Chicken Bone In My Throat!

All the weirdest of things in the world happen to me and I'm not surprised. And here's one more to the tally. A chicken bone in my throat.

It was a great lunch at Amrutha's - we were 7 of us, 5 non-vegetarians and we ordered three plates of fish and one plate chiken kabab. In the talk that was heating up, I lost track of what I was swallowing and boom - something was stuck in my throat. I tried a lot of things and yet, it wouldn't go. So I come back to office, eat 6 bananas, lot of steamed rice, gulp 3 orange juice and four bottles of water. And still, it wouldn't go. Pains more.

So, I continue with work. Write one macro for a friend. It was 7 pm and then it rings on my head, I have to go to Hebbagodi. I knew it would become a problem if mum and dad come to know. Before that I should get this out. A friend suggests me to try vomiting. So I try vomiting for a long time. In the end, my mouth turns red. Oh no, I started vomiting blood.

Then I take my bike, rush to hebbagodi. Have to tell my parents, no other choice. I tell them before I go to sleep. They scold me for being such an idiot. I smile. They scold more. So, next day to Narayana Hrudalaya hospital.

Mum and me at the reception. There was a Malayali family sitting next to us with a sweet baby girl - less than a year old. She smiles at me. And playtime starts. I make her smile more. She grabs me, wants me to show some more tricks. She laughs, laughs and laughs. Doctor calls.

Doctor Maneesh. He laughs as well, as we explain the situation. Asks me not to panic. Go for endoscopy. Mum calls Dad. Dad panics. Comes with a family friend. This freaks me more. Endoscopy at 5 pm. Anything that is stuck would easily be removed, come and meet me after that, Doctor says.

5 pm. Endoscopy. There was this beautiful Lady Doctor. Sad, I did not know her name. Dont panic, she says and puts those things into my mouth deep inside. I choke and choke more. I make loud noises for her to stop. She takes the tubes out. No Doc, I can't, I'm so scared. She smiles. Oh come on, don't worry. Just look at me. Do as I say. It is very easy. She tells this so sweetly. I listen to her. She pulls my tongue out, holds it tight with one hand and deep the tubes go. Breathe through your mouth, don't panic. It is easy. I breathe through my mouth. After some time, the bone is out. She tells me I have abrasions. The bone has scraped my throat and has caused it to bleed. Asks me to meet the other Doc.

Waiting for Doctor Maneesh. I meet another patient who tells me his worries. He had done endoscopy as well - just then. He tells me how they tortured him by inserting the tubes deep inside till they reached his stomach and how much pain it had caused him. I was much relieved that the bone was stuck in the throat and not anywhere else. I ask him not to worry. Things will be alright. My name is called out.

I go in with my mum. The Doc smiles again. All okay, he asks seeing the file. I say yes. He writes me medicines. I say thanks and bye to him and come out. Buy medicines and we reach home. And mum tells me it is time I get married. This time, I choke more without any bone in my throat. God save me.

The Parenthetical Limbo Of Being

He is very open. (Idiot!)

He is kind. (Such a coward!)

She is sexy. (Not a virgin definitely!)

He is straight-forward. (Aggressive moron!)

She talks so sweet. (B*tch!)

Parentheses don't come out usually. They hover in the invisible, the plot thickens with those pauses and the sweet smile camouflages the intent and the overtone. But these afterthoughts that second the diabolical nature of our minds are also matters that decide our judgmental prowess.

 

There was a cockroach which lived in the latrine commode. A small boy threw a piece of bread into the hole and it floated above the stinky waters. The poor insect wanted to have a bite of the bread and it went down. Right when he got hold of his food, the boy flushed. Water was rushing down with force. His life was in danger if he did not move. He stood on the piece of bread not willing to give away his catch, reflexes failed, petrified, stuck in the limbo, cursing the boy. And he died.

You should plot at the back of your mind keeping your demeanor cool and pleasing, stated the colleague. To hell with him. For if we keep on plotting and speculating things, we would be plotted to death ourselves. Yes, people will use us. Speak falsely of us. Try to stop our growth. However these do not come out in the open, but revel in the parenthetical capabilities of their behavior. All of these silly things would matter only if we start giving a damn.

