Train of Thoughts

I love traveling in the Second Class- there’s so much air in the compartments…

So once I was on a train (The Tangential Express) to Rajasthan, and I was being exhilarated by the fact that I was standing on a doorway that had no door to contain me, a block of air traversing through my body. I thought- what an opportunity to aerate my cranial hollow, and stuck out so much so that only my palms and feet-fingers were actually inside the massive, hurling lumber of steel; Imagine a horizontally aligned miniature human parachute holding the train in its course.

Air blasted through my left ear, and swept off all of my grievances and misgivings out of my right. My top floor felt aerated. If I stuck both of my pinkies to partially block the left earhole, I could even manage a whistle loud enough to contest with the train’s.

Suddenly, from the corner of my eye, up on a gentle bend, I espied a huge shaft of metal gate on the tracks, which allowed only a few inches of space for the train to shoot through. Wait a minute, I thought- Rajasthan is a hot place- look at all the sand; metals tend to expand, right? The train must be swollen with all the heat; can it really fit through the gate? So I rubbernecked (wincingly) to get a better look…

The train snaked lazily towards the gate, and amazingly shot through the gate. Hurray, I mentally shouted, causing an echo, which was quickly drained out with the air tunnel phenomenon going on inside my head. A classic Doppler effect.

If I hadn’t surfed along this tangent, my amazing experience would have ended right here. For I would have had time to withdraw my chute to the compartment. From where I was, I could see the solid gate hurl towards me in a frightening momentum, and although I managed to get inside up to my neck, I felt more than saw a big thump on my left temple…

My left eye jumped out, but the optic nerve yo-yo’ed it back into my optic hollow- but the pupil was facing inside, noting the amorphous brain sitting sagely inside- I noted a sense of Deja-vu. A loop of optic nerve was now hanging out from my left eye-hole, sort of like a telephone cord holding the receiver in its rightful place…

Staggering with the experience, I propped my body against the wall of the compartment, and hung my left arm limply over the optic loop, and tried to regain the composure. I had shifted my whole weight onto my right leg, which was shaking crazily, threatening to buck. Everybody in the train had a gaped look in their faces. A few passengers started to vomit on each other, and triggered a chain of induced throw-ups all over the compartment. After a while, walls were dripping off dull-colored viscous fluids- I could make out that this lady had chicken sandwich for lunch, while that man had tequila shots the night before. It’s hard not to get the picture…

I looked back at the innocent doorless doorway that had started all this. The air that was now coming in now felt chilly. I felt naked in the audience of annoyed passengers. I pretended that there were some sand grains in my right eye, and rubbed it vigorously with the sides of my forefinger; and during the charade, as surreptitiously as I could (given the situation), I grabbed my left optic nerve and pulled out the eye. I carelessly stuffed the nerve back into my skull and plopped the eye back into its place.

Love's Context:

Love is a jumble of wor(l)ds.

I know an eye, whose girl is so pretty,
My shatters like glass a heart.

Ev'rytime I feel at her, I look pain,
And pain in life is sometimes good;

That is how my reason hearts out.

Accident Prone / Off the Tone

I remember running between computers…

Sometimes you’re doing a task in your computer. Then suddenly you have to use another comp u.r.g.e.n.t.l.y. You find an empty cubicle, turn on the comp, and realize that you had left your fingers at the keyboard of your own comp. You hurry back, collect the digits, go to the other comp, realize your eyes are dribbling on the floor, and that somebody just tripped on your optic cord (talk about somebody being on your nerve).

All the while, your brain’s dizzy with the frantic, bouncy pictures registered by the retina. You hurriedly pick off the staple pins from your cornea, re-wet your contact lens, and pop the orbs back in… before realizing that you put them in wrong holes. You then ask somebody to pat the back of your head to pop them out, and although you deftly catch them in your palms and put them in their respective holes, your left eye is put the wrong way round so that you momentarily glimpse the puffy brain sitting amorphously inside your head. You rearrange the left eye, and, as an extra measure, you staple your eyelids to your forehead (thereby recycling the collected pins) and paste a generous length of cello tape over your eyes to keep them in place, but taking care not to run the tape over your eyebrows (coz it hurts when you take it off).

