Special Holi

Its been close to five or six years since I played holi. Reason? I don’t think I have an excuse good enough! I guess I never had good friends to play with, ever since my friends ‘grew up’, which is just a better way of saying that now they went to play holi with their respective girlfriends and boyfriends. Odd isn’t it, the way we drift from one set of friends to the other. Needs changed, priorities changed, and so did my holi-playing companions…so did I.
This year though, things were a little different. I was invited to play holi at Advitya Kala Sangam- an NGO run by my friend’s mom. There were about a dozen mentally challenged adults who played holi with us. Although I had been to the place several times before, this time I somehow witnessed Advitya from a slightly different point of view- one that was up, close and personal. As soon as the celebrations began, it was just about five minutes before each of us was coated in a thick layer of gulal. I was pink from head to toe and resembled a badly animated monster from a B-grade flick!
The whole frenzy of throwing colour all over the place died down after a while, and that’s when I began to see something that made my holi so special. We all sat to eat after a while. Busy munching on a samosa, Julian sat next to me and quietly pointed out to me all the girls he liked in the crowd of about fifty of us. It so turned out, he liked all the others but me! Heartbroken, I returned to my plate of food, thinking about getting rejected by the most flirtatious student of Advitya! The complete innocence with which he stated his liking for the girls was touching. It’s cruel isn’t it when the mind and body don’t work in sync? But then again, for the so-called “normal” ones in our sane world, how often have misused this mind and body sync? He wasn’t like the rest of us. Thank God for that! His sheer bluntness was moving…and that I call special.
Swati was another excited student. She kept singing her version of “Rang Barse” all along, doing a little dance with it too! When we all sang along, she laughed. Simply, loudly, and genuinely. This is probably a word most of us take for granted. We probably consider it unnecessary. But her laugh was just so wonderful, so clean…and that I call special.
Then there was Anish- the most enthusiastic of the bunch. He was the star of the show! As soon as I entered Advitya, he was the first to come charging at me, almost ferociously to wish me a Happy Holi. I’m not sure if he understood that it was a festival. But for Anish, absolutely any reason is good enough for celebration. He showed me how we really don’t need anything to be happy, do we? Its all there. You just have to reach out to get it. Apart from the fact that he almost choked people with all the gulal, he was considerate enough to go around telling Swati to take a bath to wash of the large quantities of colour on her, and me to take off my glasses before he poured another packet of colour on my head! When most of us go around finding reasons to get upset, to brood over, here he was, with no a care in the world…and that I call special.
These were just a few of the very special people I spent m holi with. It was amazing, the conversations they had. I had a lot of trouble deciphering what they said to me, but among themselves, the communication seemed fantastic. They all seemed to understand what the other said, or meant. This again reminded me of the conversations we have. I don’t think I have ever had a heart-to-heart with my sister. Not so much even with my mum or close friends in a while. Communication is so different today. The Family dinner conversation has been replaced by a couple of words exchanged during commercial breaks in serials. You fail to find common ground between children and parents, spouses, siblings, colleague, even friends. There just isn’t enough conversation, communication and just that random cup of coffee. Just being understood is difficult. This was something happening with so much ease in Advitya…and that I call special.
Johnny Depp once said, ““If there's any message to my work, it is ultimately that it’s OK to be different, that it’s good to be different, that we should question ourselves before we pass judgment on someone who looks different, behaves different, talks different, is a different color.”
I was with people who were different. People who were made different…and probably for a reason. If they too were like you and me, in all the good ways and the bad, we would probably never know of human being so pure. Ones who so blatantly live their lives. They bring to us the possibility of being like that, going through life with a little less dishonesty-with ourselves and others. It is these guys who make the world a little more inhabitable. A little more unreal.....and that is truly, what I call, special.

