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After A Day's Work

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You hurry. You are pursued by the worst of working life’s enemies: Wasted Time. You skip a step or two. What if it catches up? What if you cannot justify to your manager why you are late, because you had to wait for four minutes before the next one showed up? Wasted Time does not tarry. She eats you whole. Her sharp tainted teeth suck up your future. Hollow futures await you in her tainted hollow: Mumbai. Horror futures if you miss your local. You skip steps. You skip beggars. You see your local on platform 3. Sighs of relief all around. There are others skipping steps too. Competitors to enter the door, compatriots fleeing Wasted Time. After twelve hours of shoot, your last muscles press on. Lactic acid and Kreb’s cycle are relics Mumbai discarded long ago. The local has stopped. Will you get on before it leaves? Or will you be a relic? The Devourer Of Work-Life Balance is catching up. It scents stress. You are dripping it. How will you wake up after two quarters of necessary re...
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At The Art Table

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How do you seek Happiness ? How do you make Prosperity ? Do you worship the Mother Goddess ? Or worship the White Constellations – each a Piece Of God ? You find Wealth in the Sacred Syllable – the Loved One Of God – the Chanting of Om .   ______________________________________________________________________________ For Anand, Aishwarya, Aditi, Shweta, Anusha, Debangshu, Aishwarya, Pranav and Debopriyo.
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At the Highway Food Plaza

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I wonder what a day at the highway food plaza would be like? Will I see illegal two-wheelers tempos carts carrying vegetables and supplies Cleaners trash pickers coming by rickshawloads Will I hear bhakti music or capitalist muzak in the morning Will there be a drunkard groggily stumbling around Will there ever be silence? When will the leftovers be cleaned? When will the leftover start searching for the missed shivneri and asiad? Helter-skelter in the rain outside Crowded covered commerce consuming chicken customers chamberside Tea and wada pav for MSRTC Starbucks and burgers for Mercedes Observe lane discipline on the highway Observe class lines off the highway When will the tyres burst? Tow trucks pull in patients Will I see luminescent leaking coolants and prismatic empty petrol How much will the mechanoshepherd fleece? Sparrow and crow and ant A stray dog here too Will they give me company? Cigarette smoke, tobacco spit, urine stench They will give me com...
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Birthdays are funny days

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Birthdays are funny days. They rarely give personal joy. They just mark a revolution around the sun, of survival. They make you question the purpose of existence and why it would be really funny if the plane carrying you crashes. Because every year after that the revolution would mark the anniversary of my non-existence and the anniversary of if-I-had-been-alive. Would confuse the hell out of people who commemorate such stuff though. How did I spend my birthday? In travel, and making questions. I was forced to cut a cake (I had specifically asked not to have one), I was forced to accept a gift (I had specifically asked not to get one). I did enjoy the puran polis. That was more like it. But as I said, this is not just me. I am sure many people my age have such low-key birthdays, more like they just have regular days. Because it is a regular day which has been artificially given importance in today’s age. Heh I liked that one. When life expectancy was in the 30s, which is probably...
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Raise

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Deciding your own worth is a difficult thing. Especially when every other person also does that and judges you on how you rate yourself too. Only death does not judge. You think you are a great quizzer? Cool, you still die. You think you are bad at communicating your inner insecurities? Cool, you still die. You think your skill development over this appraisal year has been intermediate? Cool, you still die. Isn’t that liberating? Yet you mark and rank and judge yourself because you want to live in this world, and hierarchy and ranking are the only way to be eusocial. Even termites have a queen. And then you write such pieces and pay therapists to feel better and understand and live better. The problem is: this unrelenting heart and these relentless lungs.
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प्रयत्न

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  प्रयत्न करीन   मी घरी जिवंत परतण्याची शक्यता पावसामुळे २०%, गर्दीमुळे १०%, कामाच्या ताणामुळे कदाचित येऊ शकणाऱ्या हार्ट अटॅकमुळे ३० टक्क्यांनी कमी होते. अशी परिस्थिती, नव्हे वस्तुस्थिती असताना आई म्हणते, " घरी लवकर ये ", तेव्हा " प्रयत्न करेन " एवढच उत्तर देता येऊ शकतं.   बॉस म्हणतो, " जायच्या आधी, हे एवढं करून दे !" " प्रयत्न करेन. " ते मी करेनच पण त्या आधी मी बिल्डिंगवरून उडी मारली तर ... " हो, करतो. " असं खोटं आश्वासन नाही दिलं.   मित्र म्हणतात , " आज रात्री बसू या!" "प्रयत्न करेन." "नाही" म्हणून मैत्री तोडायची नाहीये. "हो" म्हणून खोटं बोलायचं नाहीये. इच्छा आहे मनात , ताकद नाही तनात. मनातल्या मनात केला मी प्रयत्न. शेवटी "मैत्री"नं पण प्रयत्न केला जगायचं. मुबंईनं तिचासुद्धा बळी घेतला.   पण मग मुंबईशी मी एकदा बोलताना तिला विचारलं की माझ्या स्वप्नांचं काय ? राबलो की मी! ती म्हणाली , " प्रयत्न केला , जमलं नाही."   मग मी स्वतःला प्रश्न विचारला , " तू आयुष्यात जे काही म...
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The Mehrauli Memoirs Part 9: The Way Back

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 Read Part 8: The Labyrinth by clicking here The sun was setting, the road was long. The nearest metro stations were Qutb Minar and Saket. I chose the latter. I passed the temple where women in their late 40s and 50s were exiting after professing their love for Lord Krishna, now tika-marked and prasad-filled. I passed the Qutb Ccomplex walls, the evening light highlighting Iltutmish’s tomb in jannatic light. Buses pounded on the road beside me. Then a jump – in class. Petty shops gave way to high-end boutiques. Sheila Lediess Dresses gave way to Satya Paul. Curtains used to keep dust at bay gave way to doorkeeps guarding AC-enclosed halls. I walked on. Valets lounged about where a few hundred metres behind bovine courts were held. It was mind-boggling. Dresses, lehengas, fabrics worth lakhs replaced headphones at a discount, biscuits with 30% extra and fresh cuts of meat. No sign of QR codes stuck on walls here. Restaurants with ‘Qutb’ somewhere in their name offered delicious ...
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