Storytime

There was this market just like all others in delhi, hustling-bustling with people going about their lives, buying stuff, you know what a market looks like. Just that in this market, there was something different. There was a man, sam, always found splayed on the ground in the same old dungarees that he had always been in.

Nobody even knew whether sam was his real name; it had always been that ever since...well, I can't remember. All I remember is that he wouldn't get anybody's way. And he was a sort of a grounding post for the market; if they had anything in common, like the mithaiwallah put it, it was sam.

He wasn't a beggar, but then again he wouldn't refuse the few tidbits that people would hand him, with a compassionate, "Here, sam". A gruff show of gratitude that vaguely sounded like "Shukriya" was all that the most generous of all dole-out would elicit of him.

sam was there at his spot, day in and day out, every public holiday, guarding the market. He would have a glazed look in his eye, observing the world go by him as he would remember a lost loved one - watching them frolic in a forgotten garden of roses and butterflies through a kaleidoscope with clayderman playing in the background a octave higher and a beat slower. Who knows, maybe he didn't have the courage to carry on after his darling went on to the great big amusement park in the sky.

Much water flowed under the bridge; it was nearly ten years, since all of us could collectively strain our memories and remember sam. Then one day,

The mithaiwallah was just closing his shop for the day; all his earnings in hand he was going to the bank to put in what he didn't require for the rest of the week. A group of youths had been watching and waiting. As he turned the key in the lock, they made their lunge. Two of them came zipping on a motorcycle, The chap on the backseat grabbed at the mithaiwallah's suitcase and then the motorcycle made a dash back.

But it was not to be. To avoid sam, the rider swerved towards the left, a bit too quickly perhaps. The motorcycle fell and skidded towards a wall. The screech of metal tearing across the pavement was only stopped by the sickening crunch of their skulls. The third boy fled; he couldn't understand how it had gone so horribly wrong.

Dazed, the mithaiwallah just walked over and picked up his suitcase and gathered his things which had fallen out and just walked away. It was too much to comprehend.

He didn't hear sam saying, "You're welcome", him getting up, taking his blanket, folding ever so tenderly, seemingly oblivious to what had just happened. He didn't see sam just walking away, whistling, light hearted, like a man whose job was finally done.

It was only the next day, when the mithaiwallah was relating the story to anybody who cared to listen, he noticed sam had gone. And for the first time, the aithaiwallah probably understood where he he had come from.

You see, its not that we do our bidding silently in the shadows; its just that nobody cares to ask us who we are.

the angel

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I am poetic about prose and prosaic about poetry. I don't think a well-written piece requires the embellishment of rhyme and meter. The beauty of a piece, I believe, should be in what it means and not how it looks and sounds.

Besides, I suck at poetry.

Vivek

Arbit stuff

Here's a luxury...typing my post while I am online...should kind of tell you the kind of cheap miser I am...

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Saw chocolate today. Has a story of sorts but the cameraman was hell bent on ruining it. me thinks suni(e?!)l shetty was great friends with the cameraman, making things easier for him.

And who tells these people they can act? Somebody should find this great enemy of mankind and hang him alive...

satyam is a great movie hall, bit too expensive but then good things do come at a price...

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I have been noticing that I use cliches a lot. Another one of those paragraphs, I don't know how to end. Sorry, azeez.

Some of the stupidest things in the world ...

"Give me the names of the people who blocked your car, and I'll have them arrested."
 --Chief Minister of West Bengal saying to industrialists when they were blocked by protesters.

How generous of you, sir! I'll just call up my PA and have him rattle off the names from his diary. Not only me but every prominent industrialist and corporate executive has a habit of noting down the names of such miscreants. I'll even tell you how we go about doing it.

Industrialist: Sir, could you please tell me your good name?
Miscreant(smashing the windscreen of the industrialist's Merc.): Yeah, Daku Singh. Thank you for asking.
I: And your address?
M: Hold on a sec, will ya? (beats up the driver, deflates the tyres, then turns to I) ..Yeah, behind the Post Office...anything else?
I: No, that'll be all. Thank you for your co-operation ...

Sure, sir, that's how we law-abiding industrialists go about our business.

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A moment of silence for all those who perished in the devastating earthquake. May their souls rest in peace.

Its not funny at all when an earthquake happens. Thank God, and all the forces that be, that atleast we were awake when it happened. Imagine the horror if it happened during the night when everybody was sleeping. God forbid, the toll would have much higher.

And, if it were strike Delhi, God knows we are not prepared for it. If any of the buildings were to collapse around CP, then we are done for. I don't even want to think what would happen if it were to hit a densely populated area in Delhi.

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Right now, most people in my year are preparing for the lives ahead, some CATting, some apping(slang: applying to universities abroad.) and the others just plain studying college stuff. Suddenly, my classmates have become a lot more sober and quiet. The realisation that the world outside may not be so rosy a fter all must have hit them.

Guys, don't take it too hard. There's always place for good people and we are not thaaaaaat bad. I mean, we are slightly minisculy so, lazy but we do work our asses off when its grind time.

And, please don't think you are losers. People who I am talking about know who I am talking about. Don't quit before you start fighting. C'mon what are you, 20,21, 22? You have 40 more years to go, atleast (even if you fag like a chimney). Don't defeat yourself before the campaign starts. Don't do that horrible thing to yourself: denying yourself the chance to fight.

People lose. People aren't good at everything they'd like to be.But they're better at most at something. If you don't know what it is, then you are not doing the right thing or porbably you are not doing the the right way. Success isn't passing all the exams that you face, its passing the right ones and letting go of the failures and masquerading the blemishes as stepping stones to success.

And to people who think, that I couldn't possibly be in the same situation as these people, mujhe itna mat chadhao. I know where I am weak and what I am good at. Its just that I don't give up. Don't kill the only chance you have to win just because you think you are going to lose. More wonderful miracles have taken place. Haven't you heard Jesus converting evian to bottles of absolut way back? By the way, how do you do that? I am sure that's what all the alchemists were after, not some stupid yellow metal....

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Here's Vivek, signing off from MV, βT.

"Spam you, Nick!"

After all the spam I've been getting heres my missive to them,

My dear coastal-nick and inland-dick,

you wanna spam, play fair, ok? do it by email where I can trash your f****** message. Don't desecrate my blog by your graffiti, you vandals.

And Nick, puhleeze, don't dome a favour by adding me to your privileged "FAVOURITES" list. I can get by and so can my blog. If you really want to know I don't mind the audience of my blog numbering in single digits.

And damn nick, you bumped into my blog looking for coastal vacations? I mean, how ill-informed can you be. You are beyond ignorance. Who in his right mind looks for info on coastal vacations on blogs and that too on an inlanders blog? And what is this weclosealldeals.com link that you have plastered all over my blog, huh? A "everything-for-a-price" portal? what are you - the transporter 3?

listen, nick and listen good, next time you even raise your fingers to click onto my blog, i'll take out a virtual voodoo doll of you and give it extreme acupuncture in places you find very valuable on a horny Saturday night. b****** sons of b******

So nick, dick, and other potential-do-me-gooders-"by-adding-me-to-their-f******-favourites-list", people who want to post comments better be genuine. At the most it can contain your blog links and it would be preferrable if you knew me in the real world.

Thank you for not spamming.

Vivek

Just Surviving

Just in case any of you thought I had disappeared (something an online chess group declared when I hadn't replied to the players' moves for over a month) no I am still here out to bug the world...

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seher is one of those hard-hitting movies which influence you in an indescriable way.