Soul Stripping on the Net

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? Two 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

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

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.