(Post started on: 13th May 2006 12.57 a.m.)
August is a regal month. Grand like the emperor it is named after. It is the month of showers, of holidays, of Raksha Bandhan, of semester beginnings. But perhaps I will remember it for one more factor. 'It' had come uninvited in August. Turned up. Just like that. Then 'it' was murdered. Who did it? Perhaps one. Perhaps many. Perhaps none. I will never know. Perhaps this is what happens when you lack legs, when you prefer coiling up to sitting down and to top it all, when you turn in uninvited. It's a killer concoction. Literally.
It was a few days after the 'flood' and a few days before the date I had chosen to grace the Graduate Record Examination. The inundation had, in the most indiscreet and depraved fashion, played havoc with my time-table. The disorientation, impairment, haste, panic had finally given way to sense, calm, order, reason. I thought I had settled down, by that day atleast. Finally, to life with its mundanity, to satisfaction with the ordinary and the expectation of the quotidian.
That day started like the usual days started then. Late. At noon almost. The day was not sunny. But it was also not raining. The heavens were a mixture of black and blue. The light was soft. The winds were weak, more like a breeze. The skies had been more than extravagant earlier. The weather was trying its best to appear threatening. It only managed to appear exceedingly pleasant. That happens when you have spent yourself, done much more already than you ought to have. Transience of thought and an impending fear were the only facts that bound me inside reading wordlists. It was not that important but it doesn't matter. I thought it to be important.
As the clock chimed two, I sat down. For my daily tryst with morality, ethics, art, science. Condensed into 45 minutes. Simple, sweet and served at short notice. The only area of intimate concern and worry to me here, was that I was supposed to prepare, spice, season and serve it. They also call it an exercise in essay writing, an exercise in presenting views, notions, contentions; easily chewable, digestible, assimilable. It was worth 6 points in the GRE. It was the part every test, mock or otherwise, inaugurated with. The Kaplan mock tests did not display their rebellious non-conformist attitude in the beginning, for the initial test of writing skills. They stuck to morality, ethics, art, science, the whole deal.
The topic did not disappoint me that day. It dealt with ethical dilemmas.The usual dilemmas, everyday stuff. Right, wrong. Correct, incorrect. Black, white. Or grey. Custom-made, for custom-made answers. I started thinking. Then, I started typing. Ethics are very important, especially for the GRE. Typing is also important: 700 words, 45 minutes.
I was somewhere in the somewhere in the middle of quantifying and comparing the estimable the heinous, when I could make out the first traces of the commotion outside. Something was unsual. Perhaps a raucous child was separated from his fragile ego, the whole and sole of which was invested in his only toy. Expectations and approximations however, have an irritable and infallible tendency of conforming rarely with reality. I listened some more, pretty unsurreptiously interrupted and disrupted. My hands dealt with the keyboard like everyday. Thought took a backdrop, but expression continued. It seemed the commotion was drawing near. Individual words were perceivable. Snake... Its moving fast... Its entered his house. My doorstep was host to an assortment of neighbours now. The proximity of the cacaphony indicated that the reptilian visitor had chosen my abode. I sat still. But my hands refused any attempts to tranquility. They were still busy churning out words. Perhaps it was a tranquil state for them. It happens when you do something too many times.
My family was at the doorstep now, greeting the stranger, the stranger from the strange land. Its moved beneath the cot. I sat up with that, perhaps physically. My fingers were talking, dancing, typing. The excitement in the air was palpable. You could touch it, feel it, kiss it and preserve it for a later day. A later day when the talking fingers could give it a handful. Close the doors. Communicating with a stranger is laborious, if the tongues are different. It is downright impossible, if they are physically so. A language does not merely communicate, it connects, endears, bonds, it makes the stranger feel at home. But stranger was not home. A flood does not discriminate. It also does not rehabilitate. Get the stick out. It was thirty minutes. My fingers stopped dancing, playing. The greater good was justified. 600 words is enough justification.
I rushed outside, somewhere between the triumvirate of the still cot, the panicky neighbours and the agitated household. Insecurity was pervasive, the air reeked of it. It passed through your nostrils and inundated your senses. Insecurity was stamped under the cot too. No language made the stranger feel home. Whack! It hit the tail.But no one cried. Language, expression and communication lead to trust. Trust that allows humans to exist. Trust that prevents people from roaming around the streets weilding bludgeons and trashing each other at the slightest suspicion. Everyone on the street is not out to get me and I am not out to get anyone else. This is one of the fundamental axioms of humanity. A calibrated trust pervades society, permits existence and enhances growth.
Its moving from beneath the cot. A flash of black followed that statement. Home! It searched for it. Lunged for it, from beneath the cot. The one place where understanding prevails, where security does not cause the air to go foul. A reptile does not have legs, but it moves fast. It can even descend steps, faster than me. But it can only run in my land. It cannot leave for its own.
A bicycle parked makes for a makeshift, eventful home. It also makes an insecure home, for a stranger in a strange land. It will trouble someone else now. The first blow missed the head by a whisker. The coiled form was agitated, searching. There was no space for uncoiling between the front wheels. Whack! The head was pulp. Mistakes may happen once but they do not continue in perpetuity. The searching eyes were obliterated. It was still, almost coiled. The air was losing its heaviness. The ruckus was subsiding. There was a crowd around it. A crowd of civilization, education, security.
I rushed inside, within time. 45 minutes were just over. Another section was waiting for me.