Some of our daughters suffer from this. They become Nebuchadnezzars, desperately wanting their men to know what they think without even telling them what they think. Adding to the disharmony of thoughts, they would want their men to act in the seemingly according ways pleasing them all the time. One could only sense heightened dosage of sadism here. This is dictatorship at its best (what else could this possibly be!).

Life is simple. Things would look good if unnecessary complications are put away. Reading between lines doesn't help at all. It creates fissures. Breaks relationships. Amplifies question-marks. Shatters trust. But if things are taken in the right stride, love sprouts. Smiles become genuine. Our eyes gleam (not trying to hide things). Peace descends. Result, bright countenance. Bliss.

Discourse On The Lives Of Shy People

Elevator. Ground Floor. I have to go to the sixth floor. And the small box is filled with women. A lot of them. But there is little space for one to squeeze in. One waves her hand and asks me to get in. I smile and say - 'No thanks!'. 'What's wrong? Get in! There is space for one!', she asserts. I sweetly refuse in a matter-of-fact tone, 'No please, I am basically a shy person you see!'. They all burst into laughter. Yes. HR ladies, they are!

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Jokes apart, the life of an introvert is not to be snorted away but one that needs to be understood in the right way. While the whole world chooses to be in the center of the theme, we choose the corners. Is it wrong to like the corners? Has not God chosen the corners of the earth to station his angels? Well yes, attention is one thing we do not crave for. Recognition? - no thanks, keep it with you. We are not insecure or timid or suffer from low self esteem. We are people who love the quiet. We stand away from the normal standards of life. We do not go with the crowd. Nor do we pass judgments. Only that we wish if people could leave us alone the way we are.

Yes, we have the problem of those abrupt silences and awkward pauses sometimes. We might come across to you as screw-ups, silly idiots and extremely dumb. Or we might look like real crazy morons and you could be thinking that we are very aggressive folks. We do not have any problem as to how you see/treat us. Your conclusive remarks on us arise only out of your fail discernments. Never would you understand our inherent tendencies to be able to attach meanings to whatever we say/not say and do/don't do.

Not that we do not know to speak, just that at times we prefer not to. Not that we do not know to crack all those jokes, just that we prefer not to say things that would sound as lame as the ones that are generally cracked and expect people to laugh. But we observe. We precisely know the size of the freckles and the count of the wrinkles and moles on the visible parts of your body. We know the length of your brow and the wave-forms it makes as you speak. The lip twitching, the short shrugs and the walk styles. We understand your movements and derive the right meanings. We can mimic perfectly well. We are the best orators. Our minds are intricately beautiful - music, so, is in our blood. We do not hurry. We keep secrets. We are slow to judge. We are perfectionists. We wait for our perfect time. Even if we knew it wouldn't come, we would still wait. Deliberation and finesse are our ways of life. We articulate and create our own worlds which people of mediocre mentality cannot comprehend.

There is misconception that shy people are overcome by fear, cannot exhibit their talents - and so, people think that the best of our kind are glued to their books, deny the company of men , build labs, do researches there and become those boring, uncool scientists. To me, shy people - disregarding the worldly definitions of 'best' - are in fact the best when they are in the company of men. The simple reason being - they can easily stand out without fear of exclusion. Ella Fitzgerald, Elvis Presley, Ingrid Bergman, Tom Hanks and the list goes on and on. These stars have been in the company of men all their lives - not just the company but they have been admired by more than half the globe. If you read about them, you would know they were all shy even after they became celebrities. Ella is referred as the 'First Lady of Song', Elvis - the 'King of Rock and Roll', Bergman won 3 Academy Awards and is ranked the fourth greatest female star of American cinema and Hanks - do we need words to describe his talents!

We have a petition to make. We rarely find people who can understand us. That is a very sad thing. There are very few people who could read the intent of our thoughts right. We are always mistaken. Some foolishly believe that we cannot influence others - not knowing, the greatest revolutionaries the world has ever seen were of our kind. They have all successfully shaken the world in times past. Try observing us more, I am sure you would fall in love with us. Yes, you would be baffled by the fluency of our romances. We make the best of friends. We add to the human element even in a professional setup. You would have no idea how loud we could get in the company of friends. No one would dare take all those risks to value companionship like we do. We mean what we say or we don't say a thing. Period.

