The Reverie

He stared at the mountains from the solitude of the forest. He had found the perfect spot at the edge of the woods, peering over the precipice into the faintly glistening river in the distance that meandered merrily, blissfully oblivious of his presence. From the vantage point, at this distance, the river looked serene. It was anything but. It was ferocious in fact, its roar diluted to a ceaseless whisper where he was.

Was it all real? The snow-cap, the forest beneath, the river further down. It looked like a postcard. He’d seen it too often on screens and on papers and never in real life. The reality had to sink in. It wasn’t a prop, it wasn’t fiction. They existed. The mountain he beheld in the distance was as real as the one he was perched on. It was not the imagination of a mortal.

The silence was eerie. The flow of the river was no longer a noise, it was a constant background over which all was still. Every step he walked would take him a step further from civilisation, a step closer to the peak. He would see for himself if the peak looked like the one across the river. He hoped it did. He vaguely feared that it would all evaporate. Maybe it would. Maybe he would wake up.

The cold that so effectively teamed up with fatigue to bite into his calves was all too real. It had been a hard climb so far but the hardest part had been done. He decided he could rest a few minutes longer. He could enjoy the beauty.

But would it be beautiful if he were here everyday? Was it absolute beauty or only a relative beauty perceived by the nature starved city dwellers on their overdose of concrete and tar and humanity? Relative or absolute, beauty still felt the same, so why did he bother wondering? What is beauty? He wondered why he wondered what it was rather than enjoying whatever it was.

Ugly, that’s what it was. A pile of land folded upward irregularly with rocks and boulders precariously holding on, sometimes letting go and tumbling down. It was not in good repair, no real paths across the terrain, the greenery was erratic and wild, not groomed in ages. The cold alone could make one despair. No sign of other living beings here, no comforts.

That was the hypocrisy. At home, comfort is a good word. It’s a well made bed and a soft blanket. Up here, on walks and vacations in places of natural beauty all the overnight outdoor enthusiasts spit out the word in derision - comfort! Ruined us. Look at the lifestyle problems we all face. Get Pune out of our lungs. Breathe-in the air of heaven. We live for nature. Reconnect with our roots. Pah!

They wouldn’t last a day in nature. They wouldn’t last a day without comfort. We wouldn’t. Nature is living and dying by the sword. We’re evolved to survive somehow to age 40, procreate and get on with it. Instead we dangle limply from canes and walking sticks, wired to machines to die on our beds long after we’ve become walking corpses, useful for no function.

Nature would give us disease and cold and fatigue and wounds. Not to mention predators. What we live for is comfort. What we live because of, is comfort. More civilisation and less nature. Let’s not kid ourselves.

He looked up from his reverie and reminded himself of where he was. The sun was still high up in the sky, the river still glistened and the mountain stood motionless and grand as ever. He was transfixed and mesmerised again by the beauty of it. It was still there. It was probably real. It was certainly beautiful.

He reached the very top. And there he felt elated and exhilarated. It was worth it despite it all. It was good to be in nature. Good to get Pune out of his lungs. Nature wasn’t a killer, nature was beauty. We live for beauty, for never do we live in it. We find it where we seek it. 

It Went Dark

Disclaimer : The following is purely fictional. No part of it should taken as fact or as a reflection of how any aspect of a profession works. 

It was exactly 3 pm on a Friday afternoon when he walked into her office. She was a little more unprepared than she ought to have been given that it was indeed a 3 o clock appointment. She liked the clients who took an extra couple of minutes to walk in, usually awkwardly. She mostly used those precious few minutes to unwind between appointments. It was like sleep, somehow the hours of sleep you're slated for are infinitely less sweet than the few minutes extra you grab after your alarm rings.

So when he staggered in exactly on time, she hurriedly stashed away the magazine she was reading, turned the pages of her clipboard and very deliberately looked up and smiled at him, gesturing him to sit down. 

It was kind of a ritual, a different one with each patient. Some of them walked in and almost ran down into their seats and slumped. Some waited politely, others awkwardly. There was always a lot of awkwardness and he was of the latter type. 

While she smiled and asked him to sit down, she studied several things - his expression, his eyes, his posture, limbs. Sometimes her mind did it automatically, sometimes she had to force herself. This being a Friday afternoon, and a hot summer afternoon to boot, she had to labour to note his facial expression. She tensed immediately and braced for a hard session - something big was coming. Progress hadn't been made. Some major event, maybe trauma. 

