Prashant's Solace

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 to save embarr

(Dawn of a cold morning. On a relatively isolated mountain top, they are silent. A word-war ensues.) SHE: You are an apostate. ME: Who, me? Huh... For that I have to belong. SHE: That's a given. ME: To you maybe. SHE:  Kid yourself, fine. But mine is the true language of the definitions of belonging, as we have known. So I can't be wrong. You are a deserter. ME: In that case I am not exactly happy. SHE: Then come back to senses. Back to a definition. Back to a solace of belonging. ME: Tribalism isn't for me. I stretch myself beyond ephemeral human realms. SHE: How? ME: You see the sun rising over the vast civilizational invention below us. It is 0600 hours. In about an hour the sunrise would unleash multitudes who would go around pretending to be from somewhere to deal with somewhere.     (Aurangabad- Courtesy Feroz Khan - LT)                          SHE: Just like we do. Point being...? ME: I don't pretend to be f

I wanted to publish a detailed account of a dear friend's wedding. So I copiously took some notes while going through the revelries, being very much a part of them. Or so my concerned friend thought! But those painstakingly gathered observations got lost with time, people and life. Majorly disappointed, I thought of giving up on writing this self-anticipated account of a much awaited event in our little lives. I never thought my straight friend would be considerate enough to take a partner.  Not that he was a misogynist or a misogamist. On the contrary he has gone out of his way to make women feel at ease, whenever he came across one. In casual parlance, he sucked up to people (read girls), especially if he ever got to know one. Even to the discomfort of his friends like me. He had attended the most number of family marriage functions as the rest of us put together and does so still, dutifully. Although he was, as they say, never 'matrimonially inclined.' But some trickery,

I am an eternal romantic in the broadest sense of the term. Some people, places, events, situations, mannerisms and even some self-reflection exercises create an everlasting spool of thoughts out of which I weave dreams. Motivational salience makes me revisit one such beautiful dream. A forest of dreams I fashioned, where one day, rather one frosty evening, just into the twilight she walks in... ...this girl, she walks all uneasy. Uneasy and unsure. I hardly notice her presence. But in her absence, anticipation of her makes me feel many things. Nervousness, plunges and contractions create waves of expectation in stomach. But nothing now when she's here. Her presence doesn't make me smile. I hope it never does as it denies her omnipotence here. She has a warmth about her that does not exude any aura. It's just there. Reassuring as ever. There is nothing in the world, fictional or real, that could be more important than just having her by my side. If I were ever

Sometimes he wants to burst out crying extremely loud and cry for all times to come. He doesn't want to stop at all... But nothing happens. The world is moving unlike what he might have assumed. Weakness he cannot show. In feigning, tears dry up. As here is a life to be lived. People to be dealt with. Work to be done. Maybe diseases to be prevented. You cannot be so privileged to cry. Crying is a long journey. It begins with a little hesitation. When you gather speed, you want to continue. A rhythm gets set. Afterwards, it is fairly easy. Then comes the dragging point. You try to continue even if there are enough reasons to make you stop. And then you stop. Either you realize the futility of the endeavour or the incentive to cry no longer persists. Even then, he tries to resume. He can't. He searches for motivation. Motivation to begin crying again. He picks up things, looks at things. He stretches his thought till it reaches the unreachable, thinks the unthinkable. He forc

An October 24, 2019 post by Zadie Smith in New York Review of Books, inspired this essay. So I would like to duly acknowledge it by sharing its link. https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2019/10/24/zadie-smith-in-defense-of-fiction/ The human mind is a dumping ground for all kinds of thought-material. This is a pretty outrageous statement to make, considering the above article. But so is the use of the adjective 'outrageous'. This sort of conjecture keeps engaging me and my actions and hence unpopularity with certain individuals around me. It seems that confusion, especially in issues of the daily, from - where to eat, what to eat, whether to go on a vacation, if yes where to go, should I read a particular book or not - to major life decisions - everything is dictated by a pressure of definition, certainty, a defined state. Doubt has always characterised my decisions. Whether the resulting judgements (if I can call them that) have proved fruitful is another lo

…Three characters who were the best of friends set out on a journey. Shortly after the below picture was taken one of them vomited because of the twisting and turning road from Mumbai to Goa. The happy expressions do not betray the discomfort of at least one of them. Pictures never reveal a lot so I never read too much in one. Times do. The milky waterfall, riveting greenery, the time of the day, the sweeping beauty of rain in Western Ghats presented a wonderful backdrop for one of the many journey’s they undertook together. The memory of the moment serves as a reminder of a bygone era. It had interlocked three wishes; to be happy, find purpose and to make the most of their lives. That era catapulted more or less intertwined lives into three different streams of life. One of them ever-determined to make the most of his life continued his search for meaning of life and happiness. He lives to push his mental and physical self into uncharted waters. People, places a

“Long years ago, we made a tryst with destiny; and now the time comes when we shall redeem our pledge, not wholly or in full measure, but very substantially. At the stroke of the midnight hour, when the world sleeps, India will awake to life and freedom. A…” “Wake up! You idiot.” “How dare you interrupt free India’s first Prime Minister’s speech?” My sister is in a hurry to leave the house. Parents out of station. Before she leaves the house, I must be awakened to do the morning chores. The house maid must be buzzed in. Plants in our garden must be watered. And of course, I have to go to the office. A Prime Minister of a new born country being woken up cruelly when he is in the middle of waking up the whole country! The world has lost its sense of priorities and important issues. “I will be home late. No dinner for me. Don’t you dare waste a second getting off that fart smelling bed.” She is quite nice, my sister, otherwise. Thud. The car moves hastily out on t

Scepticism as oppose to denial is about the believers and non-believers - my little world of people, places, events and perspectives. A question in a school text prompted me to come up with this musing. It asked whether throwing/showering rice ( akshata, in a Maharastrian marriage ) justified when many go to sleep daily without a single meal ! If the child throws this question to a believer parent, teacher or a guardian, they come up with religious explanations for the practice. In the process, they are supposedly quelling the child's doubts. If this child plays with rice at home, throws or tosses it around he/she receives a big smack on the back, a dressing down and lectures on respect, privilege and positioning with respect to poor kids. What adults are doing here is not assuaging the kid's doubts but their own deep-rooted dilemmas. More like suppressing them. Adulthood comes with self-justification and more doubts for any curious child. Maybe I

(NOTE - Term in the title is not about a certain Netflix series, though borrowed from it!) The fact that I write this is a setback of a kind. This one is the emotion of the wrong kind that stimulates me to write. So, have I lost the battle to maintain my sanity? I might as well have vented whatever I felt in the most hurtful words I could sum up. But I held on, proclaiming victory to my conscience. Although the fact that I write about these – a thousand bad adjective worthies - shows that they do take a place in my system. But I fight them as one would fight cancer. And I fight to win. Disastrous, monstrous. People I hate most in the world are around me. They grow upon me like a parasite, unyielding. I cringe at their very presence. But I endure. I seek no pleasure in giving it back to them. Because they are not worthy of it. I only fight my equals in thought. I understand the immense control to hold back might implode me. But causing an explosion is beneath me. In