Love Story 2020

“Cold feet. I think that’s what they are called. And right now.. I have two of those. I’m sorry.. I just can’t do this. Bye..”

I wrote these words on the back of an envelope and slid it under her door. And then I ran away. Where? Why? I couldn’t have missed the final match of the series.. could I? I had booked my tickets over the net and cut the payment of the light-man instead. That explains why no one saw me fleeing from the scene of the marriage. She isn’t my first love.. Cricket is.. coz, I dunno why.. she gets kinda’ boring sometimes.. but Cricket nevverrr does..

So like I am sitting here in my club-house seat like I had always dreamt of.. Plush upholstery, spectacular view, great music, conditioned air, cheerleaders dancing a few feet from me, another spectacular view, et. aliae. Till now, I had only watched matches seated in the back alleys. I was actually living my dream today!

All’s set and the match begins. First ball.. batsman flicks it to his leg and mid-on gets hold of it with a brilliant dive, but can’t save a run from being taken. The entire club house nods in acknowledgement of the outstanding effort and some even clap.

Next delivery, ball swings away, a hit and a miss.. another round of “Awww”s and “Ooooh”s.

Next delivery, the ball swings back in and that’s all I can see before my phone begins to ring and I have to frantically search my pockets so as to turn it off. One guy points to a little sign that says “Please switch off your mobiles. Thank you.”

I am rather flustered and almost blushing with embarrassment when I notice that the entire crowd is outraged and infuriated with something. That inswinger had wrapped the batsman on his pads and he was given out LBW. Shit! Coz of my stupid phone I missed the first wicket. “Who the heck was it”, I thought, and saw that she was calling. I turned my mobile off and looked at the scoreboard with a touch of dismay.

1/1.. Why does that sound familiar? Oh ya.. I remember, it’s her birth date.. the 1st of Jan. the day (or was it night) when I had ran into her at Toscas’ and met her for the first time..

Anyways.. What a silly coincidence.. she calls and just then, a wicket falls.. maybe that’s why they make you switch off your phones in here.

The captain decided that he wanted to utilize the powerplays to the hilt, and sent a pinch-hitter up the order. The guy hits a four the first delivery, a six on the other and then takes a single to retain strike.

12/1.. The second time we met.. I was giving a guitar demo at a music store and she was out there buying ‘Coldplay’. She loved my voice, took my number and autograph on the CD- “A Rush of Blood To The Head”. Oh Boy! It sure was!


The pinch-hitter resumes, it’s an outswinger, runs it down to third-man, takes a single. The other opener is a seasoned campaigner. He understands that the pitch has some bite in it and plays with considerable amount of caution. He pushes and prods for the next three deliveries and on the fourth, plays it with soft hands and takes a quick single. The pinch-hitter on the other end has been patient long enough, he throws caution to the winds and heaves the ball miles into the sky. The keeper gloves it, and the scoreboard reads:

14/2.. Oh.. my.. god.. Valentine’s Day.. The day she had called me up and said she was quitting her job. Now that would’ve been an absolute tragedy.. coz as hard as I find to admit it, she gets a heavier pay-packet than I do.. way heavier.. I ran to her office.. called her down, took her to the nearest cafe.. tried to talk her out of it.. but she wouldn’t budge. She kept saying “It’s just too demeaning a job for me answering stupid calls all day..” Not knowing what to do, I just picked up the guitar hanging on the wall behind her, and sang “The Scientist” for her.. and ending on “You don't know how lovely you are..” I proposed to her.. she agreed.. and I understood, she wasn’t quitting..


The batsmen changed ends, another pinch-hitter sent, a four was struck, another rash shot and caught at third man.

18/3.. the day I met her parents over dinner.. the day they shunned me from ever laying a foot in their house until I got a ‘safe’ job. The day she almost cut her wrist.. I mean she did, but not completely.. and I had to run half a mile carrying that bleeding angel in my arms..

Play resumes… A stunning Yorker.. another wicket..

18/4.. after working for a month as an attendant at a music store I showed her parents my first paycheck. And they agreed. Maybe it was or was it not.. I don’t exactly remember.. but it was pretty close to being labeled as the happiest day of my life...


The captain walks out.. carefully examines the pitch, makes a few marks and he is set. Defends the first, and takes a single at the second delivery. The umpire raises his arm half way along his side. It was a No-Ball. Free Hit. The crowd goes berserk. The batsman makes room and gives the ball a mighty thwack! FOUR!!

But a free hit is like a heady shot of vodka.. it doesn’t come without a hangover. He tries his luck once again, but this time, caught at mid-wicket.

24/5.. The day I found out about her previous affair.. a very serious previous affair.. the day I almost regretted meeting her..


