A wisp of freedom.

Elusive.

Happy.

Held between my finger tips.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Meet Bart.

Bart's an ant.

Bart's one of those high and mighty prima donnas who needs a lot of persuading to have his picture taken because he's scared the camera might somehow ruin his regal,debonair looks.

Bart isn’t very photogenic. He needs a five minute break to explore my hand and groom himself before his next photo shoot.

Bart hates Chemistry.

This one picture of Bart shows him burying his head in his hands.

After a bit, Bart decided he’d had enough and waddled away importantly, nose turned up.

 

 

---

 

 

 

---

Maybe next time I meet someone, I should hold up a board that says I'M A USELESS HUMAN BEING in bold.

And hand out reams of paper telling people that I'd never know what to say when they're low, that I'm terrible at mind games , usually just prefer being left alone and care more about myself.

The only good thing I remember doing is giving my lunch to a dog who was trying to be a model.

Sometimes I think life would be much more interesting if I was a slimy, obese, pulsating worm who left a trail of gooey mucus as I locomoted.

Or a scrunched up paper ball even.

 

Bob, the mosquito floated along peacefully, oblivious of the happenings around him. It was one of those pleasant mornings. The sky was just the right shade of blue, the sun didn’t throw it’s weight around too much and warm pullovers didn’t beckon with a martyr-like coo.He let his mind drift to his suave maneuvers to extract human blood without hurting himself and smiled smugly at the wall opposite.

 

Suddenly, a pair of hands came into view and with a clap, he was gone.

 

Attack While They’re Asleep, the daily newspaper reported another incident of a mysterious death:

“This is the work of an unscrupulous homicidal killer,” buzzed one of the elite Muskeeto Intellectuals. Mosquitoes all over are praying for a Superfly, a legend based on the human version of Superman.

Till then, attack while they’re asleep.

Kids are happy little things.

I like kids.

Sure, they’re demanding when they see the ice-cream guy. Or when they’re in a toy-shop.

Sure, they can drive you nuts and make you want to go and bang your head against the wall.

Sure, it can get a tad tiresome when they jabber on and on and on about what happened in some lame pokemon cartoon. It’s cute to some extent, but after a point, you get slightly weary of feigning delight and going, “wow, reallyyy??”

Sure, they can make you seethe and wish you could annihilate them by just glaring at them because they broke your favourite bangle.

So maybe I don’t like kids all that much, but they’re somewhere there, next to Spongebob Squarepants maybe.

But they’re still happy things. Cute happy things.

With two deep pools of chocolate that boast of innocence for eyes.

And a smile that slides in with ease without reason.

I wanted to be a little kid all over again after sitting next to an adorable kid in a spiderman jumpsuit in the theatre(movie: Happy Feet). He was sitting on his Mommy’s lap and his feet barely reached the floor.

My heart bled for him when he was furiously wiping his tears away and whimpering, looking tearfully at his mum and asking, “Did he really die, mommy?”

 

The best part about being a kid is that you don’t have to think much. You just run around happily, bang into things, start bawling, have mommy come to you and cradle you in her arms, mollycoddle you and mutter sweet-nothings that sound like incantations to conjure a cute fluffy little elephant from Happy-goo-goo land and then you’re happy again.

 

Last month I had to go to the first standard class that trained little Talibans, for two hours of baby-sitting.

Pandemonium wouldn’t even begin to describe the situation five minutes after the teacher left. Little terrorists were running about purposefully pushing eachother around, pulling at my skirt, trying to test the power of their little hands by swatting me. A few terrorists approached me with scales in their hands, egging me on to join the fight (Boy, they sure didn’t know what was in store for them. News hadn’t reached them about me being a magenta-tie in the art of scale-war.). Another few slunk out of class; giggling at the look on my face when I had to chase them down the corridor (I passed all the other classes which my other friends were assigned to and was taken-aback by the calm inside.).

A bit later the little terrorists had declared war. There were little boys sprawled on the floor, bawling. There were little girls crying their eyes out because “that boy stole my scale!!!”. A minute later, peace was restored. A minute after that, there was bedlam again.

After the two hours were up, I trudged outside, drained and spent. Before I had left, I got a truckload of grins and little sheets of paper that were coloured on, some  wishing me a happy day and  some proclaiming that they loved me.

