Yes.
Imagination triumphed over intelligence.
You see,yours truly got married.
Though the event is six months old,it has been nothing less of a eventful journey,sometimes into unbridled joy,and at times into innate naivete and stupidity.
But,it is a ride,that never was expected,never foreseen,hence all the more imaginative and thrilling.
And the humor of it all.
Six months,overwhelming well-wishes and warmth from unexpected quarters.
After the event typhoon passed,yours truly has come around to reconstitute his old haunt.
This time,with someone equally insane.
All because of an insane incident.
Well,that’s another story.
The gate is open.
The screendoor is removed.
The porch is waiting.
Along with the worn banister and the wornout couches.
Come on in.
And be fed up.:)

It was in Higher Secondary Classes that I remember,when I was  introduced to the amazing concept called “increments” , also known as the amazing “dy/dx ” in that big uphill task called Differentiation in Math.Irrespective of the nightmares the rest of its friends gave me,when you take Matrix and his buddies or Integration and his looneypals into consideration,it was something I knew in my heart,that was going to be a part of my everyday life forever,whether I liked it or not.
Because,over the years,this insignificant heart has come to know about the big differences those little increments make in your everyday allowance of 24 hours,that collectively make up your day.
It is the difference, that an increment makes, between a day spent existing,or one worth living for.
This is about one such increment that was a part of an ordinary,dreary winter evening rush hour of my city,unrelenting and merciless yet accommodating the throbbing  faceless multitude on its struggle to get back to their warm dwellings.

Beside a rotting fallen log,behind the Bus-stop, were five mischievous angels,little masters of the streetscape raising holy hell and generally playing the roles in a kingdom only visible to them.
The seemingly eldest of the lot,a girl of about eight years, the final authority in scrapes,fights and bruises in the whole band,was doing something very normal for her age,oblivious to the mayhem around her.She had collected five empty ice-cream cups from a nearby garbage bin,overflowing with the arrogance of urban plenty and the previous night”s revelry,and had painstakingly arranged them on top of the rotting log.

She then set about to gather sand from the nearby construction site,and started filling each cup with a level of concentration that I watched with envious fascination.Along would come one of the younger ones,screaming and hollering,and jump over the log upending her whole dessert counter.
With a look that only tired and benevolent elder sisters can manage on their siblings,she would go about refilling it again.By the fourth time,realisation dawned,and she shifted all of them to the base of the log,snug and comfortable on solid ground.

The last scouting trip was for an equal number of ice-cream spoons,which she then stuck to each of the cups filled with sand and had them garnished with a rotting black-grape each,courtesy the friendly neighborhood garbage bin.
All along I was dimly aware of the traffic passing by,the cacophony that has become the inevitable background score of the intolerant urbanite,and a part of me was making it in loud and clear terms that the my usual buses would be carrying on,regardless of whether I was on board or not.By this time,the rest of the children had stopped their games and were huddled around her and the curious spread of desserts on the dusty wayside,staring in abject fascination at what she had done.

In the fading twilight,I couldn”t miss seeing the eternal longing of a world in their eyes,that just seemed unattainable.Normally,in moments similiar,Mr.Conditioned Urbanite usually walks out ,gags and forcefully bundles Mr.Empathetic Fellow Human Being inside your heart,but this time around,I was willing to give him a fight,world-weary though I was.
I kept watching as the girl took each cup and handed it to the rest,and all of them dutifully perched themselves around her and dug into them with relish.And with the imagination borne out of innocence,they were slurping,grunting and sighing with contentment with every scoop,play acting an act that we take for granted in our umpteen buffet dinners.

I still think that did it.
Even before i knew,I had darted through the busy thoroughfare to the urbane “Purple Chic” Coffee Adda”,got five doublescoops and was back,surprising and catching Mr.Conditioned Urbanite unawares.
I remember catching a smile on Mr.Empathetic Fellow Human Being”s face.
The Rag Tag Bunch had their eyes open in supreme happiness,and a couple of the fellow travellers waiting around had decided to reward themselves with a smile on their faces.
Soon,all five were back on the log,digging into Chocolate,Butter Pecan and Strawberry with a restrained indulgence that can only be best termed indescribable.
The eldest girl was still standing there,with her doublescoop,tears running down her face and staring at me.Much to my embarrasment,I couldnt help but wipe the beginning of one,surreptitiously though,from my right eye too.
My legs had taken a very important decison on my behalf by this time,to walk up the block and try finding an autorickshaw to get back home.
Half way down the path,I looked back to see the whole bunch tag along,each one of them singing a different song at the top of their voice,and digging into their ice-cream.
I can never forget the falling winter twilight in their hair,more like golden haloes around their being,throwing their heads back and singing,and catching their breath to dunk in a scoop and go back to their singing,going down the sidewalk,as I looked across from my utility perch in the autorickshaw.
And I felt deliriously alive,regardless of everything that I suspected would make it another day in the uneventful existence of the ordinary Mr.Totally Insane.
An incremental act,in otherwise routine hours of existence,had unknowingly made a little difference again.
Between Existing and Living.
Atleast,for me.

