Prashant's Solace

Nostalgia wasn't big then. It had started raining. The pitter patter was steady. It rhymed with the wind, and the trees swayed to the music. No soul, as usual passed by in our silent lane; maybe a lone worker heading off from some site to the unknown.  I was back from school. There was no electricity but no complaints there. I stood on the porch my arms extended to feel the light drizzle as the wind spray caressed my face. Ms. Front Door too had come out to feel the same rains. Her arms extended her smile further more. It was time for many other things, but they could all wait; tuitions, football and friend meetings later that evening, cycle ride to school. The last one helped me understand how much I liked school and the thought-shelter it provided my brain.  The street smelled of nostalgia and looked like a black and white postcard from a distant land.  This is life as I have known, as I have seen. 20 years from now all playmates from colonies, mohallas and societies wi...

There are two meaning of the word ‘rehashed’. One - without significant change or improvement and the other - consider or discuss something at length. And I mean both here. Strolling on one of the busy beaches of the city, on a festive night is an assault on the senses. But there are patterns of sanity, emotions, conflicts, love, hate or conspiracies hidden in the sea of madness. One has to simply focus one’s attention on a particular aspect of humanity. As I went about kicking the little space of cool sand coming my feet’s way, I couldn’t help but notice- love. Love, love.   Out of the two evening seas, in the human one, I saw this love; walking, talking, observing, kneeling, cuddling, kissing, arguing, fighting. It may not be all love; I contradicted my thought. But resemblance is enough to brand an action especially, when telling a story. And I added my thought-spice as these love stories played all around me. What came my way first was the passionate love. Under a lones...

It is amazing how a day I should be proud of, begins with many things I am ashamed of. But I realize I am not a consequential being. Freedom earned, freedom gained in a particular context means little to a mind grappling with freedom from a spiralling thought processes. Efforts, sincerity of purpose, struggle seem to draw nothing. Just like the words. This last bit hurts more than everything else. About a decade ago, I had addressed a fellow being, thinking something mattered. Something might move. A heart, a character, a system, a humanity. I see the parade of the Americans, the Russians, the Taliban, the Israeli, of the right and of the left. I see death of soldiers and terrorists. I see victors and vanquished. Everyone seem to be in a state of eternal existence with no conclusiveness.  Then there is the rapist and the raped. As much as I hate to bring them in the same sentence the butchery of living demands, that I do. There is the system and the anti-system in which they try to...

Pre-World Soaked in a pink glow with a texture of white, the place made me forget all my woes. It was a beautiful morning in the big city and I was out for breakfast with my brother. The pleasant setting was enlivened further when the breakfast was served. It looked Instagram-worthy, and tasted good. The delightful setting also made me forget it was 10:05 am and the time to book a tatkal AC coach seat on the Indian Railways was already gone. Ideally, it is one hour but practically it hardly lasts beyond a minute. A happy day it was, except now I booked a non-AC tatkal at 11 am, which wasn’t a problem ‘AC’ wise, because I prefer open windows. But... The Journey Begins From an idyllic morning in the big city to the next one, on its busy platform, filled with early morning commuters and busy office goers; this was one of my many rendezvous with unwritten rules of Indian train travel. It begins with the fact that most of the long-distance commuters in this country have to travel with...

(Based on a True Story) She, the human-she, was visiting and the hill-fort was on agenda for the day, along with a group of friends. This was on earth. The sky had another her, with him, destined to be on the same hill-fort.  The weather those days was cloudy and sultry, calling for heavy showers. The Deccan skies of the subcontinent, saw a couple glide in on a weary day. The absence of breeze didn't help. Sighting a watershed seemed a distant dream. The search for the same was going off-path. Being off-path here could mean death. The about-to-rain skies looked like a sure shelter to the weather-beaten faces. She signalled him to stop. A cannon on top of a hill came in sight, surrounded by greens and a stone floor. It wasn't an ideal place, but looked welcoming. Water pond at the base of a curved precipice leading down from there sealed the deal. Coming closer, she saw there was hardly any water in it. It smelled of plastic and piss. But survival triumphs all considerations. He...