The captain is facing now. Another veteran at the other end. They strategize and decide to play safe. Keep running it down to the third man or into the gaps and take singles on each delivery of the over. The last delivery.. veteran tries to steer it down to the third man.. gets a slight nick.. keeper lunges forward and takes a good low catch.

29/6.. the day we went to get our engagement rings.. and had a huge fight over the size of the diamond she wanted on hers.. the fight was huge enough to almost make the entire point of buying the rings, pointless. Insecurities were revealed, money matters tossed up, pasts unearthed, and things like “just coz you earn more doesn’t mean you have to show it off by buying a costlier ring for me” were said.

I was almost in tears now. I took out my phone and switched it on. It bleeped 12 times as numerous messages flooded my inbox and were waiting there to be read. I opened the images folder and checked the date when we had got engaged.

31st July.

Of all the events that had occurred all through the year, this was one you could never miss. 29/6 was what the score board read and my heart was pounding so hard now, that it almost threatened to break my rib cage apart and leap out of my chest. The bowler bowled a full-toss and the batsman hit it from absolutely the sweetest part of his bat. The sound almost sent me into a trance and I thought.. “Hah! 33/6.. their aint’ no date like that, is it!”

That was when I saw, that the sweeper cover had covered an unbelievable amount of distance and had actually stopped the ball from crossing over. And then seeing the batsmen crossing over for the third, he cannoned the ball to the wicketkeeper who effortlessly collected it and clipped off the bails in one smooth, swinging motion. It was obvious the batsman was short of his ground and hence the 3rd umpire was beckoned, to decide whether the ball had crossed the boundary or not. The replays showed.. it didn’t. The fielder had made a clean stop. The score now.. was

This was going off limits.. I lost all my senses and hollered “BLOODY HELL!” and seething with outrage, I kicked the chair in front of me real hard. An old man was occupying it and he fell down by the force of the impact. I didn’t know it then, but he was actually the CEO of the firm organizing the series. People ran in from all corners to help him get up, and two guards rushed and grabbed me by the scruff of my neck. The entire box was looking at me in horror, and one portly figure dressed in a suit walked up to me and asked.. “Do you have the faintest clue who this honorable Gentleman is?”

I shot back: “He might have pimped your mom but that’s all I care ‘bout him!” and impulsively or I don’t know why, but I spat on his face.

That was it. The tempers that were already flaring because of the imbecilic performance of our team, got incensed and almost everyone present there, without exception, tried me out as a kicking or punching bag. I had absolutely no idea as to how long they kept kicking me, although I do remember.. that my phone was lying an arm’s length away from me, and amidst those hovering legs and ankles, I could see her name flashing on its screen.

Now here’s a slice of life for all of you who have never been through a public beating, or never had any form of brain-numbing pain inflicted upon you.. Initially, the pain increases, then it peaks, and just when it reaches a point where you feel that every single blood vessel in your body is gonna’ burst open, you suddenly rise above the pain.. all these mundane things that we scurry after in life lose their importance, and only the realization of your real pain remains..

I had always dreamt of becoming a cricketer one day. I had heckled my parents to get me into cricket coaching since I was about eight years old. I always cursed them for not providing me with premium sporting gear. I had never understood the fact that they were going through a severe crunch back then and just so that they could arrange my school and coaching fee, they had aborted my would’ve-been-brother. I could never achieve my dream. I had decided as a kid, I would never forgive them for it. I kept punishing people for it all my life. Actually… I was never very good at cricket. But there was one thing that I was indeed good at.. and that was always thinking ‘I’, ‘I’, ‘I’ and ‘I’. Never ‘You’, ‘They’, ‘Us’, ‘He’ or ‘She’. Always ‘I’ is what comes to my mind the instant I wake up in the morning. And all because of this, maybe I deserved what had happened to me today. But did She??

That was when I realized that there was another thing which I was good at… and that was keeping her happy by singing her favorite songs for her… Maybe from now on, I should stick to doing the things I am better at, than worrying about those which I’ve no control over.

A few minutes after everyone had settled down, I picked up my phone and texted her “Please wait for me… I’m coming as fast as I can..”

Albert Pinto ko Gussa kyon aata hai?

This is the story of a man.. a man who swam 43 kms to save his life.. and then give it all away..

***

He wasn’t a man made for India. But then, he was exactly the kind of man made for India. You know, how all these Indians in the US, who have studied there, worked there, earned there, lived there.. get all nostalgic one day after hearing Rehaman’s poignant voice urging them “Ye jo daess hai tera.. Tujhe hai pukara..” and decide to return to India?? Now they are Indians, rest assured, but they have girlfriends, have dates and have sex, just like Americans do.. they eat, they sleep and they clean their shit, just like Americans do.. they laugh, they talk and they swear, just like Americans do.. they think, they read and they jibe at India.. just like Americans do.