You finally sit in front of the other computer. Then you realize you need to go to your computer i.n.s.t.a.n.t.l.y. You rush to your desk... and you realize that you had left your digits at the keyboard of the other computer. Plus, the tape has already started peeling off coz your eyes are now watery. And when you get to the other computer, the person is already back in his seat, and you see your fingers deposited in his pen stand… But you see the person also has a cello tape put across his eyes, but his left eye is put the wrong way, so that the iris is facing the inside of his head… you begin to smile, solaced by the confused look on his face… it’s not only you after all.

You start to laugh uncontrollably…

Tie Me

I noticed at the sun-up,
The unraveling silk strands
In my embroidered tie.

Fingers stuck to the thought.
Mind speculated in panic.
Eyes gaped.

Me lighted a match,
‘N hovered it gently,
Near the problem.

Tie whooped into flames.
‘N ash only remained.
Shitfully shit. My tie!

I blink off my reverie, ‘n glance
At the affectionable cloth, lounging
On its back, on my visitor couch.

Uhh! Still reassuringly there. Still sexy.

I’ll probably use a mosquito coil instead.

Random Thoughts, Freestyle

You know, it's like swimming around the pool in circles...

Here I am, sipping caffeine, sugar and hetch-two-ough, and random sparks begin to shoot around my cranial hollow. Is moustache really dead, I wonder... I mean, you do not see younger people nowadays indulging in that hair manicure - although, i might disclaim right-away, one does see a couple of moustache-beard combo, which, I must categorically state, is different from a pure moustache. Lets see... can we baselessly assume that in the next generation one does not hear somebody utter "Khane mukh lai Junga le Chhekdaina"?

Amidst carpeted quietitude in my office floor, I surf along a different tangent- what makes a heart flutter more- Caffeine or love? Is the flutter desirable in its own, or it is desirable because it signifies something desirable? Coz if it's the former, why not just have caffeine; and if your heart doesnt flutter enough, multiply your dose. In either case, I do not like this phenomenon- my heart feels like a ruptured balloon bounding against my ribcage.

Pretty soon, I begin recalling last night's brief moment of consciousness before I succumbed to eyeclosing. I could hear many dogbarks. I realize I do not hear them like this during the day! I also get a deja-vu that I had thought this particular thought SOME time before, but that's another tangential fray I do not wish to align to. So yeah, dogs. There is a scientific explanation that sounds are heard more distinctly during nights than during days... But I wonder, is that the only thing that's making you hear the dogs? Could it not be that dogs are CONDITIONED to bark at nights, and therefore we realize how many dogs are there in our neighborhoods?

Two houseflies were bothering me a while ago. Not at the same time, thankfully. Sort of like the way Jackie Chan is gang-struck; one at a time. I did the Schnooks, successfully both times, and the Death Flings... and I start to wonder how their average days would be like. Mostly, they are in search for sweet things, they buzz a lot, have a very obvious name (they 'fly' around the 'houses'- I mean, what if you are named 'Milan's Fan', huh?), some of them have bright, bottlegreen color and hang around in shitty places (literally). And they fear Spiders. There's even a joke that goes like: Why did the 'fly 'fly? Because the Spider spied 'er.

Then I begin to notice the sighing airconditioner behind me, and notice my forearm hairs standing up. You know (beware, scientific rant:) the real reason behind it right? It's to fluff up to conserve body heat. Animals do it with their furs, and birds with feathers. For us, it is just a shitty deal offered by Nature because we are not t.h.a.t. hairy (well, thank god for that, or else we would look like detailed monkeys), and the sparse follicular density doesn't really do the trick.

And it is just a matter of time before I begin to realize who you are and what you look like AT THE TIME you are reading this very sentence. Is your mouth stupidly hanging open? Do you have a mused half-smile? Are you in your undies ( I mean, ONLY undies? In which case, are your hairs standing up?). Speaking of undies- RED undies, to be exacter, how did Superman look so great in it? Have you realised how difficult would it be for him if he wants to pee? I mean, he doesn't have a fly! I can almost hear you say: Oh, but he does FLY!! ; after which, I'll sagely say, lame joke, yaar, lame joke.