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P.S. Conclusively, It's okay to be shy! (*^.^*)

The Mirth Of The Miscreants!

Belle, begotten of belladonna - the beauty you hold is as fleeting as mirage. You enchant men in the night, but as the morning rays of the Sun enter the room there is no proof of your being. You are such a minx, only that you get a little too violent in hammering our medulla oblongatas so we swirl and sink into swampy thoughts. Had you existed in the land of the living, we could have asked you to audition for Kill Bill. Oh wait. My mind is at work.

I have something to tell you. The word Kill Bill has triggered in me, a fabulous idea. I'm sure this would interest you. Why don't you become a hit-woman and cleanse our society! Well, I cannot officially hire you for two reasons - one it is mystically illegal; and two - what do I pay you in when our realities lie in different poles? I know you would voluntarily agree. Ah, look at how you smile! That sweet villainous smile. You truly are a charitable assassin!

There are three targets you would need to go after. Make sure you are in hiding throughout. Hover in the shades like you always do. Leave no clues. Use weapons of your choice - no restrictions on that. But get the job done. Kill them all. Do not worry about the repercussions on the ethics of our world and the related moral issues. You do not know how changeable they are! The so-called moral system of the world bends itself to save the affluent but gets harsher to indict the poor. So kill them. Kill them all. Slice the dagger right in. Let the cut go deep inside and let all the intestines gush out.

Lies.

Lust.

Greed.

Lies. The boyfriend lies about the other girl he dates spontaneously. The wife lies about the man she is with once the husband goes out for work. The employee lies to make the rights look wrong and the wrongs look right. He flatters to go up the pay grades. She spreads rumors to taint the others. The Pastor in the Church lies about his spiritual experiences. The Swamiji spins puranas out of lies - the lies that divided the ancient Indian Society. The Imam at the Madrasa lies to instigate war and activate terrorism. The US invades Iraq. The Libyan Spring. The language of the politicians. Everyone wears multiple masks and go on living lies.

Lust. Perversity is the new cool and provocative is fashion. Five-year-olds are molested. Old men sodomize little boys. Women are gang-raped. There is incest. Adultery is in the open. Flavor of rights is added to pornography. Lust is the dispense toolkit for stress. Saints and sinners, the powerful and the powerless - lust has infested all lives. Swami Nithyananda. Strauss Khan. Tarun Tejpal. Justice AK Ganguly. The list goes on and on. Popping out cleavages, hardening penises and wet under-garments. Such is the contemptibly pathetic state of affairs.

Greed. Yes, the greed that breeds materialism. Stirs disputes. Starts wars. Everyone wants to taste what's in others' plate. Jealousy intensifies. Egos shoot up. Wanting to own everything. Addiction to the smell of fame. Betrayals. Conspiracies. Scandals. Murders. New world theories emerge. China establishes its Air Defence Zone. Illegally takes control over Aksai Chin. Powerful countries sign discriminatory Nuke deals with developing ones like Iran and India.

So, 'who are the targets?', you might ask. Well, go up and read for yourself. In clarity, have I presented them to you. Do you still not get it? If I had so desperately wanted to kill men, I would have done that myself. Oh, now you get it. Yes, yes, I can see that from your frown. Your targets - my dear - are lies, lust and greed.

I know you would want to yell at me now and scare me with your foot-less dance. I can understand. Chill down. Yes, these are abstract things. But so are you. I thought you could easily spot them all and kill them one by one because the source of these three targets are present in your realm of reality and are in your close reach. Well, if you are not skillful enough to do it, get help from your dark lord Satan. Oh no, would he help you destroy his own designs which he has purposed to spoil the world? I'm quite affirmative that he wouldn't.

So what can we do now? Well, do you still not get why I have been writing this. You have no intelligence at all. Its pretty evident how you might have managed a landing into the arms of the devil. Hell yes you schmuck, go tell your lord that I have been mocking him so far. May all his forms and evil works burn with him in hell. Let love sprout on this earth. As far as I'm around - be it you, your lord, or his other lady companions - I would do my best fighting all the evils to establish love and hope. Yes, I'm at war with you and your dark lord. And I would breach your dark defence with ease. Because it only takes happiness that emanates from that priceless laughter of the pure in heart - to smother all your deadly plans.