A Tryst With the Gods

It was a fine morning. The sun was shining, the birds were chirping and a handsome young man was walking through the ravines in the Chambal valley when suddenly- Dhishkyaooo! A bullet from Dakoo Bhairo Singh’s gun pierced the silence and the man’s chest muscles. Dakoo Bhairo Singh curled his eighteen inch moustache and grinned a 440 watt-yellow-toothed-smile.
About four hundred miles from all this, with nothing to do with Dakoo Bhairo Singh or the unfortunate (but handsome) nameless junior artist of our story, I was in a train, on way to college. In perfect oblivion of all that, I was sitting in the first class ladies compartment, staring out of the window at the dozens of residents of this city who live in toiletless homes and use the railway tracks for a variety of purposes- the earliest in the day being the smelliest. The sights and smells however managed to distract me from the perfectly offensive obscenities scribbled on the seat before me. Besides, odours from the woman sitting next to me were fiercely competing with those coming from outside, to the extent that I was contemplating suicide by holding breath.
Amidst the odour mania, general train squabble and the faraway, inaudible roar of Bhairo Singh’s laughter, Dadar arrived. Along with several other women (and their respective smells), she entered. Not a word escaped her mouth but all women showed signs of reverence to the “Western Railway” badge she wore. Automatically hands reached into pockets, purses, wallets and other places of storage (ahem) to bring out passes and tickets. I too conformed to this glorious tradition.
She looked at the tattered document I held out and then at me. After a tense moment she finally uttered, “Expire ho gaya hai!” My world was shattered. Those three words spelt doom. But not much could be done. At Elphinstone Road she led me to the Station Master’s office, or rather a dingy room which resembled those used by the armed forces for torturing POWs. Other passengers looked at me with sympathy, contempt, ridicule and Thank-God-I-Wasn’t-Caught looks.
But what could be worse than getting caught the very next day after your pass has expired? I was soon to find out, when I was made to empty my wallet, pockets and bag for money to pay for a fine of Rs250. I had a sum total of Rs.170.25.
The station master looked at me, as if to gage if I was a seasoned railway rules offender. He waited and thought. Finally he made a slip of “Extra Luggage” for Rs.165 and issued a ticket back home for me as I waited there like a criminal in trial for murder. Finally he smiled a 440watt-yellow-toothed smile, picked his nose and handed me the receipt and ticket ( using the same hand of course), but personal hygiene isn’t high on the list at such times.
I ran out as quickly as I could and silently thanked the railway gods who had smiled upon me. The situation could be well described by the Hindi films of yesteryears when the hero came out of the blue-grey metal (or thermocol) doors of Central Jail. Relieved and broke, I made my way back home, with a vow to check the expiry dates on railway passes in the future to avoid any tryst with the Railway Gods.

Gajodhar Bhaiyya vs Shankar Bhau

This is a tale of not very long ago
When two young men lived in a city next door.
One was born there, the other came later,
Both were the same, none the better.
They toiled together and earned their bread,
But in different directions were they led.
The peace they lived in wasn’t too exciting,
To earn someone votes, it wasn’t inviting.
The others saw a plan and hatched a plot,
Hit the hammer when the iron was hot.
They made them fight for no good reason,
The city was plunged in a deathly season,
Bhaiyya and Bhau couldn’t stand each other,
Two words, both meant brother.
The culprits were caught finally, by their own kin,
But so were they let out as soon as they were put in.
They got their mileage, and their votes and all,
The lawkeepers too stood proud and tall.
The media too had a field day,
Watching the cat and mouse play.
The only ones who died were the two naïve neighbours,
Someone else to enjoy the fruit of their labour.
Clichéd as it might be, this story is just as common,
For in this city, common sense is most uncommon!

Do you?

Do you think of me the way I do?
Do you wish for me, upon a shooting star,
Or sit with a lonely sun,
as the waves rise to swallow it?

Do you share your lonely silent moments,
And those amidst all the noise,
With the me of your imagination?

Do you wonder what I would do,
Or say to you right now,
If I were there with you?

Do you dream often of smiling
wrinkled smiles together,
and still not running out of things to say?

Do you wait for me when you know I won’t come,
and look for my face in the crowd,
even when I couldn’t possibly be there?

Do you see my picture in those impulsive,
Stolen moments, and wish that it would,
Come to life somehow?

Do you chat with me at night,
When I’m not around,
Desperately wishing I was?

Do you ever think of me the way I do?

