Red pudding

And as I wait here beneath the heavy roof carved out of a single rock supported by 24 pillars (as if it's a holy number!), you will think that a shade of serenity has been painted over my face. Don't be fooled because of my posture, I stand still only because I am made to. I can wait here for eternity and yet not make a move, but that is not going to happen, soon a green man with a white shining blade and a black and white beard would come near my neck and slit my throat open and you the 108 men with white clothes and saffron caps will exclaim and exhaust yourself. There are far less white hair on the beard than black. Some say this is worse than Halal, the others say this is better, in both cases I die so it doesn't make much of a difference.

In there, the blade is kept on my neck, the almighty himself comes down as a bloodthirsty vulture. He slides his tongues one by one in the differential opening of the throat, his 666 tongues acting as suction pumps inside the main 786 veins of the body. With each drop of blood which falls on the ground or vanishes inside his mouth, I die small amounts, big enough to kill me completely in the end. But here, it's novel. Since the 108 men are not allowed to kill me, the man with the beard takes the position. The 108 men are screaming, to the ugly female statue in front of them. They are all saying the same words, but it's beyond my comprehension. I feel dizzy, but I do not want to lose conscious, I do not want to miss the moment and the way Antoinette felt, or Lavoisier or the King Luis himself. Now you 108 have gathered around me in a circular shape, I at the center. The man with the beard looks at me through his beard and blade, a wicked grin on his face. He knows, this is what he's best at. "Blood, blood", they scream, "The red pudding" . And silence prevails in the void of my body for a moment.

This is where, I stop talking because I am already dead. The blood pours on the floor. You 108 are in a hurry now, "Collect it, don't let it go waste!". There are clammering sounds of steel and aluminium plates near my neck, but thankfully, the head has flown quiet a distance and I am saved of the noise of metal and the smell of sweat. I can feel my essence being poured onto the shallow plates, 1st, 2nd, 3rd, they are getting filled, it's unstoppable. You the 108 are getting filled at the same time, with anxiety, hunger and humble devotion to god, the purest feeling of them all. The plates are collected now, the flesh goes to the ladies camp, 108 men with their 216 wives. There shall be prepared the feast, the spicy mutton curry. Here, the 36 plates of raw blood are waiting for further processing.

Now is the time the coagulation cascade kicks in.



The cranberry juice like liquid in the 36 plates starts thickening because of the process shown above. The colour changes from fresh red to dull brownish red. The viscocity increases. Spices are added, "Don't add that much salt", "Give me jeera", "Where are the chillies?". And finally it is done. The plates are kept under the heavy roof where I was standing once. The job of the green man with the blade and the beard is done and he departs. You 108 now gather around once more, to offer the final holy procession to the ugly black lady statue. There are in total 7 different chants. You scream them one by one in maximal possible dissonance. Perhaps that is the only way the blood-sucking-kind-hearted almighty can hear your voice!

Now the cranberry juice has turned into jelly. "Perfect", you cry with joy. The plates are sent to the ladies camp too, 36 of them, the jelly is cut into isochoric pieces, 24 pieces. Each man gets 4, each woman gets 2. As you put the red pudding onto your tongues, it melts and becomes liquid again, just blood like. I feel as if this is a step backwards towards my reconstruction. But it is not. Now I am inside the throat, stomach, esophagus, tongues of you all, twice as much inside the men than the women. I feel like forming a continuum, inside you all, connecting you through your vigorous passion and humble devotion. I, through my weak jelly like fibrotein network, have been proven to be successful in connecting you more strongly than any force could have. The humble devotion of god.

Spring

Two shirts lay on the big bed, one of them made from the finest fabric, a creamy Van Heusen and a usual black collarless t-shirt. I always thought that for such occasions, t-shirts were a bad omen. So I put on the t-shirt as an instrument for future rationalization. It was late November and the night was pleasantly cold, thankfully my sister had given me a sweater carefully chosen in colour, black. Far away from us, a group of violinists and cellists were playing Vivaldi. The aggression and the freshness of the music must have changed the weather. They were far apart because I couldn't see them, but the sound clearly penetrated my ears. The gush of wind and the chromatic arpeggios of the climax went together in perfect harmony. It was the end of fall and start of winter, but the air was spring and so was the music.

