IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT

I know you wouldn’t believe me, no matter how hard I tried to convince you that what I am going to say really happened. So, I am not even going to try. Go ahead and read this as a figment of imagination of a crazy, inebriated mind.

My house is a few minutes walking distance from a place called Ganeshguri Chariali, Assam, India. Let me give you a description of the place so that I won’t have to come back to it later. It is basically a busy crossroad with four roads leading off in four different directions- one towards my house, one towards Chandmari, and the other two towards Khanapara and Ulubari respectively. There is a small by-lane, on the road to my house, that leads to the venerable Guwahati Medical College. There is also a daily bazaar near the by-lane. So there. Now, my state is pretty well known when it comes to tea and insurgency, especially the latter. Anything related to terrorism- extortion, kidnapping, bomb blasts, political assassinations- you name it, you got it. Things have changed for the better now, though. Anyways, Ganeshguri again is famous for bomb blasts. Someone once told me that the place holds a name in the Guinness Book of World Records for the maximum number of terror attacks at a single place- nineteen. I could never find anything to substantiate that snippet of information, but I hold it to be true simply out of pride and love for my place of birth.

That’s enough of background information. Let’s get on with the episode. I had been to a friend’s place that evening for a party; the reason for the party being that his parents had gone to visit his uncle, who was ill, in another city. Before leaving for his place, I had asked my mom whether I could stay over at his house. Her reply was “Yes you can. But you may not”. I took that as a simple “No” and left. The party was great. Booze flowed like water, and there was no end to plates of pork cooked in the Naga style. I didn’t drink much since I was the only one who would be going back home that night. I started to strum on my friend’s guitar and the guys started to sing along. It reminded me of Cacophonix of Asterix fame, as well as of my good friend Nepu.

Before long it was ten at night, and I wished the guys goodnight and got ready to leave. The guys started to harass me with comments like “Sissy”, “Yeah li’l kid, go on home. Your mommy must be waiting to change your diaper”, “Suck on this nigga’, yo”, and many more things to that effect. I decided to make a final rally and called up mom. Peer pressure, you know. Bad for health. This time I inquired if I may stay over and she replied, “Yes, you may”. I was elated when she added after a pause, “But you don’t have to come back home ever again”. Mothers are smart, they are. So I told her I would come home but it would be late since I was going to have my dinner with my friends. Compromise, you know! “You should have told me you would be eating there. I wouldn’t have cooked for you. There are so many people in this world who don’t get to eat two square meals a day, and you don’t care if any food is wasted just because you have never faced that problem. By the way, since when is 1030 at night early?” she retorted. I mumbled something incomprehensible into the phone and disconnected.

The four bottles of whiskey my friend had bought were already empty before midnight, and two of them went to get some more from a place nearby which sells the stuff in black- Hotel Prince it is called. I decided it was time for me to have my dinner and be off, if I were to be in any condition to go home that night. The pork was awesome and I had more of it than the burnt rice. I was wishing them guys a very good night, when one of them spoke up in a slightly slurred voice:
“Let me drop you home on my bike, bro.”

“No, thank you. I am too young to die, and so are you,” I said.

“What the fuck do you mean? Just because you can’t drive a bike even when you are sober doesn’t mean that I can’t even when I am drunk. Now I will drop you home. Otherwise this is the end of our friendship,” said he and stood up unsteadily and looked around for his keys.

I sighed inwardly. Never argue with a drunken man, believe me you won’t get anywhere. It’s like arguing with a woman, only a tad bit less worse. I thumped my mate on the back and said, “Hey chill it bro, I was just joking. I want to walk home to get some fresh air and talk to someone over the phone.”

“A girl, eh?” he asked with a wink and a lecherous smile.

“Yeah. A girl.” I smiled too.

“Okay then bro, have fun,” he said and thumped me on my back. I took their leave and started walking back home.

It was almost midnight then. It was a full moon night and only a few stars sprinkled the clear sky. I called up this girl who I flirted with shamelessly. Yes, she flirted back too. She picked up on the second ring and we started talking. Walk while you talk. What an idea, Sirjee! I was almost heedless to the world by the time I reached Ganeshguri market. The market was a very busy place during the evenings. (It was near that very market that a powerful bomb had went off a few months back, killing a lot of people and injuring lots more.) Of course all the shops were closed at that time. The roads were deserted too. My city didn’t boast of much of a night life then. A red auto-van was parked in the by-lane. I passed it by and walked on, crooning a ballad to my newest love-interest over the phone. A few pegs do tend to make one romantic, yes? I had finished the song and there was silence at the other end. She must have been busy searching for an appropriate response, I thought. At that very moment, I heard a voice from behind me.