The moment,the creaky gate groaned in protest and rightful hurt,I stopped and thought.
Is it in the natural order of things to walk up to the front porch with a measure of guilt?
Does it have to be with an air of impending heaviness,that I return the spiteful stare of my vacant home,surprisingly standing tall and proud,with not a hint of weariness?

Should it be that the Traveller who returns back to his Haven,is obligated  to offer explanations,from the mossy shingles to the weather beaten porch rails about his  reason of absence?
I thought about it for a little while longer,as I walked around,over the dusty promise of staying back a while,over the familiar floorboards of recognition and love,and I could sometimes hear the sighs of welcome,and groans of familiar benevolence.
And I decided.
It doesnt matter,you know.
As long as you have kind neighbors,and weary but friendly travellers with hearts full of hope and  worthy tales to trade for smiles,
it just really matter.
After all, as Robert Frost said in The Death of the Hired Man,
Home is a place where,when you have to go there,they have to take you in.
And so the travel weary TI is back home.
For another spell.
Back in his haunt at Iland.
Consider yourself invited.
 

It’s been almost two months since I stepped into this warm,well worn and cosy parlor.The cool floor,tired of waiting,has seemed to have held innumerable conversations with the odd sunbeams passing through,and begun a habit of disinterestedly drawing patterns in dust,in sheer boredom.

The garden air almost races through the opened windows,in breathless excitement and curious indignation of being kept away from their familiar haunt for a while.

I’m almost certain I heard a warm hello in the nippy evening breeze,and a faint chuckle of mirth and glee.

The multitude of the six-legged residents and visitors,in the beams and the crannies,can be heard drawing up plans to move to another town,another place.There are murmurs of dissent,but mostly,they are moving out.Fading twilight peeks in cautiously,surprised and in suspended disbelief at the Master that has returned,and goes on to warm the room in a familiarity,borne out of close association with the tired and aging heart.His smile seems to have added an extra glow to the cosy den.I walk around at the familiar nooks and corners,past the rafter high bookshelves and lean against them,drinking in the loved moments,past and present,almost like shuffling through my own Museum in my Head.

Every single moment,offers me a nugget of memory in delightful smiles,and I realize that I’m smiling.And I also realize that the smiles are back.The familiar rug sighs in contentment as I sink into my overstuffed Couch,with a favourite book for the evening,an ear cocked to the creak of the garden gate,that signals the arrival of a familiar heart.Time heals,this I know now.It is the balm that becomes the Heavenly ministrations on one’s wrinkled brow and troubled soul,and these days,my Guardian Angel’s face displays relief and contentment.There is also another soul,cherubic and affectionate,that frequents the garden path and gives tolerant company on the creaky porch railings for an evening cuppa.My heart calls that Hope.

A reason to look forward to the morn’s sunrise and the evening’s soft and meaningful conversations.The burnished doorknob reflects the glint of happiness and tears in my eyes.
I suspect it smiled too.Every time the wicket gate creaks,my kettle swears.And so it goes with another of its torturous,overburdened,complaining wails and I know Coffee is done.

The four mugs,are for the familiar souls that are plonked in my Den,dear JJ, dear II, dear Shivani and dear AB…Lets raise it in toast, shall we?Here”s to Life,in all its quirkiness,joy and more heartbreaks.Its good to be back Home. Maybe in time,you’ll find supper on the stove,and the light in a dear companion”s eyes that would keep us snug and warm,in the familiarity of it all. My Life’s Companion.I hope and pray it happens,and stays that way.Till then,there would be soulfood in my larder,for you to share,and my complaining kettle,to give us company.

TI is home.

This is for you J.

Do I begin from that hot,sultry and mean March morning when you wrote to me about the shared tastes(almost exact) we had in music and literature.A beginning to four months of lil surprises.

And how it grew to your lil morning notes from work,which for me came to represent lil notes of mischievous love.

It didnt matter that we were in different cities,and were living almost identical lives,with the same background scores of Miles Davis and Pablo Neruda.