The wind was such that all the streets were equally inviting to walk on, it was time to take a stroll and talk and not the time to sit down and relax. 'Get me out of this place for tonight', he called upon me, 'I am bored'. As pleased as I was at that invitation, I took him out. We met on a dark street just outside my place. 'Talk', he exclaimed. And I started telling my favourite story, the story of creation and metaphysics. 'So, it so happened that God one day wanted to create a habitat for his favourite, the man...', I'd gone till Thursday and he cut me, 'Oh, by the way, I have to get back in fifteen minutes', so disappointed was I, the whole creation, followed by the rise of humanity, the holy prophets, my interpretations and then our discussion, that was my plan.

His Italian descent was completely overshadowed by his suave modern accent. The curl of the dark, heavy and longish Sicilian hair rolled over the back of his neck. His moustache and bear ed were neatly trimmed. The muscles on his face moved in such a beautiful manner, just like the Greek figures Michelangelo would have had carved for the pope. His smile contoured the nerves on his neck in an amiable manner. The colour of his lips was faint pink, eyes dark brown and hair dark black. They were red some day, but he told me that they turned to black the another. He had lived the lifetime in Sicily and just a few years in western Europe. But he had acquired all the modernity of the west, still maintaining the raw and crude humanness and shear beauty of the south east. So beautiful and charming were his manners that I was too much engulfed in looking at him, silently observing him walk, move and exclaim calmly. I wished the time to stop or at least slow down for some moments for I wanted to talk to him for eternity. And I completely forgot about the 15 minutes I had at my stake.

It was clear that to attempt this agenda, I had to hurry. Obviously, if I ran while talking, my efficiency would have increased, so I began to run and resumed from Thursday. I went on and on, from God to Abraham, to Moses, Noah, Christ, Mohammad, I kept on talking and as the content of the conversation increased so did my sprinting. And now I was at the climax with the clashes of Martin Luther with the pope.

'The pope actually was collecting money for the Sistine Chapel, though Martin Luther had reasons to oppose, it would had been better for the art if he were to oppose something else. The papacy did a lot of foolish things back then and he could have found a different issue to raise as well.' I went on, I also realized that I was sitting in a cafe under the starry night, 'It is interesting to see how Taylor connects that same psyche of the German mind to the Nazi agenda, he claims..', 'Oh, 15 minutes, I have to go now, bye' and I was crushed under the avalanche of his words, crushed in the heart and in body as he quickly disappeared. It was disturbing enough that he didn't agree with my views on creation, but he could have at least heard me out.

Now I when I found he was gone, I could listen to the music again all alone by myself, they had finished spring and had started on winter. The frequency of the bass matched with my heart beats, the temperature of the surroundings fell down drastically and I began to shiver. And since now he was gone, I stopped running and started walking, it didn't matter where I went because all the streets now were equally bad and I had nowhere else to go.

---------

It was a cold day, especially cold since it was a winter day. But it was a dull night to end the day. While returning from work, I made an acute observation that all the streets were equally bad to walk on. I badly needed to go out and he was pestering me for a long time now. And yet he failed to talk about whatever he wanted to, each time! But today, in this early winter, I found myself alone and had no other option than inviting him.

He was obviously thrilled in my company. He was full of vigour and energy, I couldn't have spent more than a couple of minutes with him without getting bored. Pitying his situation, I told him that I had 15 minutes for him. He was grossly disappointed and surprisingly eager to finish his task. He was talking something about religion or something, obviously, I didn't pay any attention. When it became too boring, I just disappeared.

And this is how it all started

Though this is a lot more cliched than I ever imagined it to be. I am going to write their story (By their, I mean his and her) (gosh! even the suckiest of the Hindi movies start like this. Ref: Hum-tum). It is difficult writing a story, generally I lose track of the plot and the control over the characters as it proceeds. Hence it becomes easier if I base it on something real or something I have already read. But basing a story on an already written story doesn't increase the dimensions of the creativity space, I will merely end up linearly combining things and end up with nothing new. (It's like constructing new equations from what I already know is true by simply adding and multiplying them. Umm, wait, isn't it exactly like that?) It is also like writing a new James bond movie after a bunch of them have already been released (Not that new Bond movies should not be made, just that I don't want to make one). And hence I shall choose the real thing to base my story upon, or perhaps the fictional one.

So this is about him and her meeting each other and getting married (I didn't say falling in love) and having kids. They are yet to die, so they won't die in the story either. I am still undecided who will be the scapegoats of this, real people or fictional characters. Fictional characters usually won't mind me twisting them and their persona, real ones would break off their relationship with me, both (him and her) of them perhaps. At the same time, people have so much to offer in terms of hidden characteristics. Their personalities promise me infinitely more than any of the round characters I have ever met in a story. (Every beating heart in the hundreds and thousads of breasts their is, in some of its imaginings, a secret to the heart nearest to it! : from Dickens, which I couldn't read much because of my inadequacies in comprehending complex sentence constructions)

With this, I can begin the story.