They are aware of India: a land overrun by poverty and the rampant political malice billowing each passing day, the labyrinthine alleys infested with these disease ridden degenerates and maniacal terrorists, the swarthy local population which works longer hours for lesser, almost measly wages in order to eke out a living, and the ‘upper class’ whose every waking moment and conceited effort is aimed at proving themselves to be ‘different’ from the ‘others’.

But, they also know the truth of the land: the mystic natural beauty, the reverence and spirituality, the innate family values, the docile and virgin women, the higher intellect and lesser vanities, the shoddier but more value-for-money movies, the ebullient religious festivities, the docile and virgin women, the innate family values, and the virgin women.. all of it, allures them, tugging the invisible umbilical cord stretched across the seven seas, by which they are still attached to their motherlands…

They are warmly welcomed back and receive a hero’s reception… their families are exultant… they are flooded with marriage proposals, and are inevitably married in plush banquet halls of some overpriced hotel. Slowly, they start realizing the actual truth about the land: Why the things that they treated with such contempt were the prized possessions of the people, and why the enigmatic idiosyncrasies that aroused such intimacy, were the bane of the land.. They realize that the people, consisting the swarthy middle class, secretly take pride in the surging population of beggars and hawkers, as by dishing out an insignificant sum of money as alms, they give them a chance to flaunt their mercy and altruism.. they secretly admire their unscrupulous politicians, marveling at their edacity and how they convolute the law and loot the masses.. they look at the lepers and scurrilous goons and thank God that at least their children are not like them, and throughout their lives, they strive to be one amongst the ‘upper class’ and if not them, at least the ‘upper middle class’. If they indeed manage to do so, all the envy they had for their superiors, manifests itself in the form of supercilious contempt for the hoi polloi, a flock, which they were once a part of..

The natural beauty they had so deeply admired turns out to be blatantly polluted, the spirituality turns out to be a great big sham, contrived for the sole purpose of instigating communal violence with utmost convenience, the innate family values and respect for the elderly lasts only till they are financially productive, and disappears completely the day they retire, and are then onwards treated like defunct furniture, the docile women are the real miscreants who create rifts and rows amongst the kins and pester their husbands who are unaware of the diabolical schemes cooking up in their heads, the low-on-vanity people actually turn out to be prize idiots, usually the average gullible voter, still harping the image of the ‘Golden Bird’ in their hearts, the movies happen to be just a mechanization that captures the inherent fantasies of the divested, which in turn runs the biggest and most profitable industry of the world, which in turn facilitates and finances the underworld which in turn produces more of the militants that rampage this land.. and the ebullient festivities, are a time when the tired and downtrodden can forget all the turd that blotches their lives and take the time off to cleanse it under a deluge of hooch...


He experienced the same resounding truth and inevitably felt like a stranger in his own land. He tried to stick it out, but in the end frustration got better of him.. and one fine morning, while brushing his teeth, he looked into the mirror and repeatedly spat on it, on his own reflection, and then, he did what every celebrated coward does.. he ran away.. he thought of taking an exile and settling down in the mighty Himalayas, just like the countless sages shown on the ‘Incredible India!’ Booklets.. he went upto the not-so-mighty Shivaliks and realized that he had underestimated the biting cold. Then, devoid of money and any aim in life, he travelled south.. no, not to the Andamans.. rather to Haridwar, Banaras, Gaya, onwards to calcutta.. he lived like a hermit.. came in contact with various ‘learned’ people and not-so-learned people along his meandering journey and carried on his meaningless life by doing odd jobs on the Ghats of Ganges. After a significant number of years, he came back as ‘Miracle Baba’: a Tall, fair, stone faced, English speaking, rosary draping man, who always had a limerick or a quip ready as an answer for any question of infinite complexity..

He would fast for people he didn’t know, eat burning coals, break glass with his genitalia, pour red ants into his eyes and cover them with mud.. you name it and he would do it.. he was a man seemingly without any fear, or any religious affiliations (not intended to mean that the latter gives rise to the former, just a mere remark, actually) and the most amazing thing about it, was that he did all of it, for public welfare.. no particular cause or effect as such.. he would just get up, let in his followers one-by-one, listen patiently to their grievances, collect his paraphernalia, and get on with his mind boggling gimmicks.. He even offered his services via SMS and if you cared to give him a ring, you would be greeted with Mukeshs’ plaintive voice inquiring “Duniya banane waale, kya tere mann me samayi.. Kahaeko duniya banayi??” (O creator of this world.. whatever came over your mind.. Why the heck did you create this world..)

