The Intruder

The hour was late but his eyes were wide open.

Staring into the darkness he looked at his fluoroscet alarm clock. Time had been cruel to him this night. 10 minutes had passed since the moment he had switched off the lamp to head for slumber but it had seemed like had been waiting for hours for the sandman to come. He was always amazed by the fact that how in complete darkness, although his eyes were of no use, his other senses would hike up their efficiency levels tenfold. In the absence of light, there were only sounds that could be his link to the rest of the world, although a touch more sinister.

Dependant on what he could hear and touch,(he was not sure if tasting and smelling things at this hour would be very beneficial)he observed his surroundings and heard the ticking of the clock as each second passed him by with a morose continuum. He felt the soft feathers in his pillow as he turned his head from time to time, trying to lie in the best position to sleep comfortably in. Despite all kinds of efforts to let his conscious drift into the subconscious, he only made it harder.

Ten minutes had passed with his attempts and was just waiting for the night to pass him by when he heard something that made his thoughts of sleep vanish in an instant. From outside his window and into his ears reached the tune of a whistle that one would make while driving a car or while listening to a song. And it seemed to be getting louder and louder.

Frozen in shock and fear, he couldnt even move to switch on the light and see who it was outside. He imagined a man in a hat and coat whose silhouette would hide his scarred face as he would stick his face in the window and scare you to death. He chose to remain numb and silent in his fear with all his concentration on his heart thumping against his chest as he held his breath to ensure no sign of life reached outside.

In his panic and mortal fright, he didnt realise when the whistling had subsided and vanished into the night, the sound of the clock was back with its monotonous ticking. His anxiety did not vanish away though for now he felt that this silence would be broken with a loud knock on the window or even wore, the sound of breaking glass. He waited for his captor to strike first so that he may retort, by screaming like a little girl and running for his life. But the moment never came.

His whistling visitor had left him for another night but his thoughts still lingered in his head, haunting him for the many nights to come, dreading the worst when he heard a whistle in the distance or a knock on the door.

And on that very night, standing on the other side stood a visitor indeed, a tiny bird lost in the city who had found a window to sit on to but not for too long.

The drive

To work

Switching on the radio to hear the jockey predict the weather and give his philosophies on life, I bring myself to the zone, preparing myself for what lies ahead and who I must face while watching the clock tick to its doom. I stare at the nothingness of my future and pray for my phone to stop taking calls. Dreading the moment when I would be in a fix, I tear from the roads and curse the slow movers. Probably I too will become one of them, tired of themselves, old and rotten in a basket that is getting too filthy. And as I speak of filth, I park in the realms of dirt as my feet look for a solid space to land as I open the door to a narrow gap I must squeeze through.

To home

I shut off the radio and leave the top 8 @ 8 for the other billions to listen, I switch to trance and let my mind run in this river of traffic that staggers, stumbles, stops and then starts. I stare at those around me and pan out their miserable lives in my head. I run in their alleys and sit in their light bulbs among the mosquitoes and flies, I count their money and lie on their sorry reason for a bed and wait for the fear of tomorrow. The curses are louder for some wish to let their cars break down and talk on their phones. It is funny but I choose to clock myself back as well, probably a hobby to keep me ticking. The drug, its kicking, and the one in the car next to me seems to notice, I am super, I am the best, I am rich and famous and I am loved by all but alas, the light is green and I am no more eighteen.

Things that dominate my current life ...

Hair

In the past four years of my college life, this mane of mine has grown and fallen with each passing season, the amount of shampoo, oil and conditioners that have been emptied for this noble cause are inumerable and yet the problem is incurable. The problem of making my hair straight and silky, just like every other chinki's. Yes, I have straightened my hair once in my high school days and a few guys did say that I looked 'hot', I begged to differ.

Corel Draw

Discovering this miraculous tool of creating small sized imagination into huge posters smashed upon my forehead the day I realised for the umpteenth time that when the going gets tough, I must get going. Disgusted by the complexity of Photoshop, I found a home in Corel that has given me the best results till today and has never ceased to surprise me everytime I open it (or everytime it crashes). For those who never knew what designing is, I suggest you look into it to discover the hidden workaholic in you.

Porcupine Tree

This band in my head always seemed to be a band that comes for folk festivals on special occassions and played to disintereted/idle groups of people but frankly, they have created music so much in the last decade that their songs play to this very moment as I write this. I am priviliged to have travelled 2000kms to see them play live and although I distinctly remember having a horrible cold while screaming out their name, I wont forget that fleeting moment where I was one with them.