To start with her, she was very self centered. She always thought people were trying to undermine her. By the time she was 80, she was sure that her husband was trying to kill her, though she also (sometimes) knew that her husband was already dead. She was the kind of person similar to Major Major Major Major, with those 4 degrees of mediocracies sticking up her butt.

He, at the same time (actually at a different time, he was 16 years older to her) was brilliant and a wannabe libertine who could never achieve that status. He ended up working in a commercial bank (though they paid a lot, they never cared).

Since both of them are yet alive and I mistakenly mentioned his death indirectly, you shouldn't think that this will cover up their entire lives. This might just be about the moment they loved each other for a moment, or their fight(s) or something more or less significant than this. But this is how I can begin.

(BTW, this is not how it ALL started, as I wrote earlier, this can be very insignificant compared to it ALL, or very significant as well)

Gundappa just lit a bidi from his pocket. This was the last one and the shops were closed too. He cursed the shop keeper, his family and cast out loud, and felt a little better. He'd just come out of his shack a few moments ago. It was late in the night, but the ayaa who was taking care of his wife's fifth pregnancy didn't let him in. "Last four times, you watched the babies coming out, and all of them were girls. This time you've worked so hard to get a boy, don't ruin it at the last moment, go out", she yelled at him. Gundappa really wanted a boy this time. Because of his wife, he was looked down at, at every caste gathering. Some even suggested to abandon her, or better to sell her at a decent prize so that he can get a new and young girl who would be auspicious to give him a boy.

He heard the screaming. It was his wife, she was screaming bloody hell, cursing the father, the child, the ayaa and their respective families. "What does it take to have a bidi without any disturbance?", he thought, he wished his wife wouldn't scream as much. Last four of their children, as mentioned earlier were girls. Useless girls, who were a burden on him. A girl in his caste and social status meant a straigthforward 10,000 Rs. for the marriage. With daily wages of 50 + 60, it was really difficult for him to manage. He'd married two of the girls at a very old age of 12 and 14. And the third one was of a suitable age, but Gundappa didn't have the money.

"If this one is not a boy, you know what to do", he warned his wife. She knew it. If it were a boy, Gundappa and her would celebrate with a joint of afoo. Otherwise, the newborn child would celebrate her birth with a puff of afoo and die instantly. It was a very popular technique in the village, to get rid of unwanted girl childs. Widely used, suggested by the haqim on the corner of the peepal tree. He rolled the joint into the vida leaf. Tied it with the home-made thread. The joint was ready. He hoped that it was a boy. That way, he'd get to smoke the joint and it would be a pride for the whole society.

The screams got denser, louder and horrifying. The moon had risen above the coconut trees and the sea was breathing heavily. The trees were responding by whisteling along the wind. His wife added to the whining natural harmony. Time should stop, the screams should stop. He urged to god. He prayed it was a boy, for the family and for the joint.

Now we are in the climax. She was screaming, she cursed his father, his mother, him, the child everyone around her, the ayaa. And finally she was born. She was born, it was a she. His wife didn't believe it. She was born. A moment before, he could have born. But no, she was born. Now the wife had to do the job. Ayaa called Gundappa inside, he lit the joint. He was tempted for a puff. But he knew, it was enough only to kill an infant. If he had one for himself, the girl would live. And everybody knew, it was more difficult to finish off a child who was not nascent. He resisted his temptation, he hated the girl. Now the pride was lost and the joint too.

The girl, still unclean, covered with the motherly fluids was forced with the joint. She was so young, she didn't even cough at the smoke. Those kind of emotions or physical manifestaions hadn't developed yet in her body. She smoked it, she might have smiled for a second they thought. But they thought only for a second, because she was undone then. Gundappa decided, if the next one was a girl, he would sell of his wife to a pimp in a whore house in Bombay. They paid a lot there. He would easily marry of his third girl with that.

Now the joint was over, the wife was tired, the ayaa unclean and the child was dead. He was not a happy man, and there was no pot left to sooth him. And he looked at the moon.

Over the mountains and far below

"Take these flowers, please climb up the mountain. The more high you reach, more closer you are to my heart."

She climbed up the rocks, though it was difficult for her, Roger (that is I) persuaded her with dilligence, offering her more and more each time. Through sacrifices, thefts and every other possible means.

"You should climb up, you can have a very beautiful view of the world from there, but don't climb up because he bribes you", said Ed. He was always composed, balanced and rational. He knew that Roger's ways will corrupt her mind.

