The bricks in the wall

Staring at the moments of the past and living them in my dreams. That is all there is left of my memories. And somehow, I seem to come across them a lot more often than before. Probably because the moment to live in nomore comes by that easy. All that Im surrounded by is a routine of Picking myself up in the morning and dropping of at night.

Clouded by the greed of money, life seems to have brought me to a dead end where I may do nothing but stare at the shades of red on the bricks before me. Fresh new bricks and discolored old ones, some have spiders crawling on them and some seem to be scratched upon. This is my tube of discolored dreams that has made me lean my neck up high and search for a way over the top of this dead end. Or should I try breaking a hole and squeezing through ? That I must decide. I may even find this spot comfortable and stay here, forgetting the lovely shapes of the clouds that the open sky offered me and choose to let these rectangles shape me.

The Mind of A Married Man

He was startled from his sleep as he yanked open his eyes to reality.

It had been another dream.

Lifting himself from the depths of slumber he sat up on his bed and looked out onto the window that glistened in the moonlight and the drops of rain. As the sound of thunder bellowed through his room, he looked on the other side of his bed and saw her sleeping.

She had always been there.

He couldn't remember the last time he had slept alone on his bed, staring at the stars or listening to a classic song. He would always have to tuck himself in and turn off the lamp because 'they' needed a good night's sleep for tomorrow.

He got out of bed and headed to another room. Inside the room in the corner was a crib that housed a little baby as he was fast asleep in his own world of dreams.

He would now always be there too.

He let his finger press on his wedding ring and make a deep impression on his skin, quietly thinking of the decisions he had made to be what he was today. Many years back, his life had been something else, he had been someone else. He would share his partners and share his cigarettes and today he was sharing the mortgage and sharing the bed. He was a pawn in the pre-defined plan of life where he was playing his part as it as written in the script. Most of us do it, he thought, why should he be any different ?

Soon, this thought would also vanish and he would be back in the mazes of life, too busy to worry of who he was and what he was doing. This all would be just another dream. But then he thought to himself, He was only going to live this one life, he would never be able to jump off a plane, due to her fear of heights nor would he ever travel to the hills, because of her motion sickness and he would never be able to be with another woman, well for obvious reasons. With these thoughts he marched to his room and decided. He was going to run away.

Run away from it all. Live the life of a hippie, a renegade, a tourist, whatver he wanted and with whoever he wanted. He would go climb Mt. Everest one day and even be able to watch the sun set in Japan and do all of this as a free man. As he marched on to the bathroom to pack his stuff, he stopped by a photograph. A photograph of himslef and her, holding their son on the day he was born. He looked at the glow on her face and the tiny face of his son. His eyes were barely opening and her's were full of tears. And as for him, he hadn't smiled like that in years. That day he was a father and a proud one too. He had something to live for. His shoulders dropped and his face lightened, his eyes felt weaker and his heart felt lighter, he was tired and weary, maybe someother day he would make his escape.

Quietly, making no sound to ensure the baby did not wake up, he slipped into his bed. And as he was about to head back to sleep to dismiss his thoughts and think of morning's breakfast, he kissed her on the cheek and said, 'Thank You' and then he closed his eyes.

If I were truthful to you ...

If I were truthful to you, I would tell you that it has been nice knowing you but I will never call once I've stopped seeing your face everyday. I would also tell you that your status messages on Facebook are lame and so are you. I would tell you that you are so full of yourself and hearing your name on other people's lips and minds gives you a rush that is replaced by no drug. You thrive on your image and gorge upon your admiration, going deeper into the abyss of your narcissism.

If I were truthful to you, I would tell you that you can't write a word of creativity and you're just a sham who wishes to be loved and you're ignorant of your flaws and your weaknesses. You have only been treated as a child because you only wish to be one, but little do you know that like every child has to grow old and lose the attention to a new one who is cuter, sweeter and maybe who can even write.

If I were truthful to you, I would tell that I love you sometimes but always never. I would tell you that I have dreams of another each day and I am carried to worlds where the Sun dances with the hay and the cure for cancer is not far away.

If I were truthful to you, I would tell you to stop living your life for one soul for there are many waiting to open yours, I would tell you that you can imagine your life alone and that you can be known by your name and not by your kin's. That it is not too late to dream and it is too early to lay down your lives.