It didnt matter how you looked and how you always spoke about you being the “Shunamite being showered undeserved love”..(that was from Joseph Heller,wasnt it?)

And as if in answer to that unspoken language that only overwhelmed souls can spell out,our conversations spilled out into the damp summer nights,punctated by your tinkling laughter.

I never had any second thoughts,or unformed fears about saying yes,when you called up agitated,in the middle of the night and wanted a promise from  me,that I”ll never leave your side.I never doubted it,because,I already had your hand in mine.In my heart.

Monsoon came,with its wicked fury and the promise of renewed life.It was our favourite season.And before I knew you had pulled that unyielding cloak of silence around you.

You left a cryptic message about rain washing everything away.If only you could feel the delirium of a turgid earth waiting for the sun”s emerging warmth..I”m sure you could.

And silence again.With a message of a possible meeting with a prospective groom,which I laughed away.For me,it didnt mean anything then.It was of Little Consequence.

Until you sent that impersonal morning note,that started with “This is a Dear Johnny letter…”.

To trivialise everything between us with a casual commonplace ex-pression?It was a strangers voice J,not yours.And I still dont know why.

I never know what came over you.You never offered a reason.Though I went down,as far as I could,as only a disoriented soul can,for you to tell me what it all meant.

Was it beacause I was  little late in coming over to meet you?

Or was it that I was just a stop gap arrangement in your meaningful quest for a companion?

I walked around with glass shards in my head and ground glass in  my eyes till those perspectives that I thought I had lost,slowly fought and found their way back.

Gravity is back and things seem to be getting well in God”s sweet world.

It is surprising,though.

I just cant bring myself to hate you.

I wish I could deal with matters of my heart in a more impersonal way,like you did.

Miles Davis manages to touch me with his cold and sharp notes ,everytime “My Funny Valentine” comes on.It never sounds “sensuous”as you once told and I agreed wholeheartedly.It was.

How do you restrain a heart that refuses to stop loving?Building a wall,one cynical brick at a time?

You would be in your new  found life by now.

Sometimes I catch myself wryly smiling when Mark Knopfler comes on singing “I”m the fool I never thought I was”.

Remember the one where George Harrison boogies about “..all I have is a photograph,and I realise that you”re not coming back anymore..”,Last week I found myself looking at yours,and that was all there to it ,you see.

The smile seemed to have gone out from my eyes.Which was a first.

Fare thee well,J.

My closure begins here.

The Dictionary explains disease as a disorder in a human, animal or plant, caused by infection, diet, or by faulty functioning of a process.

The Dictionary being an impersonal tool for information, can afford to do that, spell out conditions, terms with clinical perfection, enlightening you with dread, in the end.

I guess it has always been a part of our lives, this faulty functioning of processes, be it our dear and loved ones, our colleagues, our associates, our friends. And we subconsciously chose not to be affected by them after a certain point and level, though we keep ourselves involved in everything that arises out of these sudden upheavals in their lives.So it was, a friend mentioned in passing about a colleague of ours who have been missing from the daily madness we call work, (absences are seldom noted ,if not for bosom buddies, or the hugely popular Big ‘Uns),and the ordeal that Providence had in store for him which leaves you numb, even with the walls that you have come to grow around you in this urban rat race, also called as Life.He always had this little growths on his body(a bad case of fibroids),that was always kept under check with regular medical attention and cosmetic surgery and never once had it interfered with his professional productivity, his demeanor and his whole approach towards his colleagues.

Maybe it was the fear of a dead end job getting no where, or it was the call of the greenbacks in the desert, he one day packed his bags for a job in the Middle East that got him a reasonable windfall, but was a devil when it came to the workload. I believe he didn’t mind it a bit, knowing it was his chosen field of Logistics and Cargo Movement that was, well, in another place.The workload took its toll, and the medical checkups trickled to far and few in between,(and cost a fortune too, in the foreign land),and one and half year into the job, he collapsed with fatigue, fully knowing the beast within that had broken its leash and was spoiling for a long drawn and dirty fight. And he was back home where he believed he would set everything alright.The fibroids had spread to his internal organs and muscle structure,and was advised surgery as it had turned malignant,specially around the ribcage area.A routine surgery turned out be a nightmare as the senior surgeon incised more than what was necessary,gravely wounding and impairing his digestive glands.This was kept from him,his parents,and his loved ones,and there were complications by the hour for something that was expected to be a routine affair.he was hastily discharged from the hospital,and only at the second hospital ,in 24 hours was the criminal clinical error found out.