Roger was frustrated, she seemed more close to Ed than him, He exclaimed, "Here, have these flowers, more flowers, have my blood, have my heart, but darling, climb up, go there, and be the queen of the world and thus of my heart"

Meanwhile, she was tired, but Roger's shriek voice was irritating, just to avoid any more of his obsequity she climbed up. She looked down, indeed the view was promising and would had improved if she climbed more. With Ed's advices and Roger's flowers she gathered enthusiasm to go up.

Ed was really satisfied to see that she was happy. Roger at the same time was satisfied because her happiness made him happy. Ed encouraged her, as a friend. She listened to him. She went up, up. To the top of the mountain. She looked down, she could see bother Roger and Ed, Roger she thought and was greedy. She cried, "I can see you Ed. It is really nice here, do come up!!". Roger was highly disappointed, he threw all the flowers away, mad in anger and sorrow, he was stand still at where he was.

Both of them were very close to the top, Ed returned to Roger after some time. His mind was changed, he no longer longed her presence. She was disappointed at the top. "Cummon up Ed, look here, it's amazing!", she cried. But Ed wouldn't hear that. He continued being with Roger.

She looked down, though it was difficult coming up she had managed with all that encouragemen, and now it was difficult climbing down. She wanted to be with Ed and Roger, but they seemed far away. Determined, she started taking her first steps down, and on the very first step, she failed, falling into the infinite abyss. The abuss was very well known for its depth, it was deeper than any other one of its kind, deeper than the all the materialistic and moral abysses.

She cried for help, she cursed, she used the most obnoxious of the phrases. It seemed that in falling physically, she had managed the downfall of her soul as well. But nobody helped her, nobody cared of her words. Roger and Ed were pretty busy catching up with each other, though they both saw her fall down, they didn't help. And then she was invisible, even her cries were not audible now. And she was down, down.. more down than they ever imagined.

Ed was sad, he really cared, but he didn't want to say anything. He kept mum.

"What did you expect from her, she was like this only", Roger said. "Umm.. I don't know, but maybe", Ed replied. "Don't be so unsure now, now she's gone, you can be more critical of her, I never liked her in the first place, how could she fall, she was just crazy you know, after all those efforts from you and all of my flowers and blood, she disappointed us man!".

It was easier to blame her than his own mistakes for Ed, since now she was gone there was no proof that Roger and to some extent he was responsible for her fall. Confused in the sea of lamenting emotions Ed confronted, "Perhaps you are true". "Yes, I am", said Roger proudly and they both started enjoying the view from the top, with the abyss on the left and heaven on the right.

A stroll across the sea line

At 12:30 in the night, I got bored of working in the office, so decided to take a small walk along the sea line here in Trieste. It took me around 20 lazy minutes to walk slowly downhill to reach the calm sea.
The skies were particularly clear, this being a small town with not much of light pollution even the smallest of stars were visible. The main competetor in the beauty contest was obviously the moon. Up in the skies, all of them tried to form various wordly shapes as they had been doing for a couple of millions of years now. Arranging themselves and then looking at their own image in satisfaction in the calm sea. If the waters were disturbed, they perhaps would had observed their images drawn perhaps by Picasso. The two artists were at major play, the sky and the sea. The human intervention were the beautiful green/blue lights at Piaza O'nita D'italia far awa across the sea. It only acted as an additive embelishment, merged in the natural beauty, still maintaining its artificial identity.

On the other side, the beaches near Trieste were so white that they were shining dimly in the moonlight. Somewhere nearby an old man played something on a violin. Violin it was, still wasn't slightly morose. A couple was walking hand in hand, very slowly, pressing against each other tenderly. Some others were relaxing at a nearby cafe by the beach while I walked past by all of them.

The beach as they call it in here, has a nice section of land accompanying it filled with tiny stones and marbles. In unconscious I was drifted towards it. When I reached there, marbles of different colours were inviting me. To get picked and be placed somewhere better than the idle sea coast. This is where I started picking them up. Small ones, nicely shaped, shiny, coloured. It was like choosing a bride at Shaadi.com, every variety was available, choose your best. But here, there was not restrictions on how many to pick up.

I picked some up, threw some in the sea, partially disturbing its job of painting the sky above in his water colours just like an impressionist artist. Though I tried my best to deform the natural beauty to my will and power, the painters were too powerful to be influenced by a young man. Sitting at the sea, with my feet getting wet periodically by the tiny wavelets the sea had to offer. I couldn't notice how the time passed by. I wasn't asleep for sure, I wasn't thinking of anything either. Time just passed by in trance.

