Forever

“Man, I could just listen to that song forever!”

“This place is so beautiful at sunset. I could stay here forever.”

“I love this city; I wish I could stay here forever.”

“College life is so great. I could stay in this stage forever.”

“Travelling is so much fun. I could live on the road forever!”

“This drink is awesome, dude! How I wish it lasts forever.”

And yet, at the end of the day, forever never happens. The song ends, and he moves on to the next song on the playlist; the sun sets, and the place loses that charm, and so he catches the packed evening train and returns home; the vacation ends, and he happily comes back to his familiar setting, the place he grew up at; college life gets over, friends move away, and soon they forget how great it used to be, caught up suddenly in that race to be somebody; the road he’s travelling on comes to an end, at his destination, and the destination suddenly becomes so alluring that the travel is forgotten; the drink in his hand doesn’t last forever, and the bottle slowly empties into his stomach, and forever is lost that night as he hurls into that blue bucket all night long.

Is it a good thing that forever doesn’t last forever?

Schizophrenic Sid: Quicksand

“Wow, look. Baby waves!” exclaimed Sandesh inside Schizophrenic Siddharth’s head.

“Sandesh, please don’t say things like that. It embarrasses me sometimes!” said Siddharth.

“Well, I can’t help it, can I? I’m excited to see the ocean. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen it quite this way, you know. Have you ever seen waves this small?”

“Yes, Sandesh, I have. It’s the most natural thing ever; happens every time there’s a low tide. Didn’t you study anything in school?”

“You obviously don’t remember my school days, do you, Sid?” asked Sandesh with a chuckle.

The waves were unnaturally small that day, owing to, as Siddharth said, the low tide at the time. Strangely, Siddharth was happy to see the low tide – at that moment, he was looking for some calm, and the little waves that gently pushed the salty water and the rough sand smoothly between his toes was what he wanted more than anything else.

“This beach is different, isn’t it?” said Sandesh, as they stood in the receding sunlight, while the sun shone in bits and pieces behind the blue-grey clouds that hung annoyingly in the sky. Siddharth was looking at the sunset, having missed it many times during his stay in the city, and although this was the best sunset he had witnessed yet, he wished the clouds would disappear.

“Yeah, this beach is a lot different; less people, less glamour, less make up, and so much more honest serenity, and clear water, and clean, pure mud beneath your feet. I didn’t know something like this existed in this city at all!”

“Neither did I” said Sandesh.

The sun was hanging just a little above the ocean, and the orange rays bounced off the calm water. The little waves brought the reflected ball of light to life, and the light danced with the waves, the daily dance of light and water.

The faint lights from a ship on the horizon could be seen, from a great distance. Perhaps a merchant ship, or a tanker of some sort, thought Sandesh. It was nice to see the ship from such a distance, knowing that it wasn’t arrogantly nearer at the moment. Sandesh was glad to see that at least on this particular beach, human arrogance had not prevailed, and they hadn’t tried to control the soft mud where the feet sank freely and merrily, or the constantly shifting sand beneath the clear water that made standing at one spot tough for too long.

Sandesh had seen, through Sid’s own eyes, the marvels that were hailed as epitomes of human intelligence and ingenuity; the bridges that jutted out into the open ocean, strictly ferrying only one species from one part of the city to another. It was human arrogance that wanted to control all things around them, and was naïve enough to believe that they can do so as well.

“And yet,” said Sid, “in spite of all the safety measures that we put here to make the beach a little safer from the daily dance of the ocean, and the sun, and the moon, the truth is that we can never make much of a difference. No matter how many ships we sail, no matter how many bridges we build, the ocean will never comply with us the way it does to the moon. Humans will always be insignificant in front of that daily tidal dance of the sea and the moon. Meanwhile, arrogant humans as we are, we will toy with the ridiculous idea of coercing the ocean to behave, to act civilised, to flow where we want to, and when we want to – and all the while, the ocean dances on, and laughs at us, and sweeps us off our feet, drowning away our insignificance into inexistence.”