"Soooo, been writing in your diary this week?", she asked him as an ice-breaker. He murmured something about busy and by the next moment, he was in his usual rip-roaring form. Spittle flowed down his chin as he bawled about difficulties and emotional upheavals of the preceding week.

She behaved as a textbook therapist should, dispassionately and patiently looking on, chipping in with the appropriate phrases, words and interjections at the pauses. A full ten minutes later when his monologue faded away into stifled sobs of gradually decreasing intensity, she gently nudged the tissue box towards him and began to speak. She asked probing questions that would enable her to assimilate more information about exactly what went wrong while he answered in gasps. She asked him to take his time, drink some water and settle down before speaking.

Her mind though was less lenient. "What a big baby! What a cowardly man! Can't pull himself together for a week and clear his mind. A few steps was all I asked him to follow and instead he comes here and weeps about a fresh load of problems residing solely in his head!" She'd seen patients with far more serious problems make conscious efforts to aid in the therapy but instead she had to spend time with this man. Well, they pay the same every hour, she smirked before instantly inwardly condemning the thought.

"Well, I'll see you next week," she smiled at him as he made his way out at the end of the session with familiar promises of introspecting rather than reacting to certain situations and maintaining his diary. She hid her contempt well and placed a mental bet with herself on the updating of the diary.

She settled down. Was she a bad psychotherapist for having such deprecating thoughts about her patients? She was human after all. All the learnt knowledge about childhood scars and behavioural theory could not eradicate the instinctive answer to why someone was the way they are. They're weaklings. No will power. And even though she knew it wasn't so, she couldn't help thinking so. Who knew where the line was drawn? Not psychologists, for sure.

She sipped some water and settled down in a chair with a magazine without really reading it. She was thinking about how the session had gone. Maybe the marathon-sob would help him, but it was a purely professional concern she felt. There would be no tearful goodbyes when this patient's therapy ended someday in the future. He was something of a mercenary she felt. His attitude was often akin to "I've paid you, now make my sadness go away" or sometimes more insultingly "I've paid you so shut up and listen to me whine and bitch. Don't interrupt." Therapy worked for the patient types, the respectful types who actually bothered to give your words some weight, not those who thought they had everything figured out. Therapy was never going to work on anyone who used the words "new fanged" to describe any aspect of it. Sometimes, blindly believing someone and toeing their line helped a lot.

She often knew the gone cases within the first ten minutes of the first session itself. Ethically, she had to stick with them until she believed they were truly rehabilitated and capable of handling themselves unless the patient himself/herself decided to discontinue.

The problem is, she thought to herself, most people that walk in here are so certain that their problems are the least trivial, the likes of which no one else has seen before. It was easy to be abstract when it concerned others. Great pearls of wisdom such as "Life is fleeting" or "This too shall pass" can easily be meted out to others but when the suffering is yours, it's suddenly earth-shattering. She understood this full well yet found it hard to not be contemptuous of some of her patients who waltzed in and told her about the weight of the world on their shoulders.

Her thoughts thus immersed her until her next patient walked in. She was almost startled when he did. Off late, she had been thinking too much between sessions. Her own sessions with her therapist weren't going too well. She'd been ranting  and fussing about her patients far too much and didn't know what was the cause. She'd lost either patience or spirit. Maybe a bit of both.

Her last patient for the week was neat and trim as always. "He always appears in HD" was the standing joke about him while she gossiped about patients with her therapist friends. She never gave away names or personal details though - professionalism was key. And she was in therapy too, she knew how vulnerable it felt to confide in a stranger your deepest feelings. She couldn't imagine her therapist speaking about her to anyone else.

Mr. HD wished her a good evening and took a seat after she pointed to the chair. There was no flamboyance about him. She didn't mind him. Her feelings for him could be described as a mild fondness, if there was such a thing. He was the earnest type. Not the brightest, did everything asked of him with a degree of meticulousness, sweet and reverent. He would probably be some time in therapy with his degree of trauma but with his steady work, it would happen without any major relapses, she was sure.

Near the end of the session she allowed herself a private smile - the week was done. She could now spend the weekend at home with her husband and maybe her daughter would come over. The clipboard that her husband used as evidence of her lack of tech-savvyness to repeatedly tease her would be put away for two days. She would study it a bit on Monday morning but that was that. She was hoping that there would be no distress calls of the kind that had occupied so many of her weekends in the past.