When I finally got hold of my being, it was pretty late and I thought it would be better spending the night at office rather than at the sea. Saying my goodbye, I started climbing up the hill, from where one can see the whole of Trieste sea line in one panaromic view. Though the sea was calm, long away deep inside the moon appeared as a large triangular shape and was no more the exact replica of what it appeared in the sky. Even the stars had scratched upon the sea a line for their names.

Tomorrow morning, the stars would go for one day, the moon would go for one day, the sea will paint the sun and the clouds. In the daylight, the sea is a more creative creature. It also replicates the sky, and on the other side, it shows you images of the sea bed, the fish and the plants. On one side it's just a postcard, on the other side it's a dynamic movie screen.

While returning back, even the castle of Miramare was visible from the top. The castle with its 4 pillars going directly into the sea, borrowing light from moon to shine in its white colour was trying to get a good night sleep to wake up fresh in the morning for a new set of visitors.

But, though I write this, I actually spent the hours described above in my office room eating, downloading and watching pornographic movies, reading about deaths and accidents all over the world and oogling at females profiles in orkut. Strange that whatever I write would be believed to be true unless and untill it involves a bare lie or an impossibility. That is the power of a lie.

Actually, I didn't even do that, I just kept on coding, got bored and wrote all that above.

Innocence faded

Out of sheer curiousity I popped out of the window, to see what the commotion was about. I was sane enough to understand atleast the basics of creed discrimination. What I didn't know was what followed.

We were not allowed to go on the streets, not even playing cricket. The schools were closed indefinitely, the idea of cable tv was yet to be familiarized with our mindsets. Those were the dull days of our lives. The older and mature generation seemed tense as well along with the boredum.

I knew almost all of the urchins in the building in front of us. The apparent economical and social divide between the two bedroom kitchen and one room no bed no kitchen remained unnoticed to us. Most of them would play with us, the game of cricket, on roads on playing grounds, opposite teams, same team, one pitch out, fast ball not allowed cricket.

Then on one such day, unusually the bus service was functional. They saw a peculiar man standing at the bus door. He wore a shirt, a pant, maybe underwears too. But he also wore a muslim cap and a beard. That was enough for them to find him guilty. He was pulled off the bus by some just above teenage hunks. A large crowd of one room no bed no kitchen inhabitors gathered around him, fighting to secure a perfect position to have a scrutunizing look at the creature. O la what a pity! What stupidity! What religion! they cried, they screamed. Bats were gathered, stumps were also visible. But wasn't cricket playing banned these days? Wasn't it a curfew (A word added to the innocent vocabularies of 8 year olds like us, thanks to particularly nobody and everybody). Soon, it was discovered that the equipment was to be used for a very different but obviously reason.

The bats and stumps were distributed uniformly, everybody got batting, even those who used to field all the time just because they were weak. Everybody seemed happy, atleast excited. Let's start! Let's do it! they again screamed. The amplitude of the voices infuriated their young minds. The man with shirt pants underwear cap and beard got the beating. Somehow his screams made the batsmen realize that this wasn't the kind of batting they enjoyed. But the great religion of thousands of years was supporting them, in a modernistic sport against a very modern yet conservative and secluded creed. The lost enthusiasm in killing the one with the underwear and a beard was refilled by the encouragement by not so young batsmen and the batting and the beating continued.

He Abdul, Muhhamad, Ali, Zakir or whatever, who was a fool to wear an underwear and a beard and a muslim cap in a hindu proactive area on a riot day was screaming and was beaten to death. Who was to blame? The children who didn't understand the difference between two bedroom kitchen and one room no bed no kitchen and the difference between beating and batting and for that matter, even hindu or muslim. Or the man with an underwear, along with a cap and a beard or me for not listening to my mother and noticing every detail of the bloodbath?

They say, not wearing an underwear might cause harnia. Harnia is a disease. But on that day then, not wearing a cap or a beard for that matter, would have saved his life like the rest of the people in the bus. There might had been more of his religion in the bus, but they were wise enough to forget their caps and maybe underwears as well.

On the highway

That day, me and Ted

Met a relative by accident
whom we used to call dad

his wife made beautiful pancakes
his children weren't that bad

We talked in the middle of the street
He invited us for tea

To our surprise, his wife was dead
We missed the pancakes, too bad

Hey Ed, shouldn't we be leaving
Asked Ted in hurry

When we left, we saw the old man
crumbling

he was only, they said
he said he missed ma
he also said somehting
about two of his sons

we missed the last part

who'd want to listen to
an old man's lament

even if we called him pa
and the woman with pancakes
was something similar to ma