“Boy, we must be crazy!” said Sandesh. “How can we believe all of that? Do we really think that we are the sole reason the universe exists?”

“Is there a reason why the universe exists in the first place?”

“Well, there has to be a reason. Everything happens for a reason.”

“What if that’s an elaborate fabrication stemmed from human arrogance as well? To think about it, about the enormity of the universe, and to see it in the mind from a really far off place, the universe would be nothing more than a humongous dust ball.”

They watched as the tide slowly washed ashore, surrounding parts of the beach, drowning the dents and pockets that were made on the beach first. Soon, where the beach had been there an hour ago, a few sandy islands dotted the sea. The sun had set a long time ago, and the twilight was shifting steadily towards darker night. The footsteps in the sand had all been washed away, while the ocean still danced on, oblivious to the people still around watching her.

“Do you think we can walk through the water there, on to the other side? It doesn’t look that deep; looks wade-able,” said Sandesh with an adventurous grin on his face.

“I’ve heard that people drown here, get pulled under the water. I’ve heard that they get washed up ashore, on the other side of the city, on another beach,” said Siddharth, thinking rationally. As he looked on, a little dog came running towards the water and went splashing through. The water was swirling around her ankles, but she didn’t stop. Step by step, she waded through the water, and soon the water came up to her belly. She stopped and looked around good humouredly at Siddharth and Sandesh, knowing that her instincts were right about the water. She trod on ahead, oblivious to the human rational way of thinking, trusting her instincts so forcefully that her instincts alone seemed to push her through, out of the ocean, and on to the other side. A quick strong shake of the coat, and she happily ran along the smooth beach, which the water hadn’t claimed yet, but where no man was instinctive enough to walk on.

The smell of frying eggs wafted through the air, and they wanted to grab a quick bite before heading back home. Before they turned their backs to the ocean, however, Sandesh stopped and looked at the dog, still running free and wild on the beach.

“Lucky bitch,” he said, as the oncoming darkness swallowed her last few bounds, and the gentle waves washed away her soft footprints on the sand.

This is based entirely on an evening spent at Aksa Beach, Mumbai; also, it's inspired directly from the wonderful rendition of the same evening by Ice Maiden, something that can be found here. I hope I've done justice to everything that the beach stands for, in the literal, physical and the abstract sense.

The Calling

The walls were crumbling
Yet, no one looked up
The cracks, they appeared on the walls
Out of the corner of his eyes, he saw
But too scared was he, to stare at them straight
"What would they think?" thought he
There was singing, and dancing, and happy people about
While inside his mind, he was lonelier still
And still that wall went crumbling
The cracks kept deepening
No one noticed
For they knew the wall would be smothered
By love, they said, till the cracks couldn't be seen again
While on the inside, the cracks and fissures ran strong
Beyond the wall, a distant call
He heard it in his heart
Reality was out there, while inside the wall
A fabrication was played out, meticulously
That calling, he heard
Heard as it begged, and it cried
And cajoled at times, to come join them there
"The wall, we would crack
But to break it, stronger hands are needed"
He looked around, the people that smiled at him
And went on their way, those happy people
Within that wall, confined
From the calling, from the world outside the wall
From their own selves that waited beyond
And again, he stared at the wall
"Will it?" he asked
The bricks separated, the wall broke away
A small hole, enough for him to crawl through
A quick glance over his shoulder, and he ran
Towards the wall, towards that hole
Towards his freedom, towards that call
Panting, he reached the wall, and stared
One small step is all it would take
To run away from it all
But that last step was the hardest
As he looked behind him, the happy people
They still held him back
The last step was the hardest, but freedom awaited
Beyond the bricks that lay before him
Beyond the hole that stood before him
Just one step, and the great beyond would be his
"Will it?" he asked, as he took that giant step
That tiny step through that hole

The Flying Peacock

For forty years, the Peacock had waited. Cell 15A was where he was locked up, but to the Peacock, it was more of a dungeon than a cell. No one knew who he was; no one knew where he came from. The people who had known him were all dead and gone, and all anyone knew about him now was the name Peacock.