Mr. HD showed himself out and she collapsed on her chair as one as soon as the door had been shut. As was her norm off-late, she grabbed a nearby magazine and went into stupor. She was thinking about her favourite patient, wondering how she had done this week.

She was a really sweet thing, driven to mental and emotional troubles by her family mainly. It was to her the classic case of how small things add up to really big difficulties - she could not pin-point a single great trauma or event this patient had undergone but everyday that she sat down with her, she understood with new depth how the universe had conspired against this pleasant woman and given her a life of hell.

Something was playing on her mind as she turned the page of the magazine. Even when she wasn't reading, out of habit her eyes glanced over the page from top to bottom and her arms turned the page. She wouldn't be able to recall a single word later.

The previous weekend, she'd had one of her regular dinners with her therapist pals where they were often scornful of patients while somehow maintaining their confidentiality. On some nights when they were a tad generous with the drinks, their patients' confidentiality really hung by a thread. At this dinner, a friend was theorising how a patient would react to overhearing their conversation. He asserted that while being shocked at the tone in which they spoke of their patients, when the discussions went to individual patients in not very flattering terms, no patient would ever think they are the subject of the discussion -
"No patient would think they are the wuss we are discussing. For them, they are at the centre of the great warrior stories of their lives, the great champions, living legends. Take Shobha's favourite patient - the one she cares about so much. Do you think she ever considers herself the coward? Nah, she thinks she's bravely fighting her mind when she's actually a feeble minded creature. No rendition of terminology from the glossary of psychology can change the fact that she's just a weakling, nothing more special. No erosion of reward cycle bullshit."

Shobha was taken aback by this brusque and scathing assesment of her patient and wouldn't accept it. There was a small ensuing argument where he even attacked Shobha. "You're just like your patients, so emotional. Be rational and keep a distance. It's the difference between us and them - we know how our mind works. They don't. Don't let this knowledge be clouded by your attachment for this patient. But oh wait, you're seeing a therapist too. No wonder." He was gloating and goading her.

"Rational!" she muttered with grit teeth. If he was so rational, he wouldn't be using words such as 'weak' and 'wuss' and would see it for what it indeed was - systematic downing of the reward system over a lifetime of steady and covert, often unintentional, undermining. She'd spoken to her patient at length, she knew it best. She resented his statements and had stormed out and they hadn't spoken since. His apology would probably involve the words 'regret' and 'alcohol' and 'heat of the moment' but she was not going to have it. What had been said couldn't be unsaid.

She snapped out of her trance, stuffed her magazines, books and other personal effects where they belonged and rode her gaadi home. She'd see next week.

When Shobha's favourite patient walked in the next week, Shobha looked up almost immediately. Speaking to her felt better than speaking to her own therapist. But something was off today. She started weeping almost as soon as she walked in. It was Shobha's greatest struggle to remain stoic and merely push the napkin holder in her direction. She wanted to hug her and wipe her tears and comfort her.

The troubling sign was that this emotional attachment was not one way - her patient was clearly verging on dependence on Shobha - dependence on the therapist was one of the first things they were told about as students. And even though she could see it, her own personal affection to her patient was crippling her, stopping her from nipping the dependence in the bud. It was now too late perhaps. She might be forced to (ethically) refer her to another psychotherapist. The term was interminable therapy where the therapist can't foresee a successive conclusion of the therapy the way it was going and hence opts for a change, sometimes in method, mostly in therapist.

Her friend's words played in her mind just then. Was her patient really just a wuss? Was it Shobha's own emotional attachment that stopped her from seeing this the way she saw it in other patients? It was hurtful to hear him speak that way about her patient but on the flip-side, it should never be hurtful to hear something about a patient - you must be detached.  She could see clearly how unhealthy the relationship was. Maybe it was holding back the positive effects of therapy. Maybe her patient still not being rehabilitated was her fault. Was she a bad therapist? Self-doubt gnawed at her all of a sudden.

That's the thing about self-doubt, you can build the strongest wall to stop it yet the wall needs to be fortified constantly. And should a sliver of it come through, all the self-doubt you've ever kept out will suddenly enter too. She knew this, but she was powerless to stop it.

