Avril.Cinq.

I thought I lost all my blogs posted on my Cognizant internal blogging portal. The posts that were made have not been read by my friends outside Cognizant. This day brings me back those memorable moments. Hence, this post that happened a year ago. F5....

Fairy in the night...of bliss!

I woke up to a thundering sound. Aaah! It completely blew my head off. I buried my head under a fluffy pillow while I begged my ears to disregard the cloudburst. I felt Goosebumps. Sleeping with a bare chest with just a slinky sheet of cloth, on a sultry night after slogging at work on a sweltering day generally keeps the heat away for me. Phew! And now nature called for a day of contrast. I could feel it.

The clock ticked three. As I struggled to pull the blanket back on myself I could see the wings of the fan combating the gusty wind. Yes the little red lamp wasn’t glowing in the dark. The curtains swooshed inwards providing a picture of a devil in a white dress flying across the room. For my vision cropped by sleep, the sight looked nightmarish. “O fairy, O angel, grant me a wish!” I asked her with diminutive mysticism.

“Wake up to see the day…”

It was half past seven and the Sun shone bright. It appeared the hour was oblivious of the hours it followed. How could nature be so rude to time! My wish flitted with the breeze without leaving a ray of hope within me. The fairy left without a trace. Or maybe… I picked up my comb but the air in the room ruffled it giving me the usual scruffy look.

1800hrs: it was raining hard. And I had a bus five miles away waiting to drop me home. Homeland! the place where your dad or mom closes the windows before the curtains scare you. Before the thought of ‘the fairy’ comes to your mind. I waved myself goodbye looking outside the window, the rain inundating the bus-station.

1730hrs: I wonder what drove me to step out in the rain!

I quickly realized seat no.38 wasn’t mine. Never mind, who’s gonna bother looking out in the rain! Who is no.37! For me a journey is always synonymous to sleep unless the nature calls me to admire the beauty of the forest or the hills. I closed my eyes and in no time I was awoken by a mesmerizing little ‘Excuse me…!’ ‘O dear God…’ I exclaimed to myself. My jaw dropped.

It took fairly long for me to take my eyes off her. Clad in a white angelic top, she looked stunning. And as the bus passed a street decked with white lights, she looked no less than a fairy!

There was just silence all along the journey. The bus braked the next morning and while she took her bag to get down, I said ‘Have a lovely birthday!’… she frowned then eventually smiled at me…

I don’t repent overhearing her birthday wish. Thanks to the caller.

As I penned this down that night, the light went off and then the curtains swooshed again…

Posted.Avril.Cinq.

Alternate link: MyParallelWorld.

Juxtapose

Smoky Sweet Scene

The bottlecap tossed high. It was my foot kick of frustration. It was an advice that would have helped my friend for a lifetime. He chose soccer over Tennis as his sport. Tennis has seen legends. So did Soccer! he said. But Tennis is a King's game....

A little kid crossed my path and handed over the bottlecap to me. You know kid, you should play Cricket, I told him. He smiled, then frowned and ran away. These kids are....they are..well.. on a good platform... And they have years to go before they make a choice to choose their kind ofsport. While I continued walking and talking to myself, I noticed fumes coming out of a window. OMG! FIRE!!! there was extreme panic and pain in those crying voices. Four guys along with me tried to break the door open. I rushed in to see a television screen cracked to pieces. Was it switched on? I asked myself. Yeah it was, answered the guy behind me with puffy and sleepy eyes. Dude, what the hell was happening in here? And...and you don't feel the smoke? It chokes me to death. Such things really grind my gears. Naah, my wife and I had a fight about what to watch, Tennis or Soccer. She decided it has to be Tennis. So i decided to kick the ball, crack the tv screen and sleep. And she didn't stop me.. He explained in an extremely patient voice. There was an implicit lesson to cool yourself down when the matter isn't hot. Ok! So where's your wife now? I turned around and asked. People left and the guy hit the sack. It's like nothing happened in here. The anguish died, took less than the duration of the guy's explanation of the 'hap'.

While I blabbered to myself, on a lower level this time, the kid stopped me again and asked Can you get this lid opened for me?

I asked him a favor in return pointing a finger to the house in smoke. Can you tell me where that lady is?..you know..the one staying in that house..

I never got an answer. And it was a Tennis-Ball can that the kid brought to me for help, that later brought a half-smile to my face.

