Precognition

The night was engulfed in black with little stains of white here and there. She had admired the night so many times that she didn't even give it a second look. Her heart was hammering so hard that it would explode any moment. There was chillness in the wind which was stopping her to take a step forward. Her eyes had swollen up due to the inevitable events which she had been circumventing till yesterday. She had wept to an extent that tears seemed just another body part. The train took a turn and she could see in the distance the reflections of the moon in the river. She gripped the bars more firmly. As the train took the bridge she slowly closed her eyes. Breathing deeply she offered herself to gravity. She jumped off the train into the cavity below. She could count the seconds in mid-air. She was floating, or was it the sensation one feels after dying.

                Akshita woke up from the terrifying dream. Her head was aching and she felt all wet in the abstract sense. It was 4 in the morning. She could not sleep thereafter. These dreams were tearing her apart day by day. She could no longer take them. Few hours later in the morning newspaper she read news of a girl who had committed suicide by jumping off a train over a bridge. How could this have happened? This couldn’t be true. This had happened to her herself in her very own dream. Or was she just trying to make a connection between her dream and the news? She needed to tell this to someone. She readied for the day and on her way to college called up Anchal, to meet her first thing in college.

                Akshita narrated everything to Anchal in the longest possible way. Anchal had hardly seen her best friend look so uncomfortable. She didn’t want to sound very serious or to upset her more so she simply told her that the connection seemed very vague. But this was not what Akshita was willing to hear. She knew no one would believe her because of the dreamlike element in her talk. Agreeing to Anchal she also tried pushing away the thoughts.

                Later that day Akshita went through the details of how the newspaper girl had come in terms with suicide and she found that she had had a harrowing time with her parents over some issue which wasn’t coming to light. Fear and anxiety had made their abode in her mind.

                The day had been somewhat unusual and tiring. It was quite late for her to go home and she couldn’t even find a public transport. Sauntering on the footpath she was somewhat surprised to see the road deserted except for the two guys behind. The two guys! They were following her since she had left work. Her heart missed a beat. She quickened her pace on the narrow pavement and kept looking over her shoulder at short intervals to check whether they had lost her trace. The men were only a few decade meters behind her. She could sense the uneasiness inside her.  She tried calling 100 but her call wasn’t getting through. She typed her whereabouts and her grim condition on her phone and selected the Send-to-many-option in such a hurry that she didn’t even know to whom she was sending the SMS. And the next moment she was running. Her action was reflected by her followers. But she couldn’t run. She tried all her might but the world seemed to have plunged into slow motion. The men now were only a few feet away from her. The last thing she remembered was her arms being held by a pair of wicked hands followed by her dreadful scream.

                Akshita woke up, all sweating. Her breaths were audible enough to confirm that she had had a stroke of asthma. But that wasn’t the case. Her mobile phone beeped. Who calls at 2 am in the morning? What? No? She knew what was coming. Reluctantly, she picked up her phone. It was an SMS from Anchal and it read – “m @ the crossing of mg road nd lxmi ngr. 2 men folwng me. SOS!”

                Terrified, she hurried out of her room and hastened to the colony police station on her two-wheeler, without even realizing that she had left her room open. There were exactly three policemen on duty, two of whom were dozing off and the third on the verge of drowsiness. It took her a good 20 minutes to shake off the cobwebs of sleep in them and convince them to come with her to Laxmi Nagar crossing. Obviously she didn’t speak about the dream, covering the story with a fake call from Anchal. En route the crossing in the police vehicle, she tried calling Anchal for a third time but still the cell phone was switched off. Tension was spreading its roots inside her body. Retrospection of her dream sent shudders down her spine.

                They reached the exact place which Anchal had texted her. The place was indeed devoid of any living soul. Akshita climbed out of the jeep and began zooming in her eyes in all possible directions to get a sign of her friend. It didn’t take her long to locate a body lying beside a tree at a distance of a few meters from where they had parked the jeep. Her heart quickened its pace in accordance to her feet. She was running towards Anchal. The policemen followed her. Anchal lay there with scratches laced on her arms and her face all red. One of the policemen brought the jeep and they quickly took her to the nearby hospital. Akshita was weeping. Anchal lay unconscious on the seat of the vehicle. They headed straight to the emergency ward. From there the attendants took over. The receptionist asked Akshita what had happened. Akshita was not in a state to talk let alone explain the series of events. And what drove her mad was how she had come to know about Anchal’s condition. It was a precognition. Now she started fearing her own self. She didn’t want to sleep any more.