August is a regal month. Grand like the emperor it is named after. It is the month of showers, of holidays, of Raksha Bandhan, of semester beginnings. But perhaps I will remember it for one more factor. 'It' had come uninvited in August. Turned up. Just like that. Then 'it' was murdered. Who did it? Perhaps one. Perhaps many. Perhaps none. I will never know. Perhaps this is what happens when you lack legs, when you prefer coiling up to sitting down and to top it all, when you turn in uninvited. It's a killer concoction. Literally.
It was a few days after the 'flood' and a few days before the date I had chosen to grace the Graduate Record Examination. The inundation had, in the most indiscreet and depraved fashion, played havoc with my time-table. The disorientation, impairment, haste, panic had finally given way to sense, calm, order, reason. I thought I had settled down, by that day atleast. Finally, to life with its mundanity, to satisfaction with the ordinary and the expectation of the quotidian.
That day started like the usual days started then. Late. At noon almost. The day was not sunny. But it was also not raining. The heavens were a mixture of black and blue. The light was soft. The winds were weak, more like a breeze. The skies had been more than extravagant earlier. The weather was trying its best to appear threatening. It only managed to appear exceedingly pleasant. That happens when you have spent yourself, done much more already than you ought to have. Transience of thought and an impending fear were the only facts that bound me inside reading wordlists. It was not that important but it doesn't matter. I thought it to be important.
As the clock chimed two, I sat down. For my daily tryst with morality, ethics, art, science. Condensed into 45 minutes. Simple, sweet and served at short notice. The only area of intimate concern and worry to me here, was that I was supposed to prepare, spice, season and serve it. They also call it an exercise in essay writing, an exercise in presenting views, notions, contentions; easily chewable, digestible, assimilable. It was worth 6 points in the GRE. It was the part every test, mock or otherwise, inaugurated with. The Kaplan mock tests did not display their rebellious non-conformist attitude in the beginning, for the initial test of writing skills. They stuck to morality, ethics, art, science, the whole deal.
The topic did not disappoint me that day. It dealt with ethical dilemmas.The usual dilemmas, everyday stuff. Right, wrong. Correct, incorrect. Black, white. Or grey. Custom-made, for custom-made answers. I started thinking. Then, I started typing. Ethics are very important, especially for the GRE. Typing is also important: 700 words, 45 minutes.
I was somewhere in the somewhere in the middle of quantifying and comparing the estimable the heinous, when I could make out the first traces of the commotion outside. Something was unsual. Perhaps a raucous child was separated from his fragile ego, the whole and sole of which was invested in his only toy. Expectations and approximations however, have an irritable and infallible tendency of conforming rarely with reality. I listened some more, pretty unsurreptiously interrupted and disrupted. My hands dealt with the keyboard like everyday. Thought took a backdrop, but expression continued. It seemed the commotion was drawing near. Individual words were perceivable. Snake... Its moving fast... Its entered his house. My doorstep was host to an assortment of neighbours now. The proximity of the cacaphony indicated that the reptilian visitor had chosen my abode. I sat still. But my hands refused any attempts to tranquility. They were still busy churning out words. Perhaps it was a tranquil state for them. It happens when you do something too many times.
My family was at the doorstep now, greeting the stranger, the stranger from the strange land. Its moved beneath the cot. I sat up with that, perhaps physically. My fingers were talking, dancing, typing. The excitement in the air was palpable. You could touch it, feel it, kiss it and preserve it for a later day. A later day when the talking fingers could give it a handful. Close the doors. Communicating with a stranger is laborious, if the tongues are different. It is downright impossible, if they are physically so. A language does not merely communicate, it connects, endears, bonds, it makes the stranger feel at home. But stranger was not home. A flood does not discriminate. It also does not rehabilitate. Get the stick out. It was thirty minutes. My fingers stopped dancing, playing. The greater good was justified. 600 words is enough justification.
I rushed outside, somewhere between the triumvirate of the still cot, the panicky neighbours and the agitated household. Insecurity was pervasive, the air reeked of it. It passed through your nostrils and inundated your senses. Insecurity was stamped under the cot too. No language made the stranger feel home. Whack! It hit the tail.But no one cried. Language, expression and communication lead to trust. Trust that allows humans to exist. Trust that prevents people from roaming around the streets weilding bludgeons and trashing each other at the slightest suspicion. Everyone on the street is not out to get me and I am not out to get anyone else. This is one of the fundamental axioms of humanity. A calibrated trust pervades society, permits existence and enhances growth.
Its moving from beneath the cot. A flash of black followed that statement. Home! It searched for it. Lunged for it, from beneath the cot. The one place where understanding prevails, where security does not cause the air to go foul. A reptile does not have legs, but it moves fast. It can even descend steps, faster than me. But it can only run in my land. It cannot leave for its own.
A bicycle parked makes for a makeshift, eventful home. It also makes an insecure home, for a stranger in a strange land. It will trouble someone else now. The first blow missed the head by a whisker. The coiled form was agitated, searching. There was no space for uncoiling between the front wheels. Whack! The head was pulp. Mistakes may happen once but they do not continue in perpetuity. The searching eyes were obliterated. It was still, almost coiled. The air was losing its heaviness. The ruckus was subsiding. There was a crowd around it. A crowd of civilization, education, security.
I rushed inside, within time. 45 minutes were just over. Another section was waiting for me.