“Hey, brother!” he called out.

I turned around and a saw a young man of about ten standing a foot behind me. He seemed to have appeared out of nowhere. He was dressed in a pair of clean jeans, a polo-neck tee, and loafers. I raised an enquiring eyebrow.

“Hey you there”, he said again.

My girl was saying something over the phone, but I was too intrigued by the situation to listen to her. A well dressed boy in the middle of the night in a deserted place, and that too alone? I asked her to hold the line. She was so full of questions. I ignored the questions and asked her to hold the line once again. I walked up to him.

“Yes, kid?” I asked

“They are calling you to come and meet them.”

I was a little confused. I thought by ‘they’ he meant my friends whom I had taken my leave of a few moments back. But then I wondered why they would send a kid to get me when we all have this wonderful invention called the mobile phone. And I would have known had one of them called because my call waiting was on.

“Who they?” I asked, “and what are you doing alone so late in the night?”

“Nothing. They just want you to come and meet them. They say they want you to come away with them. With me.”

“What are u rambling about, kid? Tell me where you live.”

He pointed towards the direction of my house. “I live that way too. Look, I will walk you home. It’s not good to be out so late at this young an age, even if you had a fight with your mom. Right? So walk on ahead. I will be right behind you.” I gave him a little nudge and he started to walk. I was telling the girl over the phone about the strange thing and had barely taken ten steps when I heard his voice from behind me again. I was kind of surprised, since he had not passed me after I had nudged him forwards. And trust me, I would have noticed him pass as there was not another soul around. I told my girl I will call her later, disconnected the phone, turned around and said, “You like playing games, eh kid?”

“I can’t go home. My parents won’t believe it’s me. And anyways I belong with them now,” he gestured over his shoulder. “They want you to come and join us too. Come on we will have lots of fun.”

I lost it. “Fun, eh, you little dickface. You want fun? You will have lots of it when I spank your teeny little bottom,” I said running towards him. He turned and ran into the by-lane. I followed only to find no sign of him. I tried the doors of the auto-van. It was locked. I walked around it and peeped under the chassis. Nothing. I looked around for another probable hiding place for some for time. Zilch. Only the silence of the night and the eerie light shed by the moon. “Wait till I meet you the next time, you little fuck!” I shouted into the silence. I was huffing with anger. I took some deep breaths and tried to cool down. Then I took out my phone again to call the girl. She was full of questions again but I managed to evade almost all of them. I got back to the ‘walking while talking’ adage. By the time I reached home, I had forgotten all about the boy and was laughing merrily at her jokes. We talked for maybe another hour and I fell into a dreamless sleep.

The next morning, I told my mom about the incident from the previous night. She was shocked and started fussing about like a mother hen. From what I could gather from her anxious speech, was that many people had claimed to have met ghosts in that particular area after the bomb blast but she had never believed those stories. Now, her only son…oh God no..please come to his rescue…blah, blah. A puja was also to be organized for my well being within the week. It was only then that I realized that it really might have been the spirit of a young boy killed in the blasts. “And anyways I belong with them now”. That line kept playing over and over again in my mind. I had mixed feelings of fear and surprise. Surprise, as I had not felt an iota of fear the previous night when I chased after the boy. Maybe booze makes one a bit of a fearless superhero too, eh? Food for thought.

YUCK-SEE-BRUISE!!

