Little stories for you and me
Most of our school friends have died. We didn’t even show the courtesy to send an invitation for the funeral of our friendship. It’s strange and yet so compellingly familiar. So many of those we spent so much of our time with once upon a time are totally out of the picture today. Feels like a different lifetime when we learnt how to ride a bicycle together or stole fallen jamuns from the verandah of that wealthy house in the neighbourhood. All that and much more is gone; they are nowhere to be seen. Along with the memories, persons have disappeared too. They are not on Facebook or Instagram or Twitter. They can’t possibly be on our contact lists. For lack of context and contact, we aren’t there for one another any longer. In other words, we are dead for each other.
Strength respects strength. I know this for a fact because I am a weakling. I’ve never stood up for anybody, including myself, in my entire life. I’ve committed a few forgettable deeds of kindness for fellow humans as well as non-humans but that’s it. Cowardice comes naturally to me. Over the course of years, I’ve learnt to disseminate my core nature into something it’s not: nihilism. What’s the point in being brave when nothing is going to change and we’re going to perish any given day? Turns out this line of thought is misguided thanks to the sheer importance it places on heroism. The thing about courage is you can’t take a day off. Once courageous, always courageous. I was gyaning the same to Swati that we can’t remove the hat of courage just because we don’t feel like wearing it anymore. To which, she quipped, “Well, we need to buy the hat first. Courage can follow later.”
The other day, I was talking to Chandu, one of my favourite humans, and we started discussing dreams. Not the ones we watch with our eyes open but the ones we watch with our eyes closed. And we all know how weird they can get. He shared some of his wildest dreams, including the one where he woke up and walked to another room and slept on the floor itself only to wake up in the morning to find himself in the same room he had originally passed out in! I told him about this nightmare where the world has ended and I am the only one on the road and there is water all around; I am chest-deep in the sewage-y rivulet. While wading through, I glance upon the book Aastha had given me two weeks earlier. It’s floating and I am trying to reach it as it furthers away from me. Finally, as I am about to grab it, it drowns. At that point, I wake up with a strong jolt and restlessly look for the book. It’s resting on the bed stand and as my eye meet the book in the AC-lit room, a drop of water hits the tiny puddle forming on surface of the cover. The AC duct is leaking above.
My dad is a man of few words unless something is bothering him and he doesn’t want to confide in his wife. That’s when he calls me and flushes stuff out of his system. He recently told me that he often thinks of his father nowadays. Which is a bit out-of-the-script because he passed away when I was about two years old. They loved each other a lot but at the end of the bargain, my dad ended up owning more than his fair share of domestic responsibilities. And when you have to quit school at 13 and start working, you aren’t left with a lot of PDA. However, he never complained, particularly not to grandpa and carried on the yoke of familial duties. Perhaps, now, he realizes that love is not equal to duty. It’d have helped if there were kind exchanges of words and maybe hugs that never took place. In all practicality, chances are my father is finally coming to terms with the truth of being an orphan at 71.
There are persons and then there are sport fans. A sport fan can’t see things properly because the lens of fandom obscures their view. For instance, somebody messaged last week me asking me to refrain from retweeting news related to Cristiano Ronaldo’s alleged rape case(s). Seems like his priorities are clear: the #MeToo movement can’t hold a candle to my blind love for a footballer. Lack of basic decency aside, it’s intriguing how we tend to forgive our so-called superstars despite piling evidence suggesting they are frailer than the paupers among us.
I don’t sleep well. As ironic as it may sound, I haven’t slept well since I left my first job in 2011. I am currently in third job. And I was working graveyard shift back then. For reasons best left to science, I remember sleeping well through the day. Or maybe we are blessed with the most updated version of Photoshop when it comes to memories. But it’s all right because there are people out there who suffer from insomnia. I can at least fall asleep. Just that I can’t sustain it long enough. Sleeping, for me, is like a task where I keep waking up and then I keep forcing myself to go back to sleep — waiting for the dawn to put me out of my misery. The only upside being I haven’t taken to alcohol or drugs so far. Somebody weaker would have… by now!
