The HaLL RooM SoFa and “PeA- caR -ToM PasTa”

I threw my backpack on the ground, drooling over the tag which read“ Ego” the brand name attached to it , the house looks more like a graveyard in its secluded serenity. It feels a lot more undisputed and unperturbed when it is living alone for 10 days. The time I always crave for , being all by myself and doing all that I want ,reigning over every furniture in the house staring and telling them “look, all u asses better listen to what I say”. The old sofa sounds a tad more comforting than it usually is, deciding to take its quota of rest before all the folks arrive and cause that awful ache on its head. I look at the pitiable state of the sofa and stamp on the velvety couch, the poor four legged thing reacts with fluffy wrinkles on its head signaling me to retreat and show some empathy, but I don’t find it necessary to heed to a really insignificant plea which diminishes my comfort. I put my hand all over it and jump on its head with my knee still stamping on it. The sofa finally succumbed and gives up the last optimism of its soporific time. I smirk in euphoric silence…
Well, here commences my maiden endeavor inside the most creative place in the world “ the kitchen” I tell myself to be as innovative as a puddle dogs tail and pull myself up to look at the multihued cooking recipe contoured in stark black stripes and spread over a pink sheet of paper. The recipe read “pea-car-tom pasta” ,yep it exactly read “pea car tom” which I assumed to be a suave abbreviation for peas carrot and tomato ( gosh! Why can’t people stop being eerie). The dish looked like one big birthday party area with the most bright and dark colors blended to it, in audacious hypocrisy. I sliced pea-car-tom in quantitative proportions and lit the cylinder, keeping the pan filled with cooking oil on it. The oil fumed as soon as it started absorbing the heat. My nostrils filled with oily air , I serenely put all the neatly chopped pea car tom into the fuming oil. The oil ruptured up in frenzy throwing some of its fury on my finger tips like I intercepted its threesome mating with the pan and the fire. The pea –car- tom mingled like new babies in a kindergarten attempting to get orgy and refrain from being phony. The pan looked smeared on its face with the red and green colors and a radiant orange playing hide and seeks. The recipe then instructed me to add proportionate quantities of chili powder and salt, then stir till the whole mixture is cooked, I dutifully follow my recipe book s instruction with a nice triumphant smile on my lips for the flourishing beginning. After the whole blend is cooked the thoughtful recipe book this time instructs to add half a glass of milk into the mixture and I obediently follow with the blindest eye in the globe, it then asks me to close the lid and shake the mixture till fluff appears on the top of the mix, I oblige and follow my master without actually knowing whether to turn off the cylinder or not, I go by instinct and decide not to turn it off ( yeah , instinct is a the cheapest advisers) finally after some desperate and rigorous shaking and some ”grr” moments, I manage to find those fluff on the entire blend. Yuppie! I tell myself sounding like a hopping grasshopper finding food for winter, the blend effortlessness seeps into my nostrils and the tinge fills my taste buds through my nose. I still cannot predict the final outcome as further the recipe book commands me to mix 5 ice cubes and vanilla essence into the gracious and elegant mixture in the cooking pan. Without being dubious I pull out the tray of ice from the fridge and add it along with the vanilla essence, then it again orders me to shake the mixture well as if shaking was as important as breathing in this procedure. Again I worked by instinct and added the pasta, the polite and kinky pasta was obviously the inevitable item to be added ultimately as the dish itself was named “pea – car –tom pasta”, so there was nt a need for mentioning that addition in my recipe book. The mixture is then shaken in the pan and kept on the cylinder for 5 – 10 mins to be completely cooked. TADAH …the pea-car-tom is as ready as a prostitute looking out for a customer.
I admired the exquisiteness of its body , the white background gelling graciously with my tranquil house and the zig zag stripe running between the background looked like a river flowing thru the paddy fields, the impish pasta creeping in and out , but the real protagonists were missing out of action and buried in that effervescent background looking like they were planning a conspiracy with the cooking pan for having put them underground. I emptied the pan into a new plate and made it look like it was dressed in a brand new gown. I scurried towards the hall room and again destroyed my sofa s time of tranquility. This time I sensed an attempt to retaliate but that poor thing was as useless as a sleeping sloth. BAHH…I arranged the table in front of my sofa and kept the dish on it , during this time a god forsaken stench filled my nose but it was too insignificant during this minute of triumph which looked like having discovered the key to a better life, again the stench filled all the airs near me but my psyche was too ignorant. I sat down on my sofa like the king of the universe and put my fork into the dish , the fork gently went thru my piece of classic and appeased my heart, I picked up the first spoonful of “pasta pea car tom “ and crammed the whole god dam thing into my watered-down mouth…… my heart hit a speed breaker and humped back and forth, I pulled down my adams apple and tasted the mixture……buahhhhhhhhhh ……I went………… it engulfed my mouth like hyenas’ attacking a prey, my eyes were red and the chilly beguiled its way into my nose, the entire spoonful of “pasta pea car tom “ was attacking each of my taste buds and it tasted like a piece of shit mixed with chilly and rotten eggs along with a tinge of raw bitter gourd. I ran into the kitchen with a burning tongue and a corrupted stomach, trusting my mouth under the tap. When I finally managed to find some solace from the baked piece of chilly shit “pasta pea car tom” I strolled back into the kitchen and looked at the recipe book above it read “vanilla milk shake” and the next page read “ pasta pea car tom”, I picked up the recipe book and threw it out of the window in a fit of disgusted agony, then pulled myself to the hall and stared at the sofa which was shrewdly smiling at my vulnerability , I looked down and flushed that uncanny piece of diet into the place where it belongs , the corny lavatory. I threw myself on the ground and gazed at the ceiling expressing divine unrest and perky ambiguity over this genuine act of imprudence.
I picked up the cushions and placed it on the sofa carefully and put down the covers gently on it, then dusted it with my palm and smiled at it, the hands of the sofa probably winked at me in that weird moment of hallucination. At least I had made peace with my poor hall room sofa which never looked disgusted with me thereafter, at times even giving me the warm siesta…as for my meal , well my stomach was full with that one attempt at cooking as I yearn for all the family members to return back from their short vacation and I realize the age old saying that happiness is real only when its shared(plagiarism looming over)…zzzzzz