And the other half-smile.......?!?

BOTDA

Blog Of The Day Award

Well, this comes as a pleasant surprise. My Blog was picked as the Best Blog for March 10th, '09. I have to say it was just hope. A light in my Paradise. Thanks a ton to BOTDA and Bill Austin. Click on the links to view.

This is a dedication to all the bloggers and aspiring writers.

Aftermath

HellBoys

Hell!I was out in a black cloak

with an axe to kill a young bloke.

'There will be blood', I jeered and my face was red,

'There cant' be blood',sneered my head.

With a confused look,at it I gloared.

'Your time has come',thence being roared.

Woosh!came my axe,the air disturbed,

Thud!broke the grave,shards disbursed.

Out he came dressed like me,

I couldn't make out if it was he.

'Hell,man,this is hell',he sung

'here,everybody's death knell had already rung'.

Hell yeah! Now I know my head's curse,

for me now,hell didn't get more worse.

'All right bloke,let us fight',

'For in hell there is no wrong and right'.

Nothing left,None to rue

for I landed here after the slew.

[The post,in itself,isn't meant to be a poem.It rather is a little imaginative narration of an event.]

Deuce

Drawing a Parallel

Ron stormed into his room after having witnessed yet another day of raging activity at home. He slammed his bedroom door and buried himself into his pillow. He had been (and is) a victim of emotional torture: personal and familial. On the personal side, it is like every other teenager dealing with misunderstandings in a relationship. But being true to himself, he was furious with God who he largely trusted in.

Karen opened her bedroom door with the faintest of noises after yet another day of silence. There hasn’t been any sound of a word within her living boundaries for a week. She cried to herself silently as she watched her parents go by their work with no human expression. She was a part of an emotionally wrecked family that had long forgotten the expression of emotion. A cold war within the family loomed large. Karen didn’t want to risk her life falling into a relationship with another guy in these circumstances. She never believed in God.

I haven’t been in touch with two of my closest friends, Ron and Karen. Fourteen years passed. When we were nine, we used to ride together on the same bike, going around dashing walls and forcing ourselves to lose control and eventually fall off. Karen used to laugh her guts out when the bike just stood after the consciously planned impact. Ron was all praise for having the most control of the bike. He just smiled. After the little incident that we got used to, Ron’s mom called us in for a snack. Karen remarked his mom shouts when his dad shouts. It feels so sloppy. I love her lemonade though. Goodbye Ron. Goodbye you, she waved with a bright smile. He quietly sipped his lemonade. I faintly heard his dad speak when his mom placed the jar of lemonade with a thud. Tears rolled down his cheek. I whispered a thank you and left.

Today, I understand the reason behind Ron’s moist eyes while he had his glass of lemonade. Today, I understand the reason behind Karen’s remark. Innocent knowledge!

Thanks to Cricinfo. The end comment- hope you had a great time, it’s been terrific entertainment with the six-hitting. Do join us again. This is Ron Fanly signing off… took me to Ron again. Forget the odds of the right Ron Fanly.

Thanks to DHL. The column Business Requirement document v1.0, first review by Karen Heins took me to Karen again. What are the chances!

Karen’s mobile beeped .You won’t believe it’s ‘You’. Hoping to see you. Her nickname ‘you’ for me brought her the much needed smile. Ron’s mobile beeped too. I tried the dash with the bike. I managed to lose control. Why don’t you teach me to hold steady?

It was Karen I met first. She began…

My dad was based in California then. My mom here. Mom’s location was rather static unlike dad’s. Dad kept shuffling places. ‘Live the World’, he used to say. Mom found it tough to manage me by herself. ‘Live in ‘this’ world’ she says. Seven years passed in silence. Mom and dad were far apart. Being with mom while she worked to keep this little world of ours going…without dad, silence just kept getting bigger. She goes, lectures at work, attends seminars, reviews documents and signs them off. No sign of dad and even if there was any, I didn’t get to know. My young years passed in a Lifeless world. And now, dad’s back. He’d forced himself to do that for he stays only at one place …wanting to prove mom a point, the point that goes way beyond any stubborn egoistic knowledge ‘life is where true work is. My true work isn’t here.’ And mom..mom..has another belief ‘God brought us together. World has to be made around it.’ you know…there has been too much of ‘World’ and ‘Belief’, the years are spent sulking this way. I have opted to add to their egoistic and unbelievable clashes of the mind… trying to do a mix of both. And now at an age of being with a guy to share my thoughts, I beg to differ with them. It makes me want to take that step back. The sun set and the night just began to look beautiful.