So how come you are still here? Do you also like to swim in circles? Are you still inspecting the hair in your left nostril? There's no prize there tonight, friend. Have you jerked your head so powerfully that your eyeballs dribbled on the floor? Neither have I, but I would like to see somebody get it done.

Mighty Bharata Vol 1 Chapter 2

The Dhritta-litter grew and spread, fought and haggled over the land, and created an unfair, unhealthily competitive mood over the whole place...

The eldest and most malicious, Duryodhana, developed an ominous looking moustache during his early pubescent days. In fact, it was more aptly referred to as Bushtache. And he reserved his laughter for his evil deeds. When he did, it was a thigh-slapping spectacle, head thrown back, so that only the top row of teeth and the twiggly tonsils at the black of his throat were visible.

They quarreled with Paandu gang, mostly about insane things. Like once, the Kauravas mixed something in Bhima's laddoos after which he had an upset stomach. It was an ugly sight at the men's room. Weeks after, people still came out of the room with their curled upper lips pasted over their nostrils...

Once, Duryodhana somehow bumped his nose in a glass door at Pandava's palace. Now to give him some credit, a glass or a mirror was a high-tech invention in those reflectionless days. Owning mirrors was an act of extravagance and fancy, not of need. It was normal to have somebody else shave your armpit or pick your teeth. Draupadi therefore laughs her ass off seeing hot and confused D holding up his nose. In a vow to take revenge, the Kauravas somehow make the Pandavas stake, and lose, Draupadi at their casino, and physically abuse Draupadi by trying to disrobe her in the eyes of everybody-well, technically not everybody: Dhritta-something and his wife could not see a damn thing. In any case, lucky for the Abusee, Krishna the fluted cowboy saves the day. He somehow manages to fashion a sari-supplying ropeline out of his lasso ('Janai'), and the Kauravas give up in the end.

Krishna is a strange character. For one, he was blueskinned. Almost all girls looked at him wondering why he was so blue all the time. He also had this knack of twirling a miniature frisbee ('Sudarshan Chakra') in his forefinger.


You can see, in the picture, bearded Bhishma frisbeeing with Krishna (Yep- earliest frisbees were made of wood), him saying 'come on, sissy. is that all you got?'. Arjuna begging at Krishna's feet: 'Come on, Kkrish, let me throw it this time.' The white lasso is quite visible around Krishna's torso, which had a role to play on the famous Draupadi Disgracing Drama. You can also see others lazing around leisurely on the picnic ground, although the turbulent skies show that it was not a good day for frolicking.

Bhishma was a warrior by nature, and was obsessed with promises. He was born with a white hair and a meter-long beard. As a child, he threw tantrums by making obsessive promises and taking wild oaths. At one time, he swore that he will die in a bed of roses, hence acquiring his name: (Bhishma: 'a person of the terrible oath'). It turns out later that he dies in a bed of arrows, which, according to him, wasn't a bad alternative, owing to accupressural reasons. After he dies, there is a lot of hue and cry about how he did not live (or did not die, in this case) by his oath; DoN, Department of Names, eventually rename him Wishma, because the notorious oath seemed to be downgraded to just a wish.

End of Chapter 2.

Glimpses of Chapter 3.
At some point in the story, Duryodhana befriends Karna, a fiercely loyal being. He was born in an armor suit (a la Achilles) when Kunti once stared at the Sun (don't ask me details). Kunti, to hide the embarrassing result, floats him down Ganges river (a la Moses). Surviving the rafting trip, Karna is brought up and trained at the Droner Academy, where Kauravas and Pandavas get their training.

Mighty Bharata Vol 1 Chapter 1

Show me your earhole and I will tell you a story; story of brothers and cousins, of wives and saints, and of abundance and depravity... Keep quiet now, for I am about to begin...

There was once a blind king, Dhritta-something. He was blind from birth, so had absolutely no idea of what things looked like. Amidst spells of inferiority, he would try to join in on conversations: 'yeah, baby- you're soft', 'wow, look at this view, it's sooo... mmm... smelly'; or 'the best part in that movie was the soundtrack'... and the likes...