The Chaos of the Mob

A salty teardrop fell from a frozen eye
And lost itself in a stream of salty blood
And lost was a person in
The chaos of the mob

He knew not his religion,
He couldn’t remember his faith
His Gods were lost in,
The chaos of the mob

He did hesitate once, before he plunged,
But others urged him on,
Blame them not, either, they too were lost in
The chaos of the mob

He now shivered with excitement,
A lust to kill, a thirst for blood,
His peace, and his dreams, lost forever in
The chaos of the mob

He burnt his own children,
Raped his sisters and stabbed his kin,
But blame him not, because he was lost in
The chaos of the mob

It was all over now, as the fires died out.
He sat in the corner over a pile of ash.
His own house burnt by
The chaos of the mob

There was no one left to blame,
No one left to kill,
All his senses muted, by
The chaos of the mob

It was his own salty teardrop,
And his own salty blood,
The only one left to blame was
The chaos of the mob

Chromosome XX

Dear world,
It’s dark here. I can’t hear much. Just a dull vibe of the ultrasound, maybe. Te fluids about me dance as the machine gages my form. This moment is dense. I ca feel her heartbeat, now, louder than ever. I can feel her pain, now, more than ever. I wish I had a voice to scream. I wish they had ears to hear. I wish all of us could feel.
But it doesn’t matter what I feel. To the world, I am yet, unborn. I am yet, not “alive”. I am just flesh and blood and bones, with life…and with a gender. After today, after the machine speaks its truth, I may never see the world. I might be severed from her and from the nourishment I need. I might be severed from the protection of her body. I might “die”. But as no one yet considers me alive, no one will mourn my death.
Even if I am brought out into the world, for fear of law, society or just someone’s conscience, my fate will not be much different. I will be deprived of food for satisfying a brother’s appetite. I will be deprived of an education to further suppress my being. I will be dominated over and my own defences will be shattered as others invade me. My body, my soul. My voice will be muffled so that a calcified voice can be heard. My strength will be termed a weakness and my wishes left unfulfilled. I will be made to work, without ever being acknowledged. I will be made to cry, without being heard. I will be sold, without receiving a price. I will be ostracized, if I ever dare to live my own life.
I will try and fail to show the world, that “he” is but a part of “her”. He cannot exist without her.
And now, it is growing darker. I feel strangled. I feel suffocated. I see my small world, in a bag, drain away before me. I know this is too soon. I know I can’t survive in this world so soon. I am not ready yet. But no one care. In fact, this is exactly what they wish. They wish to kill me. They wish to have only a son.
It’s coming to an end now, and before me, I see the future. A future, in a world without me. Where only sons exist. Where they cannot find me to torture, to invade. So they are driven to but each other. To vent their frustrations, which they were so used to inflicting on me. There are only the last few of us remaining, and they live a life which doesn’t fit into the definition of the word. Mere objects, being passed on from one son to another. They choose to end their life. And now it’s only him. Only he reigns supreme in the world…alone.
And now there is a stagnating human world. They slowly die out. Without me, they are unable to have a ‘son’. And the world comes to an end because there isn’t any daughter.
As the darkness grows deep, as I suffocate more, I wish to die this death than to live in the man’s world. I choose to leave before I could enter. Because if they cannot give me a life, they do not deserve me.
I refuse to live in this “Man’s world”.
- Chromosome XX

I'm drinking from my saucer, 'cos my cup has overflowed...

Someone forwarded me this poem. It isn't mine, but I relate to it a lot.

I've never made a fortune,
and its probably too late now.
But I don't worry about that much,
I'm happy anyhow.
As I go along life's way,
I'm reaping more than I sowed.
I'm drinking from my saucer,
'cos my cup has overflowed.

Haven't got a lot of riches,
and sometimes the goings tough.
But i've got loving ones around me and
that makes me rich enough.

I thank god for all his blessings,
and the mercies He's bestowed.
I'm drinking from my saucer,
'cos my cup has overflowed.

I remember when things went wrong,
and my faith wore somewhat thin.
But all at once the dark clouds broke,
and the sun peeped through again.
So Lord, help me not to gripe,
about the tough rows I have hoed.
I'm drinking from my saucer,
'cos my cup has overflowed.

If god gives me strength and courage,
when the way grows steep and rough.
I'll not ask for other blessings,
I'm already blessed enough.
And may I never be too busy,
to help others bear their loads.
Then i'll keep drinking from my saucer,
'cos my cup has overflowed.