I got home late in the afternoon on a Sunday. I was on a date with a girl. I date a lot of girls. And my parents know that.
“All the girls you date. Is it about sex?” my mom queried.
“Sex? Sex!! I can buy all the sex I want. Would you be able to do anything about it?”
Mom went silent. Dad said, “You frustrate me.”
“Frustration? You know what frustration is? You got a wife, a home to call your own, a good enough son. And you are 60. What am i? I am nearing 30 and still am a marketing manager in this obscure firm where my boss treats me like I am his pet dog. I have changed jobs thrice in the last two years, because there are MBAs by the score now. I drive around on my bike all frigging day trying to impress people that, yes sir this shit is very useful for you, this is what you absolutely need. And what have I got? A wife? A home? A good son? Nothing. Now how is that for frustration, dear dad?”
I was pissed off. But I felt like smiling because I had rebuffed my dear father. He fell silent too. I had had enough. I did not care for any fucking lunch. I stormed out of my house (home?) and went to my friend Kingkor’s shop. Our bar, that shop.
Hapa was already there with Kingkor. They were gossiping like a pair of old ladies who have nothing else to do. They in fact had nothing else to do. Summer was just catching up and the heat was rising. There was no electricity; to help Mother Nature punish us mere mortals for desecrating Her whenever we could. They were sitting there looking like sweaty pigs. They laughed at me saying I was looking like a mad bull. Hapa went to the extent of waving his red handkerchief at me.
“Whatever. Let’s have a beer each. It’s too damn hot.”
Nods of approval all around. Kingkor left on his bike and returned with three beers. We guzzled them down. Some talk about girls, sex, marriage, more sex, booze, some more sex, and dope. Another round of beers. Then we decided we needed a ride in the cool evening breeze. Yeah it was already evening. We decided to this eating joint on the highway. A dhaba it is called.
“Oi, I am gonna take Shadow with us.”
Shadow is my ferocious nine month old Doberman. Hapa was a little reluctant.
“O-okay. You t-two get on my bi-bi-bike,” Kingkor stammered.
So we went on this ride, me riding pillion on Kingkor’s Passion, with Shadow sitting docile on my lap. We reached the dhaba. Some food was ordered. And some more booze- whisky this time because beer would be too costly to get drunk on. Very risky, eh?
“Let’s finish up fast guys. I need to go home early,” I said.
“When did you get married?” Hapa asked.
We had a good round of laughter. But I insisted that we get home soon. I wanted to make up to my parents for my behavior in the afternoon. Fate intervened though. FM called up Kingkor, and when he knew where we were, he asked us to wait. He was coming too. We called him Fm because he was the marketing manager of a FM channel. Hapa and Kingkor startednfooling around with Shadow because they were bored waiting for FM. Also because I too was fooling with him. I got rewarded with a few licks to my face and arms. What both of them got, however, was a couple of shallow bites each. That made them see sense and they stopped teasing Shadow.
FM came and ordered some more booze. No food this time though, since all of us paupers were low on cash. We finished the whisky and a few cigarettes. Party over. Time to go back home.
I got on Kingkor’s bike again with Shadow. Kingkor was drunk, so was I. Shadow was dead sober. We were cruising at a nice speed, the cool breeze refreshing us. Suddenly Shadow sees something and jumps off my lap.
Blank.
I was standing there near Kingkor with Shadow at my heel. I was feeling confused.
“What happened? Why did we get down? To pee?”
“You got h-h-hurt. Shadow pu-pulled you off the bi-bi-bike.”
I touched my face. There was a nice little bruise just below my right eye, I saw in the bike’s rear-view mirror.
“You were out f-fo-for about a minute. I thought ha-ha-had died. I was thinking goo-goo-good rid-d-dance. But you stand up again.”
We both laughed. We got back on the bike and got back home. My neighbour’s eight-year old spotted me when I was stagerring towards my home (house?).
“Yuck. See. Bruise,” he screamed pointing at my face and ran into his house (home?). I laughed like the idiot I am.


P. S: The name was inspired by PP's "Yuck. See. Dent."

TWO BUDDIES (...being Shekhar's story)

He could feel the rocking stop, and opened his eyes in an alien world. The dimly lit interior of the night bus. Nyeelankur stretched himself in the comfortable seat and rolled over the other side. Chandan, still sleeping. He shook his friend. Shook him again. “Chandan, bro, wake up.” Chandan mumbled something that sounded like, “Is it a goddamn earthquake?” “Wake up man. The bus has stopped for the meals.” “I am not hungry,” said Chandan. “So what?” his friend replied, “neither am I! Let’s go and stretch our legs a little.” Apparently everyone else had a similar kind of idea, and both the friends had to wait for a while before they could get down from the bus. Once on terra firma, Nyeelankur stretched again and led the way to the loo. Once they had relieved themselves, Chandan led the way and Nyeelankur followed. They walked to the shop nearby. Chandan bought a fruit drink. Nyeelankur bought a Coke and a packet of tangy chips. It started to rain and both friends walked towards a tin roof; some shelter. There Chandan met another friend of his- Ayush. After due introductions had been made, Chandan and Nyeel shared a Dairy Milk between the two of them. They started to talk about the rain, about the troublesome weather of the small city in which they stayed. Just at that juncture an ageing man approached them. He was dressed in pair of hip-hugging trousers, a white shirt with rolled-up sleeves and the top button undone, and leather sandals. He had a pot belly and bulging eyes. The little hair he had on his pate was dyed in a ghastly shade of orange-red. He was jabbering something rapidly and making some strange gesticulations. It took a while for the two buddies and Ayush to register the fact that he was complaining about the weather to them. “What weather? It has started to rain. So unpredictable. It’s not like this anywhere else. And I did not even bring a sweater. I will have to shiver around all day tomorrow and jump around like monkeys. Hanumanji!!” He made a few more weird gestures. Silence. Just the sound of the rain in the backdrop. Chandan felt he had to do something to lighten up the air. He put on a sugary smile and said to the outsider, “It would be good if we were to be Hanumanji. We could fly then. Being a monkey would be a problem though. What with all the scratching and stuff!” Nyeelankur snickered. Ayush coughed. The subtle change in colour in the other man’s cheek was barely perceptible in the half-light. No one said anything else for a little time to follow. It was the outsider who broke the silence this time around. “It was the same the other time I came. I had carried half sweaters as summer was beginning everywhere else. But it was the middle of winter there. I could but shiver. This time, it is high summer in all other places, and monsoon has set in here. I am carrying just full sleeve shirts. I will have to shiver all day long tomorrow. There won’t be any work done properly. Brrrr! If only… Chandan cut him short and said charmingly, “You should have seen the weather forecast in the local TV channel.” Nyeelankur let out a short jackal-like sound. Ayush turned away. The other man looked ready to kill. But just then the bus started and before anything else could be said, all of them trooped towards the bus. The two friends found themselves in the soft, alien world. They sank into the plush seats. The bus started to roll again. Move on towards their destination. By the way, the two buddies were high on Mary Jane!