The Peacock was kept in solitary confinement, and that’s how he had known life to be. He was a young man when he came in, for something he didn’t remember anymore. If anyone asked him if he was innocent or guilty, he would simply shrug his shoulders and look away. Truth was, he himself wasn’t quite so sure of it now after all these years, having heard so many versions of his life from so many people.

The Peacock was known as the Peacock as he always kept a peacock feather with him. How he got it, no one knew. The feather had been with him for as long as anyone could remember. He could not have got it with him when he came in, as the custom in the prison was to strip search every prisoner who comes in. Hidden drugs, blades, even strange bits of paper were found from the strangest of places, but nothing of the sort was found on the Peacock. A year into his sentence, however, on the anniversary of his incarceration, it was decided that he would be taken outside to the courtyard for a stroll and a bit of fresh air, under heavy guard. As the door was unlocked, they found the Peacock sitting there calmly, cradling a bright colourful peacock feather in his hand. They didn’t know where he got it from, but the name stuck. Soon, they forgot his real name, and he became the Peacock for the rest of his life.

His life had been in the prison. His youth, his best years, they were spent alone, in the company of the four walls that held him, and his beautiful peacock feather. Most of his days were spent looking through the high window at the ceiling outside; after a while, he began to notice the different hues of the sky every day. His nights were spent in the darkness, wondering about life, about the purpose of it. He used to think of the many people outside of those four walls, and how they had reasons or purposes in life. Did he have a purpose in life?

In the eyes of the guards, he was just another prisoner. If you asked them, they would probably tell you that the Peacock did not have any reason for existence in life. It was close to the truth, but while everyone else stopped thinking at that point, the Peacock didn’t stop. He kept thinking about his reason for existence – one driving force for his life, something that justified his existence. He wondered for many initial months about that, and found that there was only one thing he wanted. It did not matter if he was right or wrong, guilty or innocent. Freedom was all he craved for, and since that day, that freedom, both in the abstract and the tangible form, became the driving force of his life.

Over the span of forty years, the Peacock hardly ever spoke. As the days passed by, and the guards got changed, one by one, his voice was lost. Soon, there was no one who remembered what the Peacock’s voice had been like – another small addition to that mystery of his being. There were those who wondered why he didn’t speak, and what it was that he used to keep thinking, but overtime even those people slowly faded away. Soon, he was just another face amongst the many prisoners, the only difference being the bright peacock feather he owned.

The new set of guards came, and the annual trips to the courtyard stopped. Now, the years were lost in the sheer flow of them, and the Peacock aged away, thinking and wondering and fantasising about that tantalising dream that dangled in front of him. That was all that fuelled him for those many years that he spent on that cool stone floor, or the warm, firm mattress on his bunk, cut away from the rest of the world. The only assurance he had about the existence of an external world was the small square of sky that he could look at from his room. Every morning, he would have the sun sliding into the room through that little window, and fall on his face. The warmth of the sun was the first thing he felt every morning, and in spite of being a prisoner, he woke up with a smile on his face.

It was the sun that shone through that little window every night that gave him that ray of hope, the assurance that freedom was just above him. Once or twice, a lone Magpie would fly and sit on the ledge of that window, tapping on the glass. The Peacock wished that the magpie would stay there forever, that it could teach him what freedom meant, and how it felt to be able to fly and dive and swerve under the blue skies, that it would witness the day when that dream finally came true, that the Magpie would one day see the Peacock fly.

There was one little luxury allowed to the Peacock – the luxury of books. The guards had a small library, and the prisoners were allowed one book at a time, and they could take all the time with that one book as they wanted. After all, they were in prison, and they did have all the time in the world while they were in there. So, the Peacock went ahead and used this luxury as much as he could. Over the years, he became a prolific reader, so much so that the guards had to make a new rule of one book per week just for the Peacock. Even so, no other prisoner read as many books during their stay as the Peacock did.