I planned a moonlit dinner with Ron. He took a sip of lemon soda and began…

My dad had warned my mom about his passion for cricket before they got married. He played for his county and he forgets the world around him when a match is on. His adrenaline rush is always on the high and it occasionally affected his human expression of emotion...I hope you understand what I mean... and mom, being a writer, used to keep to herself in the initial years. My dad has been a fan of hers, plots of romance and often involving a divorce in her story line…female dominance more than feminism. With passage of time and work load taking the toll, dad’s passion slipped and also took the rush away with it. He realized real expression loses the right meaning when excessive passion or obsession slips out into the real world… on the flip side, this realization has sowed the seed of suspicion. Suspicion that is baseless. He feels real life incidents inspire great novels like a legend inspires a young one. She has written novels for years now and my dad fears this success of hers would change her mind...he fears they will end up divorced. My mother lives in her own novel world trying to make stories, trying to push herself to go beyond the limits of fame. Fear in silence grew into fear in argument, arguing for the very purpose of life. For dad it has been a passion that had to be killed. And while that took time to die, a new passion began to take life within my mom…. giving rise to another obsession. They are so alike but the likes have come years apart. It has only destroyed their ways of thought. You know… I am tired of being part of this nonsensical world of living… Not until my mom retires from writing and my dad stops worrying for all the wrong reasons. I just pray to see this phase off. I hope this is just a phase…! I sensed his tone. The moon shone bright.

I wasn’t sure if Karen and Ron had managed to keep in touch but I gave Karen a call. For Karen and Ron too, this was the first meeting in fourteen years. Little did I know that it would take so long to know how life still remained the same since the whispering thank you.

Still at deuce…

[This post had long been in the making.Took some time off to finish it today.There will be another story in the near future, not in this genre though.]

in the nick of time!

Live by the side

I wasn’t particularly interested when she asked me out. Having been out of sorts myself, I did not think going out would be a source of relief. It’d be great if you’d come with me to have a cup of coffee, she said. I prefer tea, I reacted in a second. Till day I have this ongoing debate in my head: what if I replied a NO!

I pulled a chair which creaked and it signaled something disturbing to come. The pretty girl seated behind looked at me with a raised eyebrow. It wasn’t for the sound the chair made but with the way I left the girl who I came with. It would have been a good sign of courtesy had I allowed her to take the first seat. Huh! I’m not on a date, I told myself. Oh! Courtesy! I have very little of that. I’m sorry, I kinda forgot I came with you. I said with an uncomfortable look on my face, drops of sweat trickling down my face.

Before you say anything, I wanna tell you something, she said with an expression of urgency and excitement. Green tea please! I told the waiter. Nothing for me¸ she said. Yeah, so tell me about it, I asked with a sudden boost of curiosity. She began…

‘An year ago, I thought I lost Nic, my brother. He cornered himself in a room and tied himself up and kept all words of silence with himself. He was afraid to let a hiss of air. He refused to talk to anyone. He does not remember his parents. Oh, he’s my cousin by the way. You know him.’ She paused to tell me this. yes yes yes, I do. Tell me more. ‘Yes..eh… so the only thing he said was that he lost his identity to himself. I would keep a check on him through the window slit or sometimes I had my ear to the door to know if he did anything to come out of his homemade prison. Mindmade prison I would say. He also said happiness is inversely proportional to your boundaries. I never really understood him. His parents died rich, left him property worth millions and I’m the only sister or brother he has. No girlfriends, no friends for that matter. My parents abandoned him saying he’s lost his mind. And today, he called me up and asked me to check my mail. What I found was this: four lines….

With an open heart I tried,

To see if the happiness untied.

It is with my alter-ego I realised,

I go with it united.

alter-ego, Nick

‘For the first time in a year he smiled and said it’s just the placing of the ‘I’. I replied saying ‘I believe’. I guess all this also explains the change in his name.’

Well, interestingly Nick is british slang for prison. I told her with a smile after two minutes of thought.

That’s the first right mistake I had committed. I said TEA instead of a NO. And nothing disturbing came across.

So was it your alter-ego that said ‘TEA’? She winked….