THE WASTELANDS OF MY MIND

He lived in a small shack in the big city. His name was Hasmat, which could be translated to literally mean “don’t laugh”. But people always laughed at him on his face as well as behind his back; and also at his side!! He was an aspiring poet, who had had “writer’s block” since the day he started out to try and be a poet. His imagination knew no bounds, but words eluded him. He was unemployed by profession. He always dressed shabbily with a bag hanging by his side, shaved once a month, had a haircut once in six months; all these as much as to get the feel of being a poet as to save some of the little money he had. Actually the money he got from his affluent parents. One fine day Hasmat decided he had had enough. He decided to take matters into his own hands. He got some leaflets printed with something very enigmatic written on them: “There is no way out!” Then he started to meander in those interesting places frequented by those uninteresting places, handing out those enigmatic leaflets, seeking out some answers. The railway station, the daily bazaar, the bus depot, the weekly bazaar, the taxi stand, the monthly bazaar, the airport, the yearly bazaar. All these places became his haunts. He did not have much success though. Most people took the leaflets just to crumple them, maybe thinking of them as those two-bit advertisements about “sex doctors”, and litter the ground. (Why the fuck take them in the first place, eh?). hen, one day’ Lady Luck smiled at Hasmat in the unlikeliest of places- on the streets. It was another fine day, and he was still handing out those pamphlets. This man was kind enough to read the printed words and ask Hasmat, “Out of what?” “Huh?!!” “There is no way out of what?” Hasmat gave a deep, deep sigh and wisdom from the ages gone by shone bright in his otherwise dull eyes. “Let’s say,” he started, “good Sir, that you somehow got yourself stranded in a vast, dry dessert. You kept wandering about, surrounded by the hot sand; desperately seeking the oasis you knew was around somewhere. One day, two days. Your thirst was almost killing you and you didn’t have much strength left. Then all of a sudden. you see hope: you see some palm trees at a distance. You run towards them at first, then crawl on all fours. The last few feet you drag yourself with your body prone on the sand. The sun burns overhead, and you see that there’s not a drop of water in the oasis. What happens the?” The man gulped, loosened his tie, grabbed a Coke from the nearby stall and finished it in one go. “There’s no way out dude,” he said and ran away. Hasmat could only smile. Next he saw a newlywed lady walking towards him, her chest jutted out, and her back arched at an angle. At an angle of about eighteen degrees, he guessed. Taking the red vermillion on her forehead to be a green traffic light, he handed her one of his leaflets. Now, this lady was not too intelligent; that paradigm about beauty and brains not going together. But putting on a pretense of intelligence, she asked: “What do you need a way out of?” “Is the sentence grammatically correct?” she asked herself. Hasmat gave a deep, deep sigh and wisdom from the ages gone by shone bright in his otherwise dull eyes. “Well, I am married. I love my wife very much. Nothing can keep me happy other than her happiness. I work hard to keep her smiling. Work hard six days a week from nine in the morning to nine at night. The one Saturday I wanted to surprise her. It was her birthday. I took half the day off and hurried back home. There is a loose tile in the roof of our house. I climbed up on the roof and removed the tile. I looked down into our house only to see my wife fucking another man. Woman on top. I had originally intended to shout ‘I love you’ down at her. But the words that escaped my lips were ‘Did I come home too late, or too soon?’. Then I climbed down”. He turned his back to her. “So what do I do?” The lady took a step towards him, pressed her ample bosom into his sturdy back, and whispered into his ear, ‘There’s no way out.” The next person he met changed Hasmat’s life. He had stepped out of an expensive car, which bore a doctor’s symbol on the windshield. Reading the leaflet, he asked compassionately, “tell me your problems. I am a psychiatrist.” The scene changed for Hasmat. He was lifted off the dirty streets into the shrink’s gloomy chamber. He surprised himself by baring all to this stranger. After hearing him out, the doctor said: “Shit, man, that ain’t no problem. If you can’t write poems, write some stupid short stories. Nowadays everyone does!” And he got into his car and drove away. Hasmat put some thought into what the shrink had said and started writing stories. After about an year the book “The Wastelands of My Mind”, containing Hasmat’s stories, hit the stands. The critic could not understand what he had wrote, and book had rave reviews. The readers could not understand a thing, and the book soared to number one in the bestsellers list. Hasmat ended up winning the most coveted Cooker Prize, which had been instituted by Lord “Cooker” Cainbridge to help starving writers. Nevertheless, as one would have read in a fifth standard textbook: “Thus, the morale of this story is that there is always a way out. Unless you back yourself into a corner, that is”. Bullshit. This ain’t no fifth standard textbook, and this story has no fucking morale. Fuck yourself. P. S: This is a liberal translation of Lutf-ur Rehman Pradhani’s Assamese poem “Upai Nai”. Thanks a bunch Rufus Ahlty for letting me fuck up your beautiful poem.