He respected the writers, as they had found that calling in their lives. The books that they had written, the stories they told, the words they said – that was the reason for their existence. The Peacock found a lot in common between him and these writers, and wanted to know them as much as he could. So, he read, one book after the other, and kept hoping that one day, he too would find that calling in his life, that one day, even his purpose of life, his reason for existence, would be fulfilled. Like the writers wrote their books, dreaming of the stories and plotlines, the Peacock thought endlessly about his freedom, the way it would come about. He waited for that moment to come patiently, for he knew that in the moment, when his life would be given reason, the wait would be worth it.

So, he waited, and little by little, in his own ways, he moved forwards towards that thing that he wanted for such a long time. He ate right; he exercised every day, and seldom fell ill. He firmly believed that whatever may happen, his body was the best instrument he would ever get. Minute by minute, hour by hour, fitness regime by fitness regime, book by book and word by word, he went from a helpless trapped soul in a dungeon to being a man focussed on one thing in his life. He had found his calling too, the reason for his existence, over time – freedom. The realization of that purpose didn’t come about as an epiphany. It came about gradually. He didn’t believe in fate in his youth, as most young minds don’t. In his little cell, with one conversation chasing another in his mind, his focus kept growing.

In those years of solitude, he wondered about fate. He started realizing that maybe, this was the reason he was born, that maybe this was the reason that his life had turned out the way it had. There are always an infinite number of possible outcomes of an event in the universe, yet here he was sitting in that little cell. It must have meant that for him to be at that point of time in that particular place, out of all those infinite possibilities, the string of events were such that it decided for him to be here. Fate, somehow, never seemed to stop following his thoughts around – yet he was not as naïve as before. Over the many years that he had spent with himself in that little cell, he had begun to accept fate, and it was because of that thought that he started wondering if it was fate, in a manner of thinking, that had brought him to that place, that had brought that little peacock feather to him, that had made sure that his thirst for freedom could be given the opportunity to manifest itself in such concrete, tangible form.

He looked at the peacock feather in his dark calloused hand, and wondered if that was a part of fate as well; if it was in the plan right from the start that the peacock that wore the feather proud, would one day lose it. He wondered if it was chance or fate that had brought that peacock feather from the peacock’s tail to his hands, whether the peacock that had shed the feather knew just how much it inspired the trapped Peacock

During the first few months that the Magpie had been visiting the Peacock, he envied the Magpie. He would stare hungrily at the way the Magpie could flutter its wings and go right out of the window, but then the Peacock always noticed that come what may, the Magpie always returned. Over time, the Peacock started feeling a slight pity towards the free bird; in spite of being free, it couldn’t really fly away wherever it wanted to. The bond between man and bird had grown to a point where the bird unknowingly was tied down to the man. The bird always had a choice to fly away, and yet it didn’t – it couldn’t. The familiarity of the cell, the comfort of an area well known to the Magpie always drove the Magpie to the little cell. The familiarity was in a big part due to the presence of that familiar smiling face that was always present in the cell, with the big brown hands that never wanted to grab. Once, the Magpie had mustered up the courage to swoop into those hands, and although the hands were soft and warm and gentle, the Magpie’s instincts were too strong. Except that one time, the Magpie’s mind never allowed him to settle on the man’s hand.

It was the Magpie that first noticed the absence of the Peacock that day. Expecting the Peacock to be there, awake and waiting for their late evening tryst, he fluttered into the little cell. The cell was empty, and the Magpie’s little mind was confused. It called out to the man he had befriended over the years, but got no reply. He waited for a while, and then that night, with a heavy heart, went his way.

The Peacock had known that this would have happened, that in some way or the other, the Magpie would be hurt, but mighty fate was stronger than a tender broken heart; and so, sitting free on the roof for the first time in many, many years, he tried to hold back the tears as he heard the Magpie’s lament for a disappeared friend.