Many people couldn't believe therapists needed therapists. But you know how the brain works, don't you? You know how emotions work, the stuff with serotonin and dopamine and other neuro-whatsit stuff? Knowledge about emotions meant nothing in the face of strong emotions though. Understanding the chemical base of an emotion doesn't mean the chemical is absent or that it won't act as per usual. Knowledge was just scant consolation. It's like the difference between being mauled in the dark by some unknown large animal and being mauled in broad daylight but knowing it's a tiger.

Here she was, armed with a full understanding of addiction to therapy, how it's common for a patient to get too attached to the therapist and vice-versa and still struggling to hold back her tears.

It felt like a massive weight was lifted off Shobha's shoulders when the session ended. She gasped, already thinking of her own therapist. She failed to give her favourite patient her customary, broad-smiled send-off. Maybe she could talk to her husband or her mother about how this was troubling her. Amma was old though and would probably be unable to follow the story. Her husband had enough on his plate with his work, this would probably sound trivial in narration. Most things sound trivial in narration except to the self. She sighed and hardly paid attention to her patients for the rest of the day.

When she got home from therapy that week, she felt listless. She'd had a massive row, wept, had a philosophical and ethical argument about therapy and man's purpose on earth as well as sulked and remained silent. All in one session, inside an hour.

She suddenly realised that she hadn't been feeling more desolate only in the last few weeks, that it had started months back. Her mind flashed back to an incident three months back that had had her feeling the same way; and then one more, a couple of weeks before that even. She was fried. She somehow just knew what she was going to do. She didn't know why but she was sure that she would, sure that the reason, whatever it was, was valid - it felt too strong not to be. She was immolated by self-doubt. The wall had been breached well before, she realised.

She knew it all about the mind and she was powerless and helpless. Overrun by the magnitude of every day. And she simply didn't know where it all stemmed from but she'd lost all the fight in her. That her patients looked to her when they felt the way she did now felt like life's last cruel joke. Her husband wouldn't be back for a few hours. He was in for a rude shock. She had to be quick lest she changed her mind. She would apologise of course. And wish her favourite patient a speedy return to normalcy along with a reference to another therapist. Maybe the therapist friend who'd deemed her weak and deemed Shobha similar to her patient. Let's see if he could resist her charms, fail to grow fond of her and keep it "professional"!

Why couldn't she care about the people her education had equipped her to "heal"? Why did she have to be held back by this cry for "professionalism", a code of honour that she had to follow? Why would caring cloud her judgement? How would one be committed to anything if one didn't care? If it was a chore, why do it? She could have taken a 9-5 job and done chores on computers. Why stop yourself from feeling human if you're working with humans? Humans who are emotionally investing in you? The emotional inhibition for the sake of keeping it professional was burning her from the inside. She would feel better soon.

The rope materialised seemingly out of nowhere. She didn't know how she managed to contort her legs to kick away her chair, but she did. She thought about her patient, then her husband. She could see a million dazzling lights. Before long, it went dark. 

One sided conversations

I had a friend. Well, I still do have him, but something has changed. It was a different relationship. He did all of the talking. I listened to him, often for hours at length. He spoke and spoke. He had so much to say and I listened to him attentively, some times agreeing, often times disagreeing and mostly silently and deliberately contemplating the words thrown at me. At times I thought, "Thank you for saying that, I so agree". At other times I said to him, "You're talking through your hat, mister!". Once or twice I said to him, "How silly!". I wish I could ask him directly if my interpretation of what he said added up - if that was what he tried to convey. I couldn't. He didn't have answers. Only unchangeable words that he simply went on with when I chose to listen. I could make him repeat anything at will.

Now it is at an end. Now I wish he'd gone on a little longer. I'm telling myself to be happy that it happened, not sad that it ended.

I'll soon find another friend full of words that can't be changed. A friend who says the same thing to everyone but is understood differently. He'll talk to me. Lend me wisdom while I lend him my ear. And when he's done saying what he has to say, a day later, perhaps a week or at most a month later, I'll feel bad to let go. Feel bad that I'm done and all my readiness to listen is wasted on a friend who has stopped speaking. A friend who has run out of words. Then the search for the next friend begins. The long one-sided conversation with the great minds of the world.

I finished reading a book and now I'm bored. Sad that it's over and wish it was longer. Until I find another book I can't put down.