HERE THEY COMETH

Always sleep with the lights on,
The demons will soon be here.
Slaves unto death of the Satan's son,
They feel neither remorse nor fear.
They do what they are wrought to do,
Carnage in their wake they leave.
And then all one can do is rue
One's fate: and at the loss of lives grieve.
See that distante dark cloud of dust?
It's them coming, run away fast.

They can not be killed, they rise again,
They have what has to be the curse of life.
Full of power, yet they know not how to be vain,
They recognise only the language of the knife.
See that approaching deadly cloud of dust?
Run if you value your life, run away fast.

MY FAVOURITE PROVERBS

1. May his sole rest in piss.
2. All that is colourless is not vodka.
3. A little dope is a wonderful thing.
4. A tandoori chicken in the stomach is worth two in the tandoor.
5. A peg of whisky is a joy forever.
6. A bore and his girlfriend are soon parted.
7. Two pegs a day keeps the cardiologist away.
8. What you eat is what you puke.
9. A drunk man will clutch at anything.
10. A joint in time saves wine.

SPIRIT

Well, here I am, this is me. But, unlike Bryan bhai, there IS somewhere else on Earth I would rather be. Some place where I am absolutely alone. Sometimes it's better to be a coward and run away than stand and fight. Fight with disease that is. It's okay to fight if the person is really sick; and not giving stupid complaints like 'ghabrahat' (what the fuck ever that is), 'stopped talking from the last 10 minutes' (must have nothing substantial to say, eh?), 'headche following trauma about 3 years back' (pretty long lucid interval, one would say) etc. etc. They then ask for an 'Ex-array' or ultrasound. Everyone loves a free lunch.

And most of these patients are females in the range of 15 to 45 years of age. I feel like tearing the hair out. Their, not mine. I would have given them a treatment regime of my invention if I had my way. The OTS regime I call it, One Tight Slap. It's not just that they 'sit on my head', they also draw away the doctor from patients who really need care by their screaming, shouting, and rambling. Their lemon-sucking hysterics. How I hate that.

That's why I wish i was some other place. A secluded beach. The golden sand, clear blue skies, the green sea. A decanter of chilled iced tea by my side. The cry of the gulls. Bliss. Maybe a camera to click some pics? If wishes were horses. It's aight and I am stuck here, mate. Listening to stupid, attention-seeking idiots whinning their shit out.

Weeeell, changing ones mind is a female pregorative. But I would grab it now. I don't want to go anywhere else. I want to listen to their rambling and absurd complaints. Their requests for 'Ex-array' and other investigations. The numerous requests to be admitted as their 'cundishun' is serious. I would miss them. And, hell, whom would I shout at if I were sitting alone at a beach? Here I am, this is me, there's nowhere else on Earth I would rather be!