws in the current system or point of the flaws in the plans laid out for future. When they start giving their opinions, they put into their bias with emotions which result in something demoralizing.
There was a dialogue in the movie ‘The Shawshank Redemption’ where Red (Morgan Freeman) says, “Hope is a good thing, in fact the best thing ever. And no good thing ever dies.”
The slippers, the clothes you left away
Picture Courtesy: Photoblog MSNBC
A dog, “Leao”, sits for a second consecutive day, next to the grave of her owner, Cristina Maria Cesario Santana, who died in the week’s catastrophic landslides in Brazil, at the cemetery in Teresopolis, near Rio de Janiero, on Jan. 15. Brazilians braced for more rain Saturday, fearing further landslides after walls of muddy water tore through towns and claimed some 550 lives in the country’s worst flood disaster on record.
It is not that I am under some sedation or this blog has turned into a sad dead blog but this picture above was seriously touching. So I couldn’t help but thinking about the loved ones who go away. But it goes like this:
The slippers, the clothes you left away, who is going to use them? Will you come back to regain back your props someday?
Your spectacles are still lying there on the table, your writings, that stationary there is unmoved, will you come back to tell me some fable?
Your wit, that toothless smile was yet so clever, we discussed politics, and well of course Cricket, when will those day come back, I wish forever,
You advice which I tried to always listen, as a mission, I tried to complete your banking transactions, will you come back the next summer season?
Your diary which still holds addresses of people you met, I am amazed by the memory you had, will I ever be able to reach the standards you set?
By the way did you meet other people who left us unexpectedly? If you meet, tell them I loved them as much I love you, I wish them to live that part of after-life very happily,
I am sorry if I ever did something wrong, Sir it was unintentional, I cannot even promise to take care of people you left alive, I am here no, you know it, but I will try,
There is something stuck in my throat, I don’t know what, but I am coughing as I am writing, what effect is this? With your wishes, I did reach somewhere in life. Should I cry or gloat?
Ahh, I am unable to complete this post, so stopping it now, I try but I cannot be ever again your host, out of everyone in this world I miss you the most…
Why should I bother?
‘Not my job’ is the first thing you say when you see a dead dog on the street. Job is to get rid of the carcass by either calling some municipal corporation or D-I-Y (doing it yourself). Do it yourself? Are you insane? You think you can put that body, half rotten, half-open, intestines hanging from one side, and a distorted head falling from the other, to somewhere where the ongoing traffic won’t crush it more.
Bangalore is a busy city. And also sleepy when it comes to traffic at 9 AM in the morning. Now if someone has to rush to office, one will. No matter what lies on the road in front of one’s vehicle. As I was coming to the bus stop in the morning, there was a dog, lets name it Tommy, dead, on the middle of the road. Most of the vehicles were avoiding Tommy but those big buses and all won’t care for a dead dog, and named Tommy.
Now as a sane citizen of this country, anyone could have joined hands to remove the body from the road because, in a way it was disturbing the traffic badly. Also, the holy place called Silk Board was already traffucked ahead. So it was adding ghee in the fire. I could have done it but should I do it? Why should I do it? Not my job. Mornings are not the right time to touch a dead body, that too of a dog, named Tommy. Isn’t it derogatory for a person like me, a Brahmin, to touch a dead dog?
Thankfully, a guy couldn’t handle it more. He looked yet-another-IT-person with fully dressed up to wrestle the traffic and the chores later in the day. He came forward, showed hands to stop the traffic for 5-6 seconds and picked the dead body and put it in between the divider which was the only place he could have done.
I felt sorry for sometime seeing that. That guy then moved ahead as if nothing happened. I adjusted my ear-phones, kept singing to Eminem and concentrated on the traffic which was again in full flow with no dead body to avoid.
Bloody hypocrites we are. What we expect other to be. What we are. What I am.