Six Thousand Something

There are two kinds of achievements in the world - the kind that you can put on your CV and the kind you can't. Worked on a project and brought some bombastic result lauded by your peers and your fellow professionals? Straight on your resumé. Organised that huge conference at your workplace - gotta wanna put that in for the world to see. How about successfully conducting your son/daughter's wedding in a glitch-less, flawless, smooth manner? Watching on with pride as you're surrounded by friends, family and to be in-laws, all smiling and commending. All well within budget too. Or helping your close friend through his depression - speaking to him everyday, empathising, rationalising and advising as he sobbed on and on until he broke free and is now a man reborn? Can't say "Helped best friend through a rough patch" as an achievement on your CV can you, now!

It's tempting to say it's the achievements that don't make your CV that stay in your mind. It is aligned with the narrative of the shallow materialistic pleasure that plaster a smile over your face for a day against the true, humane pleasure of helping others or making your family smile that can summon a genuine smile to your face in the darkest of times.

Some achievements, of course, can be really satisfactory personally and can go on your CV. Pulling off the perfect performance at your play that you and your team worked so hard on. Yet, even there, the closer knit unit your team and fellow performers are, the greater the satisfaction.

There are some "achievements" that you needlessly remember and are needlessly proud of - scaling that hillock next to your picnic spot when you were 12 and coming back unscathed perhaps. Or that time when you were 6 and pulled a complex somersault perfectly.

I'll give you my narrative - adulthood is a journey of difficult realisations and rationalisations. Those people who were so nice and smiled at you - they're just waiting to rip you off. That person who offered to help you - he wants this particular favour in return. The world isn't too nice but we shouldn't forget, the world isn't too terrible either - most of the time. We often feel we have the bad end of the stick, the wrong end of the deal. There's uncertainty. All our plans seem doomed to failure. The probability of winning the Nobel Prize in Physics is so low, you'd rather buy lottery tickets every morning.

We want to be logical. We try not to get too attached emotionally to anything, lest it (it most probably will) lead to disappointment and failure. Keep your hopes low and you'll never be disappointed. At least that's what we're told - that's the narrative.

And so I found it necessary to reject this nice sounding, romantic narrative - shallow-materialistic-short lasting-not real and non materialistic-deep-soulful-true happiness-what really matters.

Narrative - What really matters is how many people's lives you touch, not your bank balance.
Rational Adult - Yeah, but it's nice to be rich as well.

Narrative - You may go all over the world and do great things, but coming back home, hugging your parents and eating home food, that's true happiness.
Rational Adult - It's alright, I really love that far-away land with all its riches, not this objectively bad, simpleton village.

Narrative -
Rational Adult -

But the RA fails to ask one question - why does it all go on despite these damming facts? We still endure, persevere and persist. And I think it's only because we've heard the narratives. And deep down, we want to believe these narratives. And the slightest indication we get that this narrative is true, we hold on to it and cherish it. Thus making the narrative come true.

And why am I having these thoughts? Because I'm back home, mainly. And the skies opened up and it rained like the old times in Bangalore. Cold and damp and somehow uplifting. And that made me irrationally happy. Reminded me of all the old things. And I tasted my mother's cooking.

Perhaps my greatest (and only?) achievement that can go on my CV is obtaining a rank in the JEE exam. And I'm not proud of the achievement because it's so hard or anything - it's because it's something I worked hard for, went through the whole cycle of believing I could do it, then realising I can't, then thinking I won't, then wondering if I would, then being sure I will, then giving up, then realising there's no point giving up, then convincing myself it's worth the effort and when the exam drew near, giving up all thought and studying for the sake of studying - and while I was not studying, I stopped thinking about studying and JEE and life after school. It somehow happened and it worked out. I did work hard though. And remained focused. And I give myself great credit for it. A grand achievement. Perhaps my greatest. So much satisfaction! My rank! Not bad by any means. A number I would cherish for ever. Six Thousand, ........ something.

That's right. One day recently, I realised I've forgotten my JEE rank. The great number is erased from my mind. I remember the exact words of friends, relatives, family, teachers at various points in my life - times when I felt a slight fluttering pride in my chest for a little thing I'd said or done. Made another smile. Remember running to our school music teacher and director of the school play and embracing him after the show I was cast in - months and months leading to that moment. It was greater because I shared the joy with so many people.