No More

Death.

In the dark early hours of the day, my sweet pet Cherry slept a deep sleep not to rise up again. I kept watch over her till 3.30 AM today. She had fever and was shivering. She was too fragile a creature to take that shiver. I couldn't take her to the vet at that time of the night. I tried all I could to revive her. And I prayed. Kept praying. But nothing could stop the inevitable from happening. Sometimes we do not understand why things happen. And in the morning, Berry keeps searching for her. He will have to wait till I get him a good friend soon.

Yesterday night, a good friend I had known from college passed away - infected with rabies. Alan is dead. It shocks the marrows out of my bones. He was fine and smiling two weeks back; but now he is no more. We have been praying for him the last 7 days. But he had to leave. It had been scripted that way - by who else - the Sovereign Lord. If only we could question Him! Yes, anger magnifies those little doubts. Pointless rage sets in. What do you think you do, God?, I want to yell at him on his face. The face, that no mortal has ever seen.

I was in 10th class. Right before the day of results, I lost my friend Sajan. His nose was hit when he bent to drink water from a tap in the night, and he fell unconscious into the water sump that was unfortunately open and soaked till morning to death. He couldn't celebrate his board results. We were best of friends. I still very vividly remember the way he lifted me on his shoulders and rounded the ground with other friends running along as we won the Kabaddi Tournament at school. Those scenes lived long long ago - bring tears even now.

There was a Gautam in 12th class, who was a vibrant kid. We were a big bunch, used to group-study - those sessions were more fun, the teasings, discussing crap and laughing our intestines out, ah - the new things we learnt about life, and as exams approached - getting more serious with studies. But right after the exams, he died trying to cross the road.

I somehow feel God should hire a scriptwriter to write the stories of our lives. All these friends of mine - had they lived - would have become renowned men. But the One who sits on the throne chose to give such pathetic ending to their beautiful stories. Look at the end of each of these sweet people. This cannot be justified at all. And what pains us more is the intolerable fact that these things come from 'the Most Just Of All'. Is it not unfair to pluck a flower when it is still a bud? Oh, if only I had the power to bring people out of their graves by just calling their names out!.. If only.. God, I only ask you this. Let there be no 'no-more' scripts written for any of my friends in this fashion anymore. If you want, take me away. I can help you write great scripts.

I am not against God. I believe in Him. I agree, our human brains cannot comprehend his ways. May be when we shed this mortal body of ours, we would understand things more clearly ourselves. I do not want to rage more and disturb those sweet ones from their sleep. Hush, hush my stupid mind. They must be resting in the other realm of life. Who knows, my own story might have a silly ending, though I hope for a fabulously blood-splashing finish. Whatever be my script - I will pass onto the other shore to take Cherry into my arms and keep kissing her beautiful rodent mouth, play Kabaddi with Sajan on my side again, read school textbooks with Gautam just for the fun of it, and see Alan say - hi da - and smile.

The Voice And The Noise

Whispers from the clouds

Hush hush, be thou still

The gentle voice - soft and sweet!

Flora and fauna, hills and terrain,

Rivers and streams, the Sun and the Moon,

Stars and Supernova

All but man could hearken to it!

Why could not man?

Well, his thoughts are cluttered

Greed and pride, and malice and lust,

Money, material, make-up and masks,

Clogged and swollen - without direction

He lives to please what is not to be

Death comes by and lo, he's gone!

Misnomers and Misdemeanors

A good critique demands positivity in the underlying faculties of our minds. Dickens. Oscar Wilde. Bernard Shaw. Or, Orwell. All of them, great satirists. We know the amount of positivity that bubbled out of their literary works. Thinkers prepare the world for progress. It is in the restless janglings of our minds, wonders come into being. One should be able to challenge the status quo and set things in the right order to reap benefits. Well, it might not happen in whimsical ways buttering our hyper fancies - as many would gladly presume. It takes the hardest of efforts to stand out from the crowd - to merely prove the point that only dead fishes swim with the flow of the stream and live ones strive against the current. 