The air picked them up on their drive. Driven across the sea were those tiny drops now. Condensed cold in the deep Pacific dropped them into the water. Drops dropped unceremoniously, unnoticed. Thousands of miles away, or maybe close to them on the South American mass, some students were learning about the same phenomenon. One of them was him.  The drops glided on with their family as a container ship went by. Somehow, though they got crushed under it on the open seas. Got pushed hard and down on a soft and flexible floor. Many years later, a whale almost gulped them. But somehow it didn’t. Then stillness of the expanse followed for an indeterminable age. Lifeless as ever on water, in water. One day they rose. Rose on being beaten by an angry Sun. They collided with their counterparts from the Indian Ocean. In the massive comingling that followed they crossed over to the latter. There, the drops were gulped by a drowning Filipino. After twisting and turning uncomfortably in the...

No new post is worthy of being posted. They warned me of this. Writing, especially for the sake of writing is bad choice.  But, I went ahead anyway.  "How much of a flimsy idiot are you?" I stay transfixed. I have no reply to the following. What stuns me is not the argument they put forth, but the lack of answer/reply on my part. I know there is a reply in me somewhere. A good one. But it doesn't surface. Why am I writing a post? Who cares? Even if they do, how does it matter? In fact, I have been sloppy with my writing many a times, so why wouldn't anybody else be with their reading? That too, when they might not even be readers.   "Now, let us explain", explained these friends. "If    someone does open the link to your post (assuming someone actually does!), they will see the length of the post. Length might be a good thing, but definitely not in this case. A glance at the page is motivation enough to move ahead to a different picture, the next video...

Image Courtesy: https://www.hippopx.com/   Abandonment, true to its nature, stays. There is a sense of depression. Compulsive thinking is killing. Less of activity and more of thinking. Scenarios and scenarios. Visualizations of the impossible. Killer demand of the present and reality stay unaffected. He manifests unwarranted comparisons and constant delusions. Health worries which never was a worry before. Lack of a social life for want of a socially compatible environment furthers incompatibility. Resistance and resistance to take the right call and make the right move. The worst; being let down, neglected, unwanted, unloved and unacknowledged. The past only makes it bitter. A bitter past which was no better than its past, led to a worse present which definitely looked promising for the worst future. This paradox should have made the present standing a worthy position by default. But it never feels so! Mistakes and unhealthy attachments grew. Momentary bonds grew, providi...

Here, I would simply like to quote some reflections of a character from Khushwant Singh's famous work, 'Train to Pakistan.' (Source:  https://archive.org/details/TrainToPakistan_201805 ) In a world where things being the way they are, one is often asked to comment on everything, especially, if one is a writer. And my mind goes back to this brilliant introspection of Iqbal Singh, one of the characters in this book.  Khushwant Singh's sardonic words through this figure are so relevant to these times. Words, which were first published in 1956, and may have been conceived way before that in that truly beautiful mind!  "Should he go out, face the mob and tell them in clear ringing tones that this was wrong—immoral? Walk right up to them with his eyes fixing the armed crowd in a frame—without flinching, without turning, like the heroes on the screen who become bigger and bigger as they walk right into the camera. Then with dignity fall under a volley of blows, or prefera...

Dried watermelon seeds fell from his jeans pocket. He had worn it after a long time, a faraway time, a time before this era. The era of Covid-19. That sultry day, in the intense activity of the classroom, seeds were among the many things passed around. He did not fancy those yet indulged in some and kept the rest in the pocket. Months had passed. The virus infused a workless monotony, him being almost always in shorts and tees, no occasion meriting otherwise. Studies seemed a distant affair. Routine became a distant memory. Because time got struck in the puddle of a virus.  There was nothing to distinguish one day from the other, except news, which he had stopped following after a while. All his neighbours brandished information and theories just like the news and news anchors. Each more ridiculous than the rest. For some time, he too was convinced with one of the narratives and almost had become an advocate for it. But the excitement of this theory didn’t last long, saving h...