And so, here is my narrative - the same old narrative. It's about people and joy and happiness and how many lives you touch - not what you alone accomplish. At least that's how I see it. And because I see it that way, I will continue to see it that way. Or that's my theory. At least.

Number 88

Eighty seven. 87. 87 is said to be the Australian unlucky number since it is 13 away from hundred. Whenever the score reads 87 for an Australian in any way, be it the individual score of the batsman or the team score, an Englishman in the commentary box rarely fails to give us this bit of insight into the way the universe works - 87 is the undoing of Australia. The commentator remains hopeful until the score moves on to 88 or greater and then all hope fades away as he watches Australia and other countries dominate the game of cricket while his beloved nation, the inventors and exporters of the game, fail to ever win a world cup. Sounds like football.

Eighty-seven is on my mind not because of some cricket related British mumbo-jumbo though. Nor is it because of Australia or England. 87 is my current blog-post count. And it's been stuck there for a while. But I'm not Australian. This is not when I lose my wicket. The show must go on and I'm merely 13 away from a century of posts. Twelve after this one.

88 in a bit over 7.5 years is slow writing but at least it is some writing. And 87 must be one of the longest breaks yet. Quite unique to this particular break though is my lack of guilt at not being more regular with my posts. I've hardly given any thought to this space since my last post. And today when I thought about it, I felt I simply must update my blog or I might just get struck by the Australian curse and so I bring to you this laborious post.

Over the last two months, I have been living the 21st century, urban, college campus version of the Amish life - no facebook, no WhatsApp. And perhaps that is why I didn't have as much motivation to write. The pats on the back and compliments for a blog post are surely, how much ever I try to deny it and call it writing for writing's sake and my sake, a big reason I write. And without facebook, the link to this post will not go up on my timeline and there won't be numerous "likes" and "shares" and "wows", nor will I get WhatsApp texts from mild acquaintances about how good my post was. The post will be lost away to internet obscurity. And now I write.

Life without the above mentioned, Zuckerberg owned social media (medias sounds odd since media is already the plural form of medium. Maybe mediums is the right word here?)  is a self-imposed restriction for reasons that are not a whole lot more ground-breaking than "I just want to see how it will be" and "to hopefully increase my productivity". And the results have been rather underwhelming so far - it isn't the sea change and total transformation from living the life of a time-wasting, procrastinating, unproductive waste of space to a highly efficient, punctual and productive individual. A slight shift from quite productive to slightly more than quite productive. And not scrolling down a facebook feed isn't a handicap at all. It's almost a relief.

WhatsApp is a different story. Keeping in touch with certain people is harder and I'm often out of the loop when it comes to chronicles from my family group. I miss out on photos shared and other things but the gap is being bridged manage-ably with email. Again, on the whole, nothing very earth-shattering to report. It happened - I'm not on WhatsApp,  Life goes on. Underwhelming.

A little curiosity about the language I wished to point out - when something is far greater than you expected, usually in the sense of an outpouring of appreciation or love, you are overwhelmed. When you expect great things that do not materialise, you are underwhelmed. When things are exactly as good or as bad as you expected and you planned for, why aren't you whelmed? Precisely whelmed, no over or under. Ha!

The Sea in the Sky

He stood at the edge of water,

Staring out at sea, the sea at night.

Like a rippling, massive black canvas far away,

The sea came to life near the shore,

A Crashing and frothing wave, a wave so white.

The black canvas mirroring the sky,

But for the undulations that roared out sporadically,

Getting louder and larger nearer the shore,

Angrily reflecting the moonlight

They crashed on shore, delighting men and women,

Then they receded silently, a still canvas again,

But they weren’t allowed to rest,

As another came crashing forward,

Then two, then three, churning and shining so bright

All of a sudden they all ceased,

The whole sea a still black canvas,  

Just like the sky,

All the way to the horizon,

The sky was the sea, the sea the sky,

Now they all stopped, not a wave in sight,

Still as a statue,

He watched and gazed,

Out into the pitch black ocean,

That betrayed not a secret,

He felt a calm like no other,

A calm that lasted a few moments,

All calm until the next ripple began its flight

So he stared out at sea, the sea at night

A crashing and frothing wave, a wave so white,

Angrily reflecting the moonlight,

Then two, then three, churning and shining so bright,

Now they all stopped, not a wave in sight,

All calm until the next ripple began its flight

For those few moments it was all one

Like the black sea in the sky.