To be continued………

Dual Nature of My Heart

I look at her and then afraid of getting caught stealing a glance I pretend to look in a direction away from her. Then my eye balls start rolling to the side of the face and play a game of hide and seek. My detective grey cells spring to life and eye upon half a dozen other male members of the class playing the same game except that their neck plays the game instead of eyes. And then I chuckle at my fate. I know I can just be a distant admirer because the duality of my heart checks in to liquidate the flow of my emotions. The dual nature which was born in the recent past has become so mature at an early age that it just pisses me off.

The urge to be different and my ego keep me away from the pit of love. At an age when lust is always mistaken as love we tend to fall in this pit. The latter 4 letter l-word is a responsibility and carries a deeper meaning; meaning which our juvenile brain is not ripe enough to understand. Remembering a person sitting miles away, writing letters which carry superfluous meanings, giving presents, etc. is not love. Unbiased care and affection add to its meaning which is long forgotten in today’s definition of the word.

Just one practical class in a week and during that golden period also my heart doesn’t allow me to sketch the full image of her in my mind. And what about the other officious rodents who are always hungry for a petty chance to make their presence be felt? The look on her face manifests that even she is aware of their ‘ready to mingle’ approach. Like them, I also don’t need her but I just want her. The purity of thought which travels in me is so strong that in a world full of sycophants I feel diminished. But I am proud of this purity because this sets me way apart from others.

I often question myself - does she even know that I exist? Why is she so special to me? Is it her simplicity? Is it her smile? Is it her laugh? Or is it just her face? It’s actually the mere thought of her which brings to me joy and a tiny smile and also a bleak hope that one day she will become my responsibility. My heart skips a beat whenever she comes in my 5 meter radius. I am afraid that due to my non gregarious eccentricity this radius will take more than a lifetime to reduce to 1.

I am fed up of CRMD

3 minutes to go before the serpent would arrive. We were more than 100 people sweating in a subterranean area, our whereabouts unknown to our beloved ones. Tension was being mirrored on the new entrants of the cavity. Same train of thought ran through the minds of all the trapped people. Many thinking, why they ever chose to come down here?

2 minutes to go. More cherishing faces were pouring in only to become worried ones. The density of the hall was increasing exponentially.

1 minute. Why were the people so desperately waiting for the serpent? Didn’t they realize the atmosphere inside it would be much more venomous than what was outside? And then the sporadic sound of the awaited monster could be heard. By the face of it, it already seemed so full. Wait! Is it going to puke? No! But it was too late. Its many pores on the side of the body opened up and out came a clump of macro particles in immeasurable volume. And the anticipated sucking effect then took place, pulling us all inside the serpent’s body. The effect of gravity seemed to have shifted laterally and I was free falling sideways. My body was being guided by the people in my vicinity and theirs’ being guided by the people in their vicinity. Now we were inside ‘it’. The already existing faces inside the giant body looked familiar given the fact that they were also laced with the same amount of tautness as the ones outside. The serpent then swayed and made its way towards the opening of the tunnel which it was now facing.

My eyes activated their zoom in + search mode and started scanning the insides of our host, looking for what it was looking for. But the new macro particles (which included me) were blocking the view. If I consider myself as India on the world map then in the direction of Nepal my eyes installed its view, successfully finishing its search. Lucky Me! But USA, Germany, Japan have made such advancement in technologies that they attacked poor Nepal before India could take its first step. Hah! Unlucky Me!

As usual the seat in the coach of one of the trains of Delhi Metro won in the encounter to avoid me as one of its occupants and at the end of the journey from Hauz Khas to Chandni Chowk my legs were cursing me.

I am fed up of the Corporation of Rail and Metro in Delhi, or is it called DMRC!

Harry Potter Simulator? Yet Another Harry Potter Post

When I had started blogging (though, it’s been only 3 months!) I had sort of sworn to myself that I won’t post anything about Harry Potter, not that I am loathsome about him but because every second person is a Potter fan and among his fans whosoever is into writing can’t help writing about him. So, initially I didn’t want to be a part of this entourage. But then, having read Harry Potter and not mentioning him in my blog is a sin in itself.