the afflictions of a beast

The afflictions of a beast
“Grr!” The petite herbivore elopes my fangs,
I look in dismay over the fields,
Awaiting another attack,
Hiding amidst the tall grass,
The dancing being pulls itself,
And makes its way into my trap,
I look ahead and watch its shadow,
Make my fangs kiss its claws,
The glob of spit drawing a globe on the ground,
The poor “beguiled and seized”,
Stands across my “ravenous trap “
I sprint into its naïve spirit,
Claw and fangs crushed on its neck,
It bleeds and spurts a “brook of blood”
As I devour into its pitiable corpse ,
The grave is dug in my belly,
Its soul rests with the wilderness dust…
The trees hail my audacious hunt,
“Obligated!” They provide me shelter from the sun,
Siesta seeps into my blood,
The crashing sounds of an unwelcome visitor alter my rest,
I seek a refuge under another chest,
The brawl of an elephant shifts my gaze,
I stare into the wilderness under siege,
A voracious fang hits my stripes filled torso,
A blinded hand ‘playing death’,
I look around for answers and the assailant,
As my sight goes blinded and my heart halts its bump,
I see the singing birds, weeping my end,
The trees and the herbivore singing an elegy,
An upheaval beast passes my gaze,
Looks at me and smiles in rage,
I thought “I was the beast with the apex greed”
The beast under my gaze held me wrong,
My existence depended on my butchery,
This beast lived to butcher a million ways….
I did nt know an iron slab could end my hunt,
I did nt know my presence was to him ,
Like the herbivore was to me……………………………………………………………

The audacity of youth is its clout to rip the norms and carve a new beginning for generations to brood and change. Change has always been synonymous to the youth, over the years the most malevolent leaders succumbed to the power of change. We try to relate change and revolution, revolution ensues where change begins, there were kings, there were emperors and then there were dictators, who made the path to change much more contentious. Some tried to conquer the world, others tried to fight without picking a weapon. Change has always been a part of basic human retaliation and human foreboding. When Barack Obama stood on that POW (power of the world) podium saying “yes we can” he meant yes “change can”. Over the ages one sentiment which has always flouted across the bounds of religions, languages, geography and wars has been the propensity of the human race to accept and live with the change. Change does not just crib over the past that sprouted it out; it takes out a leaf from the past and signals the future to ponder over its birth. The great king of SUSI once said “I don’t see any change in the world, the world has not change, it’s the perspective of change that has changed”. If u r wondering who the great king of SUSI is, wondering will only bring him glory and a piece of our psyche. Stop wondering. When I was a kid , I had a fascination for those kinky small cars, the glossy stickers, double Decker compass box and the juvenile wonders of the world, it bowed to alcohol, cigarettes and drugs with the mature psyche( ironical ). Change does not necessarily bring the desired results every time, but it does increase the probability of the desired result. When I bowed to alcohol and its co cousins, it was nt change that played the anchor, it was my craving to play GOD with the change which eventually triumphed. “Playing GOD” this has always been the contours of every undesired change and every unsteady result. The revolutionaries of our independence preferred this, but it was the far more resilient and “matter-of-fact ways of the mind folks” who stood the ground till the very end and increased the proximity of independence in each stance. The folks who tried to play god fell on their nose and fell because of an emphatic lure towards unilateral change, an exercise not for a better hope, but an omnipotent yearning for notice of the masses, for the self fulfillment.

When the historical decriminalizing homo sexuality was passed, the suave said “it was one of the supreme human rights acts ever to pass thru the Indian judiciary”, and the layman in his indignant and ignorant tone said, “kya malum,dimag ghum gaya hain” , this law does not provide an assurance for a better future or an inevitable past, it just seeped thru the age old cliché s , not the uncanny sordid change, but a far more tranquil and fore thought alteration in the larger interest . Change can never have the power to rationalize and provide the renaissance without being orchestrated and festooned with the might of human judgment and perseverance. The accord that comes with every changing generation is to appraise the past and dismiss its demons after realizing its wrath, which is when the desired results appease. Galileo said the earth is round and not flat as was believed and preached by the church, he was granted death. Had he said this fact with a lot more manipulation and without mocking the traditional belief, probably history would not have been the same. No one likes to be challenged downright on the face, and it becomes shoddier when it is an institution enjoying trust and conviction of millions. The dilemma with abrupt change is that it does nt fill enough space of the shoes which has been vacated by the past. The past has to be clean like a snow to accept this fortnight twist but bequeathing a snow clean past is like finding a clean pebble which has nt been touched by flow of the river. A lot of wars , catastrophes and civil unrest could have been avoided if they had realized the magnitude of this thought . Let’s just put it in the right perspective, Gregory davit Roberts in his book shantaram said “a lot of things in this world have become worse because someone tried to change it”, change is indubitably mandatory, as mandatory as civilization and wars sometimes are, but it should never be at the cost of an erratically designed future. Faith Baldwin once said “time is a dressmaker specializing in alteration”, so let us leave it partly to time and partly to our sense to elucidate the results for a better society and ideally a better world.