His annoyability could only be matched by his copycat wife, who would imitate things and actions to the point of impossibility. Let me prove my point by saying that she copied her husband's blindness by draping a piece of cloth over her eyes-mind you-throughout her life.

I guess people are right when they say blind people have heightened sensitivities to other senses- they must have had an amazing sex life. I mean, they had tons of sons- like a hundred thousands or something. They had to post signs everywhere for hiring nannies, and invent new languages (like french, latin) to name them.

Still, it wasn't enough, and many kids died. Which was lucky for Leonardanand Da Vinciswamy, an ascetic with a nocturnal habit of filching dead kids and performing all sorts of experiments. He came up with results like if you throw in two hands, two legs, a torso, a head, and a pair of legs together, you still are short of a spark to make a person alive.

Vinciswamy did have some positive contributions to humanity. He was the one who suggested splitting the chest to bare the heart and conduct a bypass. A novel stunt which was inspired from the most ancient superhero, Hanuman, when he ripped open his ribcage to reveal his dripping and throbbing insides to SitaRam.

Dhritta-something had an elder brother, Giant Pandu, who had blackened eyesockets and loved bamboo shoots and leaves. I mean, he liked to go to bars, order bamboo, shoot the bartender, and leave the place. Stories claim that he still has a living lineage, who are, though, on the endangered list and are under intense scrutiny by the Chinese authorities.

Pandu gave his wife Kunti five kids. Kunti might have been jealous of her sis-in-law's litter, had it not been for one of their sons, Vim, who would create everyday food shortage by gorging on edibles and near-edibles. Her eldest son would create almost-everyday embarrassment by telling horrible truths; 'Gauri, did you just fart?', or 'I do not know why, but I cannot lie. Once I tried to write 'blue' in red ink and ended up writing 'bllllllrrrrrrrrrreddddddd!!!'.

The second-eldest was Arjun. AJ always showed after his father in his violent tendencies. He thought a bow was mightier than a pen or a sword. At times he caused himself harm by kneeling on one knee, looking to the ground, and shooting an arrow vertically above. Ironically, it was only after he perfected this feat that the arrow in its perfect trajectory gravitated back to earth to pierce his own unfortunate skull. He was too dazed to realize that all the while he had defined his own head as the target. It was a mix of fury and embarrassment when friendly Eklavya shouted 'BULLSEYE!!' gleefully as a compliment. However, Arjun did not forget this incident and finally hatched a plot later to make Drona ask for Ekky's thumb as a Gurudakshina.

Nakul-Sahadev were identical twins. They always matched their actions to be virtually indistinguishable. They would, however, invariably let out their respective identities after Queen mother would irritably try to join in and imitate their actions to be the 'third twin'.

Pandu kept an outer facade of humbleness, but he ran an underground propaganda machine to make people gullibly gossip about how Pandu, despite his killing tendencies in bars, was a more deserving king than that the blind guy.

Words were abound that there was yet a third brother who had to distance himself from the royal business. But let's not talk about him, because he did not have a personality and I do not know too much about him.

end of chapter 1. To be continued ...

Glimpse of chapter 2:
The Dhritta-litter grew and spread, fought and haggled over the land, and created an unfair, unhealthily competitive mood over the whole place...

The Swim

It is hard to tell which millenium it was now. All I can say is that the whole world was one narrow water channel that can hardly fit ten bodies side to side; and the whole human race was swimming on the troubled water. There was a strong mechanical smell in the air with the incessant sounds of tired pale arms breaking water with every stroke, and fatigued hiss followed by a sharp intake of precious air. There was hardly room for people to do anything else than trudge along with the mass of bodies.

My lungs were burning with lack of air, and I could feel my hands getting heavy and leaden. It was then that I had this strong urge to turn around. And I did.

Ignoring the angry slaps of arms on my face, I plowed through against the human current. I knew I had to turn back. And I did not even have to try to know why. The reason was there somewhere in my mind, and will show itself when I reach there.