I was in class 8 when I first laid my hands on the series; read 6 of them in a month. I fancied myself as a marathon reader during that one month – used to sit in the last row of the class to skip lessons and read the book, used to miss sports to read it, used to read the book during my prep time. I know there are zillions of others who read the novels with the same fervour. I remember reading the 7th book while standing in a long queue; it had been only 6 days since the book had released and there comes this guy who tells me – “you are a very slow reader!” And a few days later his comment echoed back in my ears when I read – “Started on 12:00 am, 21st July; finished reading the same day at 7:00 am.” written on the inside cover page of one of the copies of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Whoa! The news of JK Rowling confirming that she won’t write any other Harry Potter book was like someone telling me, all the libraries of the world were going to be closed. I had this dilemma of how would I survive without knowing what’s happening in Harry’s life. Believe me I am not exaggerating; but then that was a 15 year old kid’s doleful tale. People don’t know the name of their great grandfather but know the full name of Dumbledore. JK Rowling has certainly cast a spell on the whole world. There are schools in the United Kingdom which have Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone as their A-Level English syllabus. I wish the Kapil Sibbal gets inspired from the Brits and makes Harry Potter part of the Indian curriculum as well. The popularity of Harry Potter is x --> ∞ and will be eternal.

In Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, there is this part in which Ron tells that Voldemort’s name had been jinxed. I thought that JK Rowling was hinting to the origin of the term ‘Voldemort’. It made a very obvious impression in my mind that ‘Voldemort’ had been the name of some ancient spell which when casted disrupts the ambient enchantments, and that Tom Riddle had purposely chosen this spell to be his name. Doesn’t it sound more astounding? But my piece of fantasy bit the dust. But I still think this ancient spell thing was worthy enough to earn a place in the novel.

Though it’s peculiar, but I found Harry’s character proves dominating only on a broomstick and in fleeing away dementors. The meagre ‘Expelliarmus’ against the jet of green light sounds too coward. Harry uses ‘Sectumsempra’ against Malfoy but only a disarming spell at the person who had killed his parents and was then after him. Avada Kedavra from Harry’s wand would have proved more heroic in the final duel between him and Voldemort. But then JK Rowling is far great a writer to disapprove what she has written and anyways these are my personal take on the scenes.
I know of people, and that includes myself, who have an utter desire to live within the enchanted walls of Hogwarts, who desire to have a wand, who desire to play Quidditch, their aspirations pile on and on. Imagine, the sorting hat resting on your head and placing you in Gryffindor. My ‘engineering mind’ (though I am not an engineer, but because of the fact that I study in an engineering college, I am allowed to use the term) thought of transfiguring this day dream into reality; and it thought of ‘simulators’. We surely have heard of flight simulators. Why not a ‘Hogwarts Simulator’? People would go into a room with walls covered with 3D screens, with movable floors having numerous axes of rotation. Some laser technology (like they have in Laser Tag) to imitate spells being cast out of wands. The idea is very vague but what an impact it would create on the world if implemented! And people would expect engineers only to make this ‘wonder’!

Parting with the boy who lived is sorrowful but someone has rightly said – “All good things must come to an end.”

Colon P (:P)

December 2010

I was attending this English Creative Writing Competition at Mood Indigo in IIT Bombay. I entered the hall and asked for the topic of the event and in return got a supposedly rude answer to look on the board. The topic was boldly shining on the board – Colon P. Weird, isn’t it? Could we possibly write on so meagre a topic? From the looks of some of the fellow writers it seemed they had just come to while off. But I thought great writers can just write on any and every thing. And yeah, the word limit was 60-100 words.
The pen seemed too heavy to move. After ripping off parts of my brain I came out with this –


Dear Colon P (: P),

Thank God! You dropped into my life or else I would have had to write your ballooned form - Oooo....looo.....looo.....looooooo.....looo!

You are genX’s gesture and any SMS or chat message without you looks hollow. Your two characters stand tall and mighty enough to support the ladders of sweetness, cuteness, love and friendship. The tongue hanging from the side of your mouth in the form of text is a creativity which make my lips widen. When I win an online game against my friends I don’t say YESSS! I just write your name in the chat box.
When I first met you my face worked in automation to copy you. Your brothers are equally adorable. Do remember me.

Yours,

Homo sapiens

The Letter

December 2010

Dear ____X____,

You are my saviour, my friend and my life partner. You give me comfort and the ecstasy of embracing you each day reinstalls the functioning of my veins, arteries and capillaries. Every night you welcome this mentally tired man and in your arms I feel I am in a world detached from this world, soundless, sightless, only the loud thuds of my heart doing the talking. Every morning when I get up with you, my mind wanders for any and every reason not to let go off you. You are the reason why I dream.
But now I want to break up with you because you are making me lose focus of myself and my destiny. I am with you for more that a third of the day, much more than I used to be with you a year back and you still want more? During lectures I have to make sure the prof. doesn’t catch me cuddling with you. Out of the long list of questions I have for God, one will be why did I ever meet you? Don’t dare to reply back.

Yours,
Ankit

PS: X = Sleep; excessive amount of sleep has chained me to my bed in the last few months and as a result I gave birth to this article!