The media loved him, and People worshipped him, because strangely, his apparent thaumaturgy allayed the sufferings of his woe-stricken followers..


He was all over the place.. not to say that he was omnipresent.. but some secretly believed that he was omnipotent..

*

One fine day, after a flood had struck an obscure village in the country, a follower came running up to him and said the people in his village were beckoning him during their last hours, as an overwhelming number of crocodiles had infested the water that had deluged their village. People were being sucked in by the rampant stream and not even their remains could be recovered due to the fear of these crocs.

He rose, told his guy to arrange an emergency helicopter, got on it, and after reaching the village got off on top of a water tank. Then he proclaimed “My words may sound queer.. but I do not see any crocodiles here.. all I can see.. is water.. pure and clear.. and to you it may so appear.. that the crocs consumed your near and dear.. but actually.. what ate them up, was their inherent fear..”

And then, just to prove his point, he nonchalantly jumped into the water and slowly circled the entire village.. in full knowledge of the fact, that his death was trailing him wherever he went..

But miracles of miracles.. he swam in there for about four hours and came out untouched. Then, standing on the top of that water tank, he spoke..

“Whatever we have is given by god.. nothing is absolutely ours.. it’s only in our minds that we make boundaries, partitions… impressions of big and small, rich and poor, great and lowly…. mine and yours.. And these boundaries, partitions and wonted impressions are what rule the lives of us Indians, day in and day out… India is a tumultuous land gingerly balanced upon the presence of two kinds of people: the greedy rich and the gullible poor. If any one of them fizzes out, the balance would be disturbed, and hence the policies and contrivances of our government are crafted with the sole intention of forever maintaining this delicate balance. But what if the rich realize their wrongdoings and the suffering their endless oppression causes? Or if the poor realize their fundamental rights and actually demand them for once, with persistent unity amongst themselves? What happens when the balance is disturbed? Well exactly what happens when a landslide or a great flood occurs.. EQUALITY! And I’m not talking about some communist idea or a leftist propaganda.. this is equality to the core of its actuality.. And that’s where the true genius of this system lies.. it keeps the rich oppressive and united in greed, and the poor gullible, and divided in servitude…

Tell me.. why is it that our history books are conveniently tinkered with, and the legacy that we all so proudly inherit and pompously pass on to our progeny, is manipulated?

To make it more palatable for the hundreds of intolerant religious sects??

To throw light only on the most relevant and glorifying aspects??

NO.. well that’s exactly what they would want you to think.. but the truth is.. it’s meant to condition your mind since your very inception, that the world we live in, is stereotypical.. that if you emulate the actions of some random ‘Great’ personalities then you can actually attain divinity and one day, become a great leader or an industrialist or a social activist or a movie star or any similar such reprobate, that slavery is the first step towards liberty.. that good always conquers evil and light conquers the darkness… But if you hark in your mind, any of the above impressions.. even a single one.. then you belong to the millions who have been very conveniently duped, just like their forefathers, by this great big fraudulent system… What does this system thrive on? Two basic premises: That the working class maintains strong morals and ideals of “High thinking and simple living” and secondly, that the ruling class constantly resorts to unscrupulous means to gain the maximum profit out of the labour of the working class. And what keeps the cogs and the jewels of this system meshed together and working in perfect harmony like clockwork? The force of synergy: The middle class… the people who are the real spiders.. who with their sycophancy wish to one day attain the status and riches of their provider and for it, they are ready to hound and backstab almost anyone. They keep waiting and waiting and lead discontented lives and die miserable deaths and are then quietly cremated, only to add fertility to this land.. if not in life, then atleast with their corpses..


I have travelled many a mile, working as a coroner along the Ghats of Ganges, and seen many corpses being returned to their true mother. Each and every one of these corpses.. with its aghast expression, has told me the painful story of its life.. either death came too early for it.. for it never got time to gather enough money to pay off a debt or the daughters dowry.. or it came too late.. only after its unrewarding life had broken down the person, now manifested into this corpse, to its very soul.. Being a coroner is no easy task but it’s really the most rewarding of all professions.. coz while most others teach you the nuances of life.. it teaches you the nuances of death..

Hence, on this momentous occasion, I pay full reverence to my adapted profession and proclaim, that my death would be the final gift for the people of my country, and my death would be my revenge, for the morbid system that plagues it.. and I can say this with absolute certainty, coz of my unflinching belief in the media, who I am sure, would keep the memory of this melodramatic suicide, fresh and alive in the mind of every person of this country, by repeated telecasts, expert analyses and celebrity debates.. ”

Then, he winked and jumped back into the same croc-infested waters from which he had risen a few moments ago, while every single camera present there, captured the consternating scene of his gory death, frame-by-frame..