In my closet
When you come home bloody tired and totally worn out,
You expect some hot tea to chew or sip that green sprout,
When you enter your kitchen to grab some sane food,
They watch you coming, tch, you can’t do nothing dude,
For them you are nothing but just another distraction,
For them you are nothing but an unwanted living fraction,
They are not in a count which you count like one or two or three,
They’ve their colonies laid out there, and that you cannot even see,
You enter the dark kitchen and turn on the light,
They hear your footsteps before you ever come in their sight,
They wrap up any meeting and go invisible before your next stride,
They forget their differences, you are the prey, and they stop the fights,
You bend a little to open the closet to take some bhujia to eat,
They watch your every move from hiding, and notice you sweet,
You change your mind and turn your attentions to biscuits,
The aroma travels fast, they smell it even from behind the circuits,
They don’t give a damn about your day in office,
All they care is that where you keep your buns and muffins,
They are dependent on you, on your mess, on your ill deeds,
They love when you spill a little, i.e. their source of multiple feeds,
So when you open your closet, you just… just you freak out,
They are red aliens, they make you red, you see and then you shout,
They are plenty in number and you can’t keep them from reproducing,
You cannot outnumber them, try if you can, I’ll see you cussing me refusing,
Your BP goes higher, your nerves go stern,
You forget every manner, the education you learn,
Bring me the 6 weeks challenge, I need to buy the Laal-Wala hit,
Oh crap, what’s this dust around here, is this cockroach shit?
I will kill the mother’s mother of this tiny red roach,
Being the most violent person alive, close your eyes insect lover, don’t watch,
I’ll crush you beneath my feet, spray your generations away, you red black clown,
You will forget screeching in night, you will cripple if I keep you upside down,
But wait oh, oh god, what are you doing, climbing up my body, I am shivering,
Oh damn, you had it enough, you brought all your clan, ouch, you prick, was it your sting?
Oh bloody, you brought your whole army, let me call 911, 100, 108,
I feel light, oh you picked me up, I am feeling light, no weight,
I see you covering me from head to toe,
It was right, you reap, what you sow,
Ahh, so you implanted me with your venom, I see light through the tunnel,
The stings were deadly it seems, it was forcing my whole body through a funnel…
Sorry roaches, sorry flies, it was my mistake, not you, I came into your home, I am sad,
Now when I have died, here are my last words, I got killed just for saying, all humans werent’ that bad…
Just a thought
Well, it’s just a thought based on the event which, as we speak, has happened to Jaipur. The fire at the IOC Depot! Just for the fans of yours truly, here are some fun facts. The place Sitapura which is seeing the fire is the place I have spent 4 years of mine. My college is hardly 3 Km away from the Depot. There are in fact about 25 educational institutes including 16-17 Engineering colleges. To make matter worse, there are 2 more depots. One of them carrying LPG! But they are at a safe distance. No more worries.
I swear by solved University exam papers book that every bloody engineer who is or has been out there wished that this would happen to my/their college instead of the depot. I hope the same but I hope no human should be there when that day comes. Anyways, there was a certain report in the newspaper yesterday. It went like this:
“The garden was within the 3 Km range of the IOC Oil Depot. The ‘baraat’ had just entered the premises. The groom with all his ‘laare lashkaares’ was moving forward to have his seat, right there at the podium. Suddenly a bright flashy orange light appeared which turned the dark sky almost into a day. Within milliseconds they heard the deafening sound of a blast. Without seeing any ‘aav-taav’, everybody ran! People had realized that it was something big. Although, they were quite far away and were all safe, still, everyone loved their respective lives. The groom who was about to swear to be with the bride for continuous 7 births without fail ran for his own life. He just ran, and did not care about anything, forgetting his yet to be wife.“
Even if you have missed the last lines rhyme, the moral of the story is as simple as understanding politicians’ strategy: <in Hulk Hogan voice> When you are in trouble what you will do? Watchya gonna do brother? Watchya gonna do?
We all boast about how much we love our close ones. We can do anything for the people we love. Really? Do we? God forbid, if one has fallen into some big-time life-threatening trouble along with some loved ones, I am sure sometimes think that people go to save their own lives first. So idiotic to believe that but you tend to lose confidence in the world as you grow up. Without being controversial, I would go on to say that even people in the army will do that. What I mean is this, suppose you are a hot-blooded jawan ready to do anything for the motherland, anything for the country, take 100 lives or give yourselves away. If by chance, a situation arises when you have choices to make to either save yourself or save an unknown civilian person which you hardly know. Will you save him/her? Obviously, you should and you will give your 100% to bring back the needy one out of the threat. But will you give your life away for him? Out of a million, one may be patriotic enough to give his life for the motherland. I don’t think many people do that. Personally, I believe that giving life away to do something is the stupidest thing human life form can think of. That explanation will be given in some other post some other day if we live BTW.
Everybody comes across traffic accidents. If you haven’t come across, I wish you stay safe and you never come across any accident forever. However, how many of us will stop and take the victim to the hospital. How many of you will help an old lady to cross the road? Do people make big comments about their friendships and what not? How many keep their word? To about 95% of the human race, their own life comes first. Then comes the very close ones and then comes the worry about the money, honey!
I wish I am wrong. People still do help others.