Yes, people have faced death in their pursuit to scripting a better society. But that cannot be reason enough to hold us in the recron cushions, in the prevailing felonies, yes, in the safer back-seats. Someone has to take the wheels, drive the vehicle, yes of course 'safe', face reality's brunt, take the first hit and get hurt if accidents occur on the way and if the air-bags do fail, die a blood-splashing death on the spot - Tarantino style.

I recall my dad's words. My brother and I - we were school-going kids when he sowed these seeds of wisdom. He would tell us that there is no such thing called 'darkness'. That it is just a name which explains the 'state of no light'. Darkness cannot rob the light; but light, by its mere emergence - be it a small candle flame or the angelic glow, dispels darkness. But as I grew up, I understood that darkness, in token of symbolism, carried 'substance' in its allusions to life and the living. That substance, allow me to present to you, relishes and grows obese by the passing of time, is the ever exciting - 'hypocrisy'. And there are these misnomers and misdemeanors that serve as scary rooks of the dark to sustain the oblique occulence of the light in this death-ridden world which refuses to rise from its rot.

Misnomer. Yes, the name that simply doesn't fit - in its meanings and usages. We all know the story of the famous false etymology of 'fu*k'. You must have read all those floating sms rumors about its origin in the Christianized Anglo-Saxon England - that it is an acronym for 'Fornication Under the Consent of the King' and all the related crap. Well, I do not go by any story of the origins even if it could sound so convincingly true. The greatest lesson learnt from history, Tharoor writes, is that history can teach you wrong lessons. So no, no blind yes to history. Look at the profane usage of the word (that actually means sexual intercourse) now. If you're frustrated - fu*k, if you're happy - fu*k, if someone pisses you off - shout fu*k you!, if you want to appear cool - use fu*k a 100 times in one sentence. Fu*k blends well with any situation.

Extracting cues from what I've penned above, let me take you to a different level of fun. In corporate houses, you would hear a lot of misnomers too. Advocacy, networking, perception and quite a lot. Well, these are great words if meant and used in the right way it ought to be applied and used. Please spare the discomfort of opening one more tab and googling for its meanings. Trust me, these are beautiful terms - all of them. But sadly enough, what advocacy would actually mean is - to lube superior arses with teasing licks to make the wrongs look so very right; networking, most of the times, is done intentionally to open up leeways for special interests and to exempt a few from the egalitarian yardstick measures; and perception, every single time it is in use, refers to conjectures that are made to carry the weight of certainty primarily to maul someone.

The uber comedy of affairs rests in the example of our nation in its present state. One, take - for instance - 'the word' Prime Minister - it is a pity that it has to be listed under misnomers. Two, there is a joker in the blood-line of the intellectual Nehru - so we could no more relate to the Nehruvian era upon hearing surnames starting with a G. Three, there is a RSS-pracharak turned BJP politician who takes the name of Sardar Patel to bring down the image of Congress. What he lacks is the knowledge of national affairs and conviction to his own beliefs. Because it is the same Sardar Patel who banned the RSS after the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi - and if you could get access to some historical archives, please read about the fiery speeches made by one M.S.G - against 'the Iron Man of India' who is now contrastingly being idolized by the RSS-controlled BJP.

Well, you might think that there is no one who cannot be reformed. You might even put your best of efforts to point these mistakes to the offenders - not to damn them but to bring them to correction and suggest ways to improvement! To hell with you, they will all sing in chorus. Because, even if the scales of their eyes fall and they happen to see their mistakes as mistakes, they would smile sheepishly and tell you that these are not felony enough to be proven guilty - yes, these are only misdemeanors - and that they need no change. 'Way of life, dude!', 'You should learn to blind your eyes and let things go!', 'Don't eat up your own case!', 'If you want to live, listen to what we say!' - slogans such as these would resound in your ears. In this dark world with varying standards, it appears as if you could never reform anyone and that there is no value for progressive thought. Yes, hope flickers at these trying times. But no, it would not die out. Weary not! Hold fort. There should be some light somewhere. Keep searching for it within you and without, for all it takes to dispel darkness is a little light.