I am aware that the above paragraph did not have much to do about kids being happy little things. Maybe it does, but I don’t have the mental strength to delve into it and find out how.

Happy New Year, all.

 

 

 

---

 

 

 Most of the time, I have dreams of me murdering someone or a bearded someone(never trust people with beards. Or handle-bar mustaches)

trying to murder me . There's usually a hotel with green-marble flooring in all dreams where the bearded someone is trying to murder me. Sometimes I have happy dreams of me falling in love with exaggerated nice versions of guys in class. Sometimes I have dreams of words. Words that blink.

 Yesterday, I had a dream about a strainer. A tea-strainer.

I don't fully remember what the tea-strainer did in my dream. I mean, tea-strainer's don't generally do much do they? Other than lying there. And rolling over to a side when they get tired of lying there. And rolling over to the other side when they get bored of that side.

I just remember getting up, blinking once or twice and telling myself calmly that I had a dream about a tea-strainer.

Ah, well. As long as the tea-strainer didn't have ulterior motives other than  just lying there and didn't sport a handle-bar mustache and a loose, transparent silk shirt draped loosely around him.

---

Tagged by Kriti and N.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 It was dark. Real dark. The kind of darkness that resembles the colour black.

 But I could still see.

 Why? Oh, because I possess what they call ‘Sadistic Lenses that can See in the Dark’. The people who sold them to me told me I should be real breezy when I talk about them. That’s when I informed them that I didn’t possess what they call eyebrows and eyelashes to make myself look supremely unconcerned when I talked about something like Sadistic Lenses that can See in the Dark. That’s when they blinked and became a dot.

  I looked at her sleeping. So peaceful. She had a little smile on her face. And a little toe with a nail painted black popped out of a dirty green pajama with antelopes on it which popped out of a red quilt. I noticed that her nail was painted black and that her pajamas were dirty green and that her quilt was red because I, you know, possess those things they call Sadistic Lenses that can See in the Dark. There. Breeeheezzyy. I would so make anyone else trying to sound breezy blush with embarrassment. It’s a pity my manufacturer didn’t add some neat hair extensions for me to flip back right now.

But I digress.

*metallic cough*

She lay there, a picture of serene tranquility, a mute snore disturbing the air particles. Her face was expressionless . Blank. Wiped out of all emotion.

I smiled to myself.

I was beginning to get those sadistic twinges. 

One of my sadistic plastic hands moved towards the other sadistic plastic hand that she had wound to a position near the figure ’5’.

I gave my best my best supremely unconcerned look and examined my non-existent fingernails.

Really, I don’t know what my manufacturer was thinking when he made me. I mean, how can you not include a sort of sadistic three-dimensional-view-mirror when you make something like me? I would want to look at my wide range of twisted smiles and breezy looks.

*metallic sigh*

Manufacturers these days…I mean, honestly…

 

Ooo, ooo it’s time!

Barely able to hold myself any longer, I sang in my finest sadistic falsetto:

“TIDDIDDITTT!!!! TIDDIDDITTT!!!”

I deserve a Grammy. And a Humanitarian award.

I gave encore after encore, being the champ that I am, looking delightedly at the frown that was creasing her forehead.

 

Then there was darkness. And I couldn’t see. No, not even with my Sadistic Lenses that can See in the Dark.

In those last few minutes before my Sadistic Lenses that can see in the Dark stopped functioning,, I heard a slurred irritable voice say “Damn alarm clocks” and leap towards me with a pillow.

I gotta go practice my breezy looks now.

Till next time.

Ciao.

 

---

This is how bad my writing has got. pfft.

I've always wanted to be a wolf.

Especially when I'm mad with frustration and the curtains are fluttering calmly in the corner.

Especially when I'm itching to scribble something down, but can't seem to find the right word.

When you're  a wolf, you don't just

close your eyes,

clench you're fists,

yell in frustration,

unclench,

ruffle up your hair,

stamp around and

throw mean looks at the placid curtains.

You get to

chase your tail,

chase the crows,

bark and growl and bare your teeth,

prance around and

claw at the curtains.

 

There's this school thing coming up and  I've been put in the group that has to come up with adverts.

I don't know why, but I seem to be completely stymied when we're brainstorming. And that kills me.

It happens all the time when we're in a group and have to come up with ideas.