If I were truthful to you, I would ask you to tell me the truth and make me feel like I deserved to know something and not just believe something.

Alas, I can't do that for the world will also know and think of me as a bad person...

So let truth not prevail
Let us hide in this veil
Be silent and shut our mouths
Till through the gaps,secrets pour out

About the last night

Nostalgia creeps over me in spasms and leaves in a disarray of emotions as I witness the final hours of the darkness before the blinding light. Its a calm emotion that sweeps over my thoughts and one day all of these sights and sounds will be sweeped away for new ones. These 4 years, being confined to the dimension of 3m x 4.5m of space seemed to fly by and now as the last moments tick away, I can just feel gratitude for the time that I have wasted so happily in this place.

Wasted lives, wasted opportunities
With friends, with souls with unknown foes.
With sinking feelings and twinkling toes.

I hope the next occupant of this lair gives it as much as love as I have. It is a sad break up. Im glad that my room has no emotions, else I would have have leaks in every corner. My bags are still unpacked for I dont wish to leave this room, its a part of me as much I have been a part of it. When I am gone, the dust that remains will remember me too and so will the grills on the open window. The gloom of the red light will shine on till it is hurled into an oblivion. The crackling switchboard and the shrieking fan can bear witness to empty stands of the rack on my wall.

My adorned bottles of victory and bliss will guard this haven before they fall but till then their hollow shells can swell in peace. The echoes of the songs that shall never be played still linger in the holes where creatures reside and anthems to odes can keep their place before a tune can shame their face. And the view of the hills will be remembered as they took me to the forests and the stench of petrol in the scent of pine. Keeping these memories will keep me alive but one day they will vanish. And so it is useless to live on dialysis and pray for a miracle to save from the pills.

It is for this reason, I proclaim that this is the day I died.
Where it said on my grave:
"Let this be a reminder that there were times when humanity gave way to insanity."

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.

From the Chief Editor’s Desk

To form a fist and make a fight
May take some guts
To yield your pen and choose to write
Would have more ifs and buts…

My contributions for the PECMAG began way back in the days when I would dread the terms of forging, fitting, carpentry. When the afternoons were spent running in the scorching sun of the athletic ground and most importantly, when I was still realizing the term of an ‘engineer’. Four years have gone by since those days and now as I face the EXIT gates of this college, I can’t help but look back at the years that have gone by as a part of PEC. The days when numericals would be too much to take and so I would begin to write on my laptop, letting my mind wander to the limitless possibilities outside this realm of my education. A world where snow would fall on my cheeks everyday and dwarves would scamper on leopards in the middle of dense green forests of an unknown land. And as I grew out of my shell of childish thoughts I learnt the responsibilities that come with each passing year of this college. Finally, on donning the badge of Chief Editor (yes there is also a badge!), I came to terms with the realization that this role is one that required an individual to love his words and hate his redundancy. And once again, I came face to face with the PECMAG, this one last and final time. This is a magazine that symbolizes the spirit of this college that is well known for its technical as well as cultural excellence, be it in the field of sports, music, dramatics, art or even social service. And it was my task to bring it all in the form of a few pages. The PECMAG became a dimension for me to experiment my love for creative writing and help inculcate that same interest in those who believe that they too can wield their pen and be ‘artists’ for a day instead of ‘engineers’. It has been an honour for this ‘engineer’ to be involved in the endeavour of rediscovering the simple practice of reading and writing for all those who seemed to have lost it in the years of intense preparation to be in this college. As a bidding advice, all I can say is:

A for Apple, B for Ball, C for Cat

Vinayak Talwar
Final Year
Mechanical Engineering
2006-10

Living Life Grand - II

Here I am, with my bags in my hands, craning my neck up high to the walls of G-28, Saket, New Delhi. The shadows of the dark gate of my driveway look down upon me although with that blank yet haunting stare, they welcome me back to the lair of those two individuals who are black and white, yin and yang, grandfather and grandmother.

Although my parents are the ones who have the right to call me their son, I give an equal and privileged right to my grandparents too. Not only have they fed me and given me the same amount of pocket money, they have been my major source of entertainment in my life as well. No soap opera, comedy show or horror film matches up to these two. A few years back, I had paid them a tribute by writing about them and I had realized that they deserved a book of their own, but for now I just have another article about them. This time however, they are joined by their least favorite henchman, the side-kick, the minion, Raju, also called the servant boy of our house. Raju has had his own share of exploits, where sadly he has received the wrong end of the deal. One of them being, abandoning his city girlfriend to marry a village girl according to his families wishes only to realize on his wedding night that his wife was pregnant with somebody else’s child !