By then,he was vascillating under the two extremes of his disease within and the new found nightmare.Sandeep(or Sandy,as we called him),u see,was the only son of his ageing parents,and his father,recuperating after a major heart bypass surgery,couldn’t take the new perversity that had befallen on his child,and in a moment of anger and rage,slipped,fell and dislocated his spine.And his mother,the eternal ocean of tolerance as any mother would be,stoically resigned herself to this overwhelming new state of family affairs and kept the tears to herself,for her private moments.Sandy’s condition deteriorated at a rate that could only be termed painfully fast,and was shifted to hospice for better care.Sandy drifted in and out of consciousness,barely able to eat anything,as his digestive system was all but collapsed,and the medication he took for his malignant growth inside his body was too strong and heady and had violent reactions with his digestive conditions and made it into something,a human mind can only dream about in its hideous nightmares.

Sandy passed away on June 4th,to the other side,hopefully,where he gets to smile that easy going smile of his,and has surgeons who have fingers that go where their minds tell them to,and pain is only a figment of someone’s imagination.Here’s to you,my friend,who visited this planet and touched lives in his own inimitable way,and left through another doorway,for another destination.

I believe the third best thing to happen to Planet Earth after Jesus Christ and Sliced Bread was the Customer Service Manager. I honestly do. Which was the driving force, alongside faith and hope, which made me trudge up the hallowed portals of the HP Service Cathedral in the city, with my Basanthi, snug and safe in my arms. Ah..yes, Basanthi happens to be my two and a half year old laptop, who suddenly woke up one morning, aghast, at the wonderful life she was missing while she worked, and decided on the fly to take a vacation to Cyber-Florida. She blinked out and was gone, and never left any number.

The Nightingale at the counter was excruciatingly helpful, and the Service Engineer after a series of aahs, ahems and hmmms punctuated by moments of intense, and baffled concentration, reached a working diagnosis.

The motherboard had a problem and so had the display screen. My misgivings started there.

Uneasy at Ms. Nightingale’s eyes flashing dollar signs, I asked her to send me a Estimated Cost Quote before any trigger happy technician could get exceedingly creative with his toolkit on  Basanthi.

This was followed by eight days of deafening silence, and worried, I called up again. And after some serious quality discussion, dangerously flitting on the fringes of civility, a quote landed with a mysterious smile and a thud in my mailbox.

I could vaguely recall the birds chirping, the power lines humming and my aged heart wheezing its protest, while the sensual figure of Rs.36,000 for the display screen, with an additional service charge of R.1500(talk about benevolence!) did a frightful rendition of the Mexican Cha-Cha-Cha around my head.

After I found my breath again,(it was actually lounging around in my living room couch, patiently waiting for me to come and get it),I got on the phone again and requested to speak to the Service Manager a.k.a the Head Priest on duty at that time.

My feeble line of reasoning went this way.

Even taking into account the depreciation of the spares component for my instrument, which cost Rs.36,000 now, my display screen would have cost around,say,Rs.42,000 two years back, if it had gone kaput within a month of buying it. But, it didn’t stand to any logical reasoning (was there ever one?),because my laptop itself cost me only Rs.30,000!!!

How do I pay Rs.37,500/- for a component of my laptop which itself cost me only Rs.30,000/-, that too, two years old???

My Savior on the Pedestal, the Customer Service Manager, rolled his eyes, shrugged his shoulders, scratched his head, rolled his eyes some more and said, The pricing comes from our Head Office. We are helpless.

Before his aimless verbal banter could overwhelm me more, I requested for my Laptop back, and for want of a better term, fled.
The next day at the office, while narrating this bizarre event that blessed my life, and made it a little more surreal ,to my colleague, our company’s Communications Engineer, he patiently listened through it all, rummaged in his file tray and, with a victory whoop flashed two sheaves of official looking paper that looked dangerously familiar.

They were two different quotes for two different laptops, forwarded to our friendly neighborhood Service Cathedral by our company for possible diagnosis and repair.

The diagnosis were deceptively similar.

The Motherboard had a problem. So had the screen.

And the screen cost Rs.36,000 each.

Tail Piece. A week later, I got my laptop fully serviced (as it turned out, the display driver circuit was blown, and NOT the screen),software upgraded, battery recharged and my RAM souped up, all for Rs.8500 with warranty, from a vendor, recommended  by a friend, who was also happened to be the authorized dealer for the major hardware suppliers for Computers. And no prizes for guessing, who his major business partner was.