I'm just completely dazed and just nod or say,'yeah, yeah' enthusiastically when I hear a good idea.

Maybe I'm just not a people person.

Or,

Maybe that little guy in my head that nudges me when there's food around and generally does the math and equations isn't a people person and dies of brief internal haemorrhage when he catches sight of them.

Or,

Maybe I just shouldn't have been put in the adverts group.

Bah.

---

I don't have anything against curtains. They're just a bit too calm and collected for me to handle when I'm bogged down with frustraion.

Like that man in my poster in the midst of chaos, holding up the sign 'go placidly among the noise and haste'.

 

 

 

Dainty Ignorance,

he thought,

looking at her through the corner of his eyes.

 

 

Bliss,

she thought.

Stepping tentatively on a sea of clouds.

The cool breeze pulling and whipping her hair around.

 

A white quilt.

Marshmallow tidbits.

Mozart.

Huge mugs of

creamy

steaming

coffee.

 

 

He doused his head

in the gleaming water

feeling sublime

and

liberated.

 

 

She sneaked a peek

at his fingers,

smiling inwardly.

 

 

Billowing curtains.

A lingering scent of the wilderness.

Rustling leaves.

Persisting tranquility.

 

 

Time slipped through

their fingers,

Hours and minutes alike.

Eons akin to seconds.

 

 

They sighed contedly

A sappy smile on their faces.

Words meaningless.

 

 

They were strangers

to eachother.

In a familiar place.

Drifting away into oblivion

with hands laced.

 

---

 

Oh, and that has absolutely nothing to do with post-sex.:)

Marshmallow tidbits.

Happy stray dogs.

Coffee.

Music.

Colour pencils.

Lone clouds.

Red quilts.

 

 

Lately, I've just been in a daze.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The pristine blue sky was above me,

A canvas for the hand dipped in white paint

To make a gentle sweep.

 

The bluish-green sea was beneath.

Swaying gently.

Specked with little green lands.

Leaning against the hills that rose from it.

 

 

Nobody heard the cry of glee

That escaped me.

 

Nobody heard me singing.

 

 

I was flying.

 

Dear Everyone,

  There has been some sort of emergency on The Cuckoopipi Universe, so I'll need help. I cannot reveal much about the Universe, but it will be suffice to say that only the most elite people with special abilities can reside there. The universe has a marshmallow core with pink bunnies jumping on it's surface. I just received information that certain T-rexes are raiding the planet. I'll be handing out Oreo-Ammunition P33 when we meet in the stratosphere. How you reach there is not a problem. You will just have to shriek 'Bleeeeewoowoowoo' in front of a stray dog's face and you will be transported there. You might have to be prepared to sacrifice your life, but that will be the least of your worries as you will have Medulla Oblongata and me covering your back. We're trained in combat against T-rexes.

 

---

 

I deeply resent these 'tags' , but Prayag held a water gun in front of my nose so I was forced into doing it.

 

1. THE ULTIMATE TRUTH
  One day, a spider armed with a water gun and numerous water balloons will kill me .

2. DONT WEAR A HELMET IF...
   It looks at you in the eye and hiccups. You may be in danger of morphing into a helmet.

3. WHAT IS THE LAST THING YOU WATCHED ON TV
     Spongebob Squarepants advertising for water guns. Mommy!!

4.WITHOUT LOOKING GUESS WHAT TIME IT IS..
    I won't tell you. What are you gonna do, point a water gun at my nose??

5.NOW LOOK AT THE CLOCK.WHAT TIME IS IT...

  I'm not telling you that either.

6.WITH THE EXCEPTION OF THE COMPUTER WHAT CAN YOU HEAR.
   My square cushions talking to my lion cushion.

7.WHEN DID YOU LAST STEP OUTSIDE? WHAT WERE YOU DOING?

  Last night. I was playing hop skip and jump.

 
 8.BEFORE YOU STARTED THIS SURVEY WHAT WERE YOU LOOKING AT? 

    Vlad the Impaler's picture. He gave it to me and told me he was in love with me.

9.WHAT ARE YOU WEARING??
   A clown's jumpsuit.

10.DID YOU DREAM LAST NIGHT??
  Affirmative. I dreamed I was smiling at my Chemistry teacher and she was smiling back at me. Only she didn't have and teeth.