For His Mother

He turned his neck and spat tiredly on the grass beneath his feet. The grass was soft and comfortable but this wasn't friendly territory by any stretch of the imagination. Sweat poured down from his forehead.

The ball had gone out of play for a few moments' respite from the break-neck action. His team had trailed twice but they had kept at it with a relentlessness emblematic of all teams coached by his manager. Now the slender one goal lead garnered had to be protected. The referee signalled for the commencement of play to be delayed until the substitutions could be made.

The official held the board up. His number was on it. He was to come off in favour of a more defensively minded player. He was satisfied with the shift he had put in and was sure the manager would be too. It was he who had provided the incisive, defence-splitting pass crucial to opening up the play in the build-up to the second goal and equaliser that really turned the game in his team's favour - a pass that would count as a 'key pass' in the stats in the annals of time but he knew it was the definitive kick of the whole game. Then there was all that defensive work that he had put in too, imperative as it was for the modern attacking player to track back and mark runners.

The game flashed before his eyes as he trudged slowly and deliberately to the bench with a mind to run down the clock. The few hundred away fans rapturously sang his name and enjoyed the leisurely pace of his walk. The referee urged him to tread faster. The opposition fans jeered and booed. The opposition players protested. A couple of players squared up and the whole stadium turned into a cauldron. All standard fare that he was detached from. He walked on.

It was halfway to the bench that the subtle change in atmosphere happened. He was soaking it all in when the nature of the jeers changed. The home fans were in full voice now, singing of his past transgressions, the exact nature of the profession of the female members of his family back in his 'savage' and 'primitive' country. The elephant washer's son, they called him.

He'd heard it all before, seen it all before. Yet he found himself quickening his pace. He hardly noticed the manager's warm hug, a clear recognition of his excellent performance.

The next day, the papers and 'pundits' condemned the chants. The away club banned a handful of ticket holders for life and issued a strong statement. What did it matter though, to the little boy who'd slept that night with only his tears for company, yearning for his mother? His mother, his sweet, gentle, loving, innocent mother whom he had to fend for.

He who had played football as it was his only escape. He who had travelled across seas playing this game, working hard wherever he went. He who, after years of toil and pain, was finally spotted by a big club and given a contract. He who then worked his way into the starting line up. He who did it all chasing a dream, a dream not of fame or glory or wealth or football; but a dream to extricate his mother from their native home surrounded by the violence that killed his father when he was just a young boy in his unheard of impoverished little country, torn by war and strife. What did it matter to him?

Now he was in England, travelling the country and Europe with the squad while his mother lived in London, in the luxury he provided. He wasn't the cleanest, the kindest, the smartest or the nicest, but he did it all for her.

The new contract offer with improved wages was on his table, a testament to his rising importance to the squad at the age of just 20. All he could think of now, in this hotel room in this city was of home in London, his mother, and the next home game with 60000 men singing his name, applauding his every move, appreciating him for who he was, a footballer and a hard-worker.

The future looked bright and his mother was happy.

Loosely inspired by the story of Gabriel Paulista. Also, try this article and the video attached to it. 

Projected

It suddenly came as a realisation to be while walking up a flight of stairs that the word project has different meanings depending on the pronunciation. There's praw-ject, which is something that is undertaken over a period of time with some kind of definite end result, like a school collage on the Western Ghats or a never-ending project like the Bangalore Metro. Then there's pro-ject, which is to show something on a screen, like a projector screen. This project is also a synonym for forecasting, projected growth and the like.

Speaking of forecasting, the met department has projected good monsoon rains this time around after an unbearably hot summer that saw India record its highest temperature ever and likewise, my beloved Bengaluru city, renowned for cool, "salubrious" (I learnt that word from the wikipedia page on Bangalore) climate also recorded its highest ever temperature, touching a mind-boggling 39.2 degrees Celsius.