I took a lungful of breath and ducked underneath the water to go deep enough to avoid the resistance. Once there, I jerked my thighs powerfully and propelled forward. It felt much better with muted sounds on my ears and the smoothness of flow. Once every while, powerful kicks on the surface sent waves of force that feebly tried to press me downward, but it just felt like futile grasps that I ducked out of.

Suddenly, I did not feel the need to go to the surface to breathe anymore. I was more urged to go forward than upward, and I had this pressing urgency that I am about to reach there.

Soon, the water started to seem pink. Then it did become pink, and even deepened in color, although the transparency remained. And about twenty arm's length in the front floated the reason...

She was delicately holding a flower that seemed to radiate a crimson color into the water. Once I got near enough to discern her jovial facial features, she mouthed "How did I know that you were coming?!"

How to Slide a Chicken Under the Door

The other day I was trying to find out a way to slide a chicken under a door; This conundrum proved tougher than the Da Vinci Code and no, I have not yet found out a viable, noncasualty way of doing so. However, you might be awed to hear the wealth of options that went through my head:

1. Chloroform it- pluck out the feathers- roll it flat by a rolling pin- make a roti shape- slide it through;
2. Saw off the bottom portion of the door, at least 2 feet high- tell the chicken to walk through the opening;
3. Write 'a chicken' on a piece of paper- alternatively DRAW a chicken- slide the paper through;
4. Take the chicken's beak- insert it through the slit, ignoring the wild sqawks- and just keep pushing until it emerges on the other side- you might have to clip its clawnails first though;
5. Take a razor sharp knife- slice the chicken into very thin layers- place all layers, one after the other, on a rolled out toilet paper ('spreadsheet')- tie a string on the front of the spreadsheet- pull it gently from the other side of the door.

Is anybody concerned about the gravity of the situation? Last night, I called Kantipur Television to tell them of my developments, but after hearing 'Who is this guy?' in the background, I quickly hung up. I don't know, I got too scared...

Lying through your teeth

You know a fly has farted when you see it flying in a straight line...
-George Carlin

The most achieved liars are the raconteurs of bedtime stories and fantasy, like C.S. Lewis (Alice in Wonderland, Narnia Chronicles), J. K. Rowling, and the fabricators of religion, cinderella story, red riding hood, etc.

Lying harmlessly can be used as an amusement tool, if you really think about it. I sometimes employ prevarications and fabrications to amuse myself. It is fun making up something that sounds too weird to be true. But the catch is that it should only be a bit weird. And you have to be specific about it. It is like you are creating an event that might as well have happened, but you need to sprinkle some odd facts to make the listeners prick their ears yourway.

Like, you can say:

1. "you know, those music bands that play those Hindi movie songs in weddings. They inherently have this intense competition. Normally, one guy from some band company will sit down and translate the catchy songs into the band's notation. That notation script is so valuable that he does not normally let others see it. Often, ugly scuffles break out when somebody from another band company is caught stealing/plagiarizing the original notation."

2. "Chhinnze Tongg Maah! means I want to be your scrumptious petal in Vietnamese."

3. Long time ago, there was this divine being who hooked up with a talking and flying monkey with a handy tail and some odd animals, who helped make a floating rocky bridge to win back his love of life from a dude with 10 heads who had a golden kingdom on an island.

I consider myself an accomplished liar (of harmless type). After my delivery, I invariably see the awed expression. And a statement "really?!", after which I promptly reply, "Of course not...".

Too Weird Lies
Although, I also make up absurd events, making the listener know for sure it's a straight lie as soon as I say it.
But with the aim being to watch how he/she takes in and tries to digest the fabricated morsel. I would say something like:

1. "you know, I have found out how to communicate with the dogs."

2. "Once, immediately after watching Harry Potter and the Philosopher's stone, I suddenly had this unexplained urge to concentrate on my room's door and run into it; the next thing i realized was that I was on the other side of it."

The listeners sometimes give me an 'you never change', or 'as if that can happen' look. But rarely, they find it laughing funny. Even more rarely, it backfires- the listener actually believes it. I think that was when I said "Once, I jumped from the roof of my house, and landed on the concrete completely intact." Tara you never know whether that (as in, somebody believing) actually happened!

;)