11.WHEN DID YOU LAST LAUGH....

      What are you going to do once you know that information?  It's unable for me to laugh as my jaws are allergic to each other and can just hang open.

12.WHAT IS ON THE WALLS OF THE ROOM YOUR IN??

     Pink butterfly stickers , pink balloons and pink frilly thingummies . 

      

13.SEEN ANYTHING WIERD LATELY??

      Yes. My t.v suddenly belched and a pink bunny with hypnotizing eyes fell out .

 

14.WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THIS QUIZ??

     It's rubbish.
 
15.WHAT IS THE LAST FILM YOU SAW?
     The Day Pink Bunnies Ruled the World. 

16.IF YOU BECOME A MULTI-MILLIONAIRE OVERNIGHT WHAT WOULD YOU BUY?

      Oreo-Ammunition P34 so I could bullet whoever wrote this with water-melon grenades. And everything on my wishlist .:)

    

17.TELL ME SOMETHING ABOUT YOU I DONT KNOW...

      I tend to morph into inanimate objects when I feel a particular feeling coursing through my veins.
     

18.IF YOU COULD CHANGE ONE THING IN THE WORLD REGARDLESS OF GUILT AND POLITICS WHAT WOULD YOU DO??

I'll make pink bunnies jump all around the surface of the earth. And decorate it with pink frills.:P

 

  

    

19.DO YOU LIKE TO DANCE??

       That solely depends on what you call 'dance'.  

 

20.GEORGE BUSH?

    He should be spanked on his heinie. And someone should tie a pink bib around his neck and put a pink bow on his head.
     

21.IMAGINE YOUR FIRST CHILD IS A GIRL WHAT WOULD YOU CALL HER??

    Kuppuswamini Sally Yadavagini.

22.IF IT IS A BOY??
   Keshavakuppuswami Bob Sissypapa

 23.3 people you want to tag....

Maths classes were starting today, so I went to this stationary shop yesterday to get myself a notebook. I entered and saw the attendant or whatever he was standing behind the counter and beaming at me. He was that shifty kind who always beam at people but secretly plan your demise . I beamed back at him, my mood being nothing short of happy.

 He was attending to some other person who was wearing multi- coloured shades. Not giving much thought as to why people would wear multi-coloured shades at night I drummed my fingers on the counter. A minute of drumming my fingers on the table passed and finally, the beaming feller looked at me and beamed again. I beamed back again and asked for a long notebook. He beamed again and took out three long note books and slid it suavely across the counter. What is it with people and trying to act suave these days, I wondered. Just yesterday, my grand mum’s maid had spectacularly flung a chapatti being careful to spin it a tad before it landed neatly in the casserole.Suave. She then looked at me and smiled patronizingly at my lame attempt at making a chapatti. Pah.

 Anyway, coming back to the beaming attendant. I asked him for a particular Navneet notebook, being kind of attached to the things. He immediately bent down and slid another book across the table. Before I could pick it up, he beamed at me again and said, “Why don’t you take an ITC book, hey?”

“Er, no,” I said in broken Hindi. “This’ll do.”

“No, no,” he said, beaming again. He bent down for the third time and suavely slid another book across the table. He opened the Navneet book and the ITC book, looking at me like I was a little kid not understanding why 1+1 was equal to 2.

“See,” he said, indicating with a gentle curl and uncurl of his grubby fingers, “Look at the qvaaality of this book, ma.”

“Um.” I compared the two, trying to notice any minute details. Nada.

“See, ma.” He said, “Passing a hand delicately along the pages. “ Look at the class” He said, rolling his tongue so that ‘class’ sounded, according to him , close to regal.

“Yeah,” I said, nodding uncomprehendingly. “Um, that’s okay; I’ll just take the Navneet book.”

“No, ma,” He said, thrusting both the books under my nose.

“Look,” he said, commanding me to see what the normal could not.

“Class.” He said, rolling his tongue some more.

He turned both the books over and pointed to the little details of the books in a little square thingummy. “See, ITC book is better!”

This was not so. The details were the same.

He pointed to a miniscule sentence at the end: Paper: 60gsm.

“See?” He said, jutting out his lower lip. “Better quality, better class .Buy this.”

“What is gsm?” I asked politely.

“gsm means thickness.” He said, like a dad patting the little girl on her head and explaining that one barbie doll plus another would give you two.