Subway Sandwiches

They came to my life as filth and food for the sick but as I grew out of the garbage in the mess, I found new love in the sandwiches of New York, the number of permutations one can have with vegetables, sauces, meats and breads. Phenomenal. I might have more than a 100 subs in the past 3 months now. I even went on a subway diet once to see if it really worked, but I realised that ordering pizza side by side might just not help.

The hunger to splurge

I might have bugged my old folks more than ever in my entire life in the name of money. I can't imagine I used to be a miser once who kept a record of every penny spent, even if it was giving it to a beggar! Now, every ruppee earned is a ruppee splurged upon, be it on food, clothes, food, autorickshaws (Thanks for not giving me a car!) and food again. They say I will learn the true value of money once I start earning, but I have a bad feeling that by the time I realise the value, Ill be in a lot of debt to devalue it.

The Blasphemous Boys hostel

We lie on the edges of our balconies, with our T shirts covered in dirt and plaster of paris as a cigarette passes around in the circle and one strums the strings on the guitar. Our vocal chords gain their heat from the burning after effect of the cheap vodka and as the smoke rises up to the stars, we chant our idols in music. The flame driven eyes of our past rise from below and look at what we have become. Single, feeble, independent and yet without a soul to sell.

The sounds of the midnight birds cast their spells in their almost perfect periodic timings of chants. On the floor lies a bone of chicken mangled and torn, as the predators of yesteryear look at their only piece of nutrition. They have grown tired of chasing cars, hoping that a piece of meat will drop from them. It is not their game anymore, they have resigned and realised. That it is a man's world and an animal's mind they live in.

The importance of being alone

The sunlight seems dimmed, the four walls of proximity are surrounded with lights of green and red. The bottle of water seems to be misplaced but the bottles of beer seem to be up for grabs,and the only sign of life comes from the dimly lit speakers that lie in a corner. Faint, yet hallowing sounds of the electric guitar hum through the dim dimensions of this cage. Staring down at the two phones which have been given more care than your personal hygiene, wondering how they have made your life and dug your grave. Somewhere in the far reaches of the Earth where the winds are colder and the trees are barren and bare, lifeless to their skin and rabbits scurry to their holes when it gets too dark, there is a room which is exactly like this one. The dark symphonies of hapless tunes fuse with the mind and bring an anoerexia of thoughts and feelings.

Lies and jokes mean nothing, money spends rotting in accounts. All that matters are the constellations up above and how many can we actually recognize. Everyplace has a peculiar smell, that will one day in the future carry us back to this stage. When all meant nothing and nothing meant all. Where books carried us to worlds beyond this one and the speckles of dust could be counted and then left to wander in the free space of our emptiness.

The Violinist

The skies had been dark for more than a month, one had even forgotten what the sun looked or felt like. Its soothing and warm rays falling on the bare skin, giving it an eternal glow and its strong rays leading us from the cold and void darkness to light. The birds had stopped singing, the cool breeze had also stopped. Replacing these were the cries of innocents, begging for mercy and the explosions carrying their echoes throughout the land.

War was on.

It started as a misunderstanding of two arrogant minds but who ever really cared about the thoughts of two when there was blood of millions to spill. Books had been written, Songs had been sung, movies had been made, Oscars had been won. Today as I sit in this train on a journey which could possibly be my last, I drift away from the gruesome noise of the engine and back to the times when things were much peaceful.

Peaceful… Peaceful ?

I had never felt a pause for so long, the blank feeling was for a moment but it showed a pause that had been existing for centuries. Times never had been peaceful, there was always tension, always a feud, always a conspiracy. There was always a war on. Bursting my bubbles of thought, I looked at my broken watch clumsily and wondered what the time was. As I peered out through the grills of my bogey and craned my neck up to the sky, I estimated that it was time for my daily prayer. In the hours so close to death, we still don’t try to accept our fate, we always look for a savior to come and take us away from this madness.

With a silent Amen, I ended my prayer and let the silence empower me. Bound in these shackles, I wondered where this train was taking me to. I remember my neighbor,Milosh telling me once of these ‘camps’ where many were taken bound and gagged and made to work there like slaves. It is sad that he had to be shot at that very instant, I could have received more information on these ‘camps’.

I am not a father, a husband or a brother. I am a violinist. ‘Emily’ I call her and she is my only family. The two of us met in an old antique shop on Rue de Balzac where I had fallen in love the moment I set my sights on her. When I touched her with my bare hands and fiddled her with my stick, magic was at its best. The shopkeeper himself was amazed how well I handled her. It had been 15 years since that meeting and today I had been separated from her forever.

Lost in her thoughts I was so deep that I did not realise the train slowing down to a halt. As the door of the bogie opened, a German in uniform climbed in. As soon as he looked at me, he shouted out something in German and the next thing I know, I was facing the hollow end of the barrel of a rifle.

(to be continued...)