Stop amidst the flux....

Death is on my mind for a while but it isn't depressing. I'm pondering over the fact that Death is inevitable yet how we carry on with our lives as if it didn't exist. I know that I'll be no more some day--that day may not necessarily come after another 50 years, but it could be this very day. And I also know that all those around me will be no more--that I may actually be alive to face their absence. Yet I live, oblivious of the existence of Death.

I don't want to talk about it nor give it a serious thought. I'm not
interested in finding out where I was before I came here. I don't care where I'll reach once my heart stops beating. I know very well that I'm on borrowed time, but am totally unaware how much of it is still left. Yet I spend this precious time in pursuing mundane things, in cherishing silly ambitions. Much of my energy dries up in the desert of short lived pleasures/successes or in escaping equally silly anxieties. I don't want to know why I'm here, for what purpose, and whether I'm pursuing it or not!

And I carry on my daily life as if the whole eternity stretches ahead of me, waiting like a loyal servant, ready for-ever to pamper me!

The phone rings as I rush to the class. It's an old friend. I cut the line. After a while there's a message. 'Call me up when you're free.' I don't call up.

I'm reminded of this whenever I watch a latest commercial(I don't recall the product), which goes something like--'Age goes, children go, home goes, hope goes...........only friends stay.' No, friends don't stay. Even friends go away, friendship goes away. And it doesn't take much to lose friendships, to lose people...... Nothing remains as it is in this world where everything is in a flux. And that's the beauty of it all.

Evening. I walk over to the roadside vendor of bhajjis, hand him a five rupee coin and point to the heap of golden coloured, roasted, fuming onion bhajjis. He pulls out a piece of paper, plucks five from the mound, wraps them carefully. I cross the road, walk through the park towards my office, munching through the delicacies, observing the slowly descending mist around me. The cool breeze that laps up against me gives an added flavour and punch to the hot bhajji that melts in my mouth before descending into my belly, carrying a warmth with it. One of the things that makes my day is this short walk to this vendor every evening and the half-dozen bhajjis that I gobble up on my way back. And yeah, work sucks horribly. Period.

He opens his heavy eyes slowly, looks up from where he's sleeping, rolls over abruptly and sits back. Then looks around bewildered. If neither I or Archana pay any attention, he grunts once and slowly breaks into a wail. Usually one of us get up and greet him. He smiles and cackles. Beats his hands and mumbles something incoherently. Crawls towards me and lifts his arms. I gather him--at nine months, he's chubby and has a healthy weight. Kiss him--soft cheeks with a buscuit aroma--- and hold him tight. There's still some sleep left in his eyes. He rests his head against my shoulder and soon dozes off as I slowly pat his back.

Everything that happens, happens Here. Everything that happens, happens Now. I can do something, think something else, feel or grumble, hate or love....only Now, only Here. Not somewhere else, Not at any other time. Now!

Tea on a lazy saturday morning. Some work's pending so I've to go to the office for over two-three hours. All tv channels carry the breaking news of the five-year jail term for actor Salman khan and his preparations to surrender to the police. There's a swarm of media personnel outside his house, waiting for him to come out, eager to capture his depressed face, waiting for a sound-byte or two from him.... He looks lost, totally lost, as if he's staring into the eyes of death and there's still a great hunger for life left in him. Is he guilty? Not guilty? Is the verdict harsh? Will this serve as an example for the rich and famous that they aren't above the law? Is the judicial system going to save our country from going to the dogs? Tv anchors bark hungrily and commoners on the streets mouth stupid responses.

Amidst all of this, Salman sits huched up on a chair, staring into vaccum. Rich, famous, successful, role-model, spoilt, arrogant...and human.

After thought

'He's a 4-door, brass-plated, air-conditoned, 5-speed, 12-cylnder, turbocharged asshole!"

Scott adams has a post on Cuss phrases. The 700 odd comments that I browsed through had me rolling in fits, trying hard not to roar laughing and attract unwanted attention from busy-pretending colleagues.

Humour can be decent and civil but the punch felt in a non-veg, profane joke is beyond parellel. Like this one, to end a crappy week:

I worked at a gas station when I was 14 years old, and one old fart once asked why we were closed on a certain day. He told me he came by and "the place was locked up tighter than a bull's ass".