Sorry to say so but on hearing that story even my grumpy grandfather had let out a chuckle. Speaking of whom, Manohar Lal Talwar or he is cutely referred to as “Laal” by his better half, is the proud owner of this house. Although he does have a little problem with his memory from time to time, whenever he is asked about his younger days, he never forgets to mention this Russian girl he had met on a ship on his way from the USA to India. The girl had grown fond of him and had asked him to elope with her. He never really tends to remember the rest of that story or maybe he catches the eye of my Grandmother at that very instant staring down at him with a rolling pin in her hand. When it comes to the issue of food, you wouldn’t find a bigger critic than my grandfather. Dinner and lunch are the times of the day when my servant undergoes the Litmus test. Raju must remember that no food must be cooked with gravy and there should be no salt in his food. If he is to ever forget one of these principles, he would get a shouting which would sound something like:

“Yeh kaisi tari banayi hai ! Man karta hai ismein peshaab kardoon !” .
(What kind of gravy is this ? I feel like urinating in it !)

Trust me, worse things have come out of this man’s mouth.

There is only one woman in this world who can take all the words of my grandfather and mince them to zilch. She is Kamlesh Talwar or better known as ‘Tennu’. Why tennu ? Well whenever she is referred to by my grandfather, it comes out as:

“ Tennu ki lod hai bolan di” (What is the need for you to talk ?)
“ Tennu koi samajh nahi aandi” (Don’t you understand ?)
“Tennu chitti aayi hai ki bijli aane waali hai ?” (Did you get a letter saying that the electricity will return?)

Along with battling it out everyday with her better half, she also has to deal with the great Raju as well. Whenever a trip has to be made to buy some vegetables, storms rage in the kitchen to debate on the price of a pumpkin. Furthermore, my servant has a race against time to finish preparing the dinner before the beast’s belly starts to rumble which has my grandmother running after him to get done with the food on time. It is in times like these that I bring a solution by ordering a pizza and finishing the feud, even if it is only for a day. Now, when it comes to my grandmother’s daily source of entertainment, they include only two things, the first one being the late night bhajans on TV and the second one being the daily warfare with Raju. Once there came an incident that left the entire house in tatters. It was the day when a murder took plane only 4 houses away from ours. Surprisingly, Raju was considered as one of the suspects and was carried off to the police station for questioning. As soon as my grandmother realized this, tears welled up in her eyes. I considered that she would be fearing the worst for our domestic servant. Whether he was being interrogated under a 1,000 watt bulb or was he being laid on bare ice in chains. She did not wait for a verdict and called up the police station that very instant demanding to speak to our servant. I watched with pride at the philanthropist in front of me who although considered her servant as a menace, still cared about him. Much to her dismay, she was not being allowed to speak to Raju, it was then that I heard her plea to the police for releasing the innocent, noble and blameless servant of ours. It went something like this:

“I don’t care if he has killed a man or even the Prime Minister, who do you think is going to cook my dinner? Are you doing to do it? He has a family to feed here! Find me a servant who can cook dinner for me and then you can do whatever you want with him!”

With a pale and shocked expression I saw her hang up the phone and I don’t know what it was in her voice, but in less than 15 minutes, Raju was brought back from the police station. He didn’t seem to be too happy about it though, I think he preferred the prison cells better than this 

Every year as the winter approaches, I see my grandfather get a hold of all the clothes in his closet and put them on. He hates the winters as much as he hates channels ‘Sanskaar’ and ‘Aastha’. It is during these times, he makes the plan of going to Goa’s sandy beaches with the crashing waves, countless shells and I’m pretty sure the bikini babes as well. Unfortunately, my grandmother always shuns the idea with the same one line “Who do you think is going to handle the house?”

I think once I’m done with my grueling days in college, I’ll make some arrangements for them and take them to Goa with me. I can even imagine my grandfather over there, running into that Russian girl, although an old woman now and my grandmother chasing him with a rolling pin as they run across the beach like Baywatch beautys!

It is only with them will I learn to live life grand. Cheers to them.