I know many of you (Punekars) are looking at that number and thinking - 39.2? That's hot? Well, that's simply how mellow the Bangalore summer is. There's many who say, "Oh, mumbo jumbo. It's so hot nowadays." Well, a city and its climate must pay for its awesomeness. The population explosion and all that has lead to an overall rise in temperatures recently, but where hasn't it? Which city, after all the concrete has supposedly ruined the weather, I ask, has better weather than Bangalore in the summer. Yes, Shimla, Darjeeling, Ooty, Kodaikanal, but here's two points. Those are meant to be so, they're hill stations, summer retreats. They're not burgeoning metropolises with immense potential for wealth and living. Those are weather specialists, Bangalore is so many many other things and on the side, as a bonus, excels in the weather department as well. And secondly, have you been to these places in the winter? Bangalore's winter is mellow as well. On average, I proudly maintain, and I will take a personal interest in refuting anyone who disagrees, Bangalore has India's best weather for a city proper.

So now that I'm through with going off on that tangent, let me come back to my main point - project. The reason weather is at the top of my head is because I'm currently "on a project" in Chennai, let us say a city that's not quite as famous as Bangalore for it's weather.

Look, I have nothing against the city now that Chennai Super Kings no longer exists so one doesn't have to speak to the fans of that particular franchise. It seems to be a nice place, buses and trains are cheap and timely, food is brilliant and the place I'm doing my project, my summer internship, the campus of the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, is unbelievable. It is actually a jungle, a veritable forest, the campus having been carved out of the Guindy National Park area, or so the IIT M website claims. And who, I ask you, lies on the internet?

The vegetation is thick and green and provides an omnipresent shade that almost nearly threatens to give you the impression of good weather for a few seconds at well chosen hours just before sunrise. Then there are the deer, roaming the streets with gay abandon.

My first impression when I heard "there are deer on the IIT Madras campus" was to presume that deep in the lush greenery, among the shrubs and the grass far away from the roads and the traffic, unseen but to the sharpest eyes, one could, if one was lucky, chance upon a deer or two grazing. When I first saw a deer, casually standing next to a gate while a man was busy at work a few yards away, I thought I was one among a blessed few to spot a deer at such close range within the campus. Now, I'd put the deer to dog ratio on campus as high as 7 or 8 while I'd put the human to deer ratio at as low as 15 or 20. And I tip my hat to the revolutionary person who, at the meeting that was probably convened to decide campus matters during the founding of the institute, said to the person from the National Park who was asking what is to be done with the animals, "You take out the leopards and the tigers and these other animals. Let the deer hang around." Just like that. And here they just hang around. It's going to be disappointing to go anywhere else in the country now and not see a deer or two every few yards.

The deer were not the only creatures left behind; monkeys can be found in good numbers on the campus. And I'm not talking of those monkeys who got into the hostel by scoring well in the JEE - I'm talking about the monkeys that got into the hostel because they can climb trees. On my first day, I was just climbing up the stairs of the hostel to find my new room when one a little monkey flashed past me. More strikingly, a nondescript trip to the toilet nearest to my study-desk found me in the same room as at least 8 monkeys who clambered out of the window upon seeing me enter. I cursed as I closed all the taps they'd opened.

Ok, where was I to begin with? Weather! Spoilt as I have been by Bangalore weather throughout my life, I immediately realised that this is to be the longest, hottest summer of my life. Mid-March to the end of April in Pune in a state that was firmly in the grips of a heat-wave, (a much much cooler) May in Bangalore and now June and July in Chennai for this project. Projected to be very hot during my project.

Now about my project. I'm studying something in cosmology, the study of the universe at the very largest scales. It's interesting that my interest in this subject was piqued by an introductory course in the same subject which to date remains the worst course I've taken. It was ill-organised, the syllabus was incoherent and the exams were scarcely believable and in the midst of all the hand-wringing and scrambling a mark here or two, the content of the course left some kind of imprint on me. Now if things progress as I hope they will, I see myself working on this subject for the majority of my life - on the foundation of a terribly conducted course.

I wasn't wholly sure of the subject to begin with. On my second day, I asked my advisor, a professor in the Department of Physics at IIT Madras (obviously) a string of perhaps three to four questions in his office. He spluttered for a mili-second, looked around, smiled resignedly as he decided to take it from the beginning and said, "Sit down, let me tell you a few things about the universe." The line was kind of epochal - anything that follows from that line, however lacking in substance and meaning by itself, will be seen as deep and insightful when it follows that line. Sit down. Let me tell you something about the universe. Here's the thing about the universe - it's a potato.

And as he told me the things about the universe, things a little more subtle than it being a potato, I knew that I wasn't in the wrong place, if not the right place. And so my project goes on.