He beamed at me again.

“Ah,” I said, noticing that the other one had ‘59 gsm’ written in the square thingummy.

“Take ma, he said, thrusting it into my hands.”

“ITC book is 2 rupees less also.”

“Okay,” I said, fishing out some paisa from my pocket.

The beaming feller beamed at me profusely in triumph, revealing a row of paan-stained teeth. Yech.

He passed me the book and gave me one last beam.

I beamed back and made my way put of the store, making a mental note not to beam back at beaming attendants in case they tried having this whole can’t-you-see-what-I-can-see conversation.

  First the smell came wafting in . That soothing, pleasing aroma of wet stones and cement and leaves and whatever else it took to make that smell. She looked at the drawn curtain, her eyebrows furrowed, her forehead wrinkled.

  Then her ears picked up the sound. That light pitter-patter, gentle noise of fast falling, crystal-like transparent raindrops hitting the tarred roads. She looked at the drawn curtain again, her face not showing any particular emotion and looked away.

  Then things started falling in place. She wrenched the curtains open and looked outside. For a minute, she just looked, taking in the tiny yellow flowers strewn all over the now wet road with puddles of dark liquid, the huge tree bearing the yellow flowers which was stooping down, bent low over the road like a huge canopy and the raindrops that were falling faster than the tiny yellow flowers. Her lips slid sideways into a little smile. Her eyelids dropped a little lower and she cocked her head to a side, letting her face take over a dreamy expression.

 

  Isn't it just magical when it rains? You feel your insides melting, your mind clearing. You feel happy, sublime, calm. You feel better and more relaxed than any masseuse or masseur can make you feel.

 

  It stopped raining a minute later, but she still continued to look outside, her head still tilted to one side, her expression still dreamy.

WARNING: This is a warning .Obviously, when someone writes 'warning', it is undoubtedly nothing else but a warning. I thought I'd just take a little more precaution and say it again.So this is a warning. If you are already in the crutches of boredom, do yourself a favour and don't read this. I wrote it when I was nodding myself to sleep. 

---

  

Citrusseed was not an ordinary boy. He was far from ordinary. You see, Citrusseed was an orange. One can very well understand what it would be like to be an orange. For one, one would have concentrated liquid packed neatly in transparent cells for a brain which do nothing except convey sweet taste to taste buds. Also, one would have seeds in their body which wouldn’t be of much use unless those seeds came in contact with soil which is favourable for it’s growth and also had the apt temperature and just the right amount of a raindrop shower.

 Outside, Citrusseed was like any other orange. Spherical in shape and the colour of a vivid orange mingled with a raw green. Citrusseed was immobile unless you gave him a little push on a smooth surface. Like any other orange. But even among the oranges, ordinary was not a word that was associated with Citrusseed. A feeling of curiosity will be picqued even in the dimmest and crudest of Homo sapiens on reading the previous sentence. I shall thus expound it. Apart from being unable to supply the right amount of Ascorbic Acid, Citrusseed had another problem. He was, the other oranges felt, a bit touched. You see, it didn’t occur to Citrusseed that he was an orange. He was, however, still proud of his vivid hues and his spherical shape. Many an orange did scorn him for not being able to realize what he was.

  

 He was then was taken to a place with shelves and shelves of fruits of assorted colours and different shapes. He was unceremoniously thrown into a basket full of other oranges. They too, scorned him when they learned that he did not think he was an orange.

 Then a day came when a lady human picked him up and put him into a bag with some other oranges. She was with a girl human who had her nose buried in something he later learned to be called ‘a book’. He was then later put into an unsymmetrical wooden ‘fruit bowl’ with some other fruits. Then, a day later, the girl human picked him up. He tried explaining to her in mute tones that he was not an orange and was, in fact, something else. She did not seem to grasp the fact; her face was expressionless. She then proceeded to deepen the little dent on his body till a little hole appeared. You can guess what happened. Citrusseed was torn apart and eaten.  

Till date, he rests in the girl human’s body, his transparent cells of concentrated liquid nonexistent, his perfect spherical shape now in shreds, probably in a dumpster. But  whatever little of his Ascorbic Acid remained in her body did manage to think that it didn’t matter if you thought  you were an orange or not, when you appeared to be the same both ways and almost always got the same end.