The Magpie’s cries that night alerted the guards. They knew the sad song belonged to the Peacock’s bird-friend, and they rushed forwards to the cell to see for themselves what the matter was. The door swung open, and the empty cell greeted them. Instantly, the sad song of the Magpie was replaced by the shrill cries of the guards – there was an escaped prisoner about. The Peacock heard the uproar, and smiled gently to himself; it was time.

The rooftop was at once the safest and the most dangerous place in the prison. Sitting there, the Peacock felt like one of those many birds that he had hoped to become for a long time, and yet he knew that he would be spotted soon. The cries were getting closer and closer, and still, he was a free man, sitting on a rooftop like a carefree bird, cradling that big peacock feather in his hand. The guards spotted him sitting there, and yet he was impervious. The guards yelled, they screamed, but the Peacock was too busy enjoying that freedom which he had been craving for so long. The rifles were loaded, and the shots were fired. Bullets flew all around him, buzzing around him like superhero bees on a mission to catch him dead or alive. That was the Peacock’s cue – he knew sitting there on the rooftop, he was a sitting duck. And so, with the bullets still buzzing around him, he got up and embraced his freedom.

He took a deep breath, a free breath. He felt the outside air, filled his lungs with it, and wished he could reach up and touch the grey night sky. He was ready, he was free, and his destiny was fulfilled. He had pushed his name a little beyond that line which divides the mortal from the immortal, man from superman, human from a wild, free beast. He looked down at the guards, and saw that they were angry – a mere violent human emotion, a needless by product of frustration. He smiled, yet again, and looked at the feather.

“It’s time to fly, my love,” he said to the feather in a low voice. Then, one last time, he looked back to the guards below, shaking their fists at him and firing the bullets that seemed to go anywhere they liked. His white teeth gleamed in the darkness as he smiled yet again, and whispered in that low voice, “See ya suckers! I’m outta here now…”

A stray bullet from many miles below caught him on the back of his head, and he fell from the roof. The peacock feather slipped out of his hand, and the wind caught hold of it. For a while, the feather flew with the wind, then gently floated downwards, and was swallowed by the darkness that waited below.

The Little Lost Shoe

The ominous black clouds refused to budge from over the city, and the rain fell steadily. The water logged roads looked sinister, hiding many mysteries within the churning, flowing, grey water that flowed where the roads travelled every day. Munni was worried about a lot of things, but she was most worried about the thought of the dirty swirling grey-black water seeping through her pretty pink Ghaghara and leaving it dirty and grey-black and without the beautiful, sweeping swirl that she was so proud of. Munni was especially close to that pink Ghaghara, and the thought of anything happening to it was too much for it. She closed her eyes, lest the tear drops that threatened to overflow poured out and ruined the mask of makeup, the one that Sushila put so much effort into.

Munni knew it would rain heavily during the day, and all through the night, she had begged and pleaded with Sushila, not to send her out in the rain, but Sushila wasn’t the type to listen to the pleadings of a tender heart that belonged to a fifteen year old. There was work to be done, and money to be brought in, and for that, come rain or heat, Munni had to get ready and get moving. Now, with the clock ticking, Munni sat silently with her chin on the cold damp windowsill, waiting for the click of the door announcing Sushila’s arrival, meaning that there would be no choice for Munni but to leave the comfort of the house. Even so, while half of her heart never wanted that click to come, half of it kept hoping that it would happen soon, that one way or another, she would get over it.

In the midst of all her thoughts, the lock clicked softly; a sound that reverberated through the cramped bedroom. The door swung open, and Sushila stood behind her. The red spittle from the betel leaves bordered her maroon lips; the gaudy golden bangles clanged as she raised her heavy hand upwards, gesturing to Munni. In spite of everything, such was her aura and power over the little girl, that a single “Come” in her husky, tobacco layered voice was enough for Munni to lose all her feelings to stand up against her and tell her that she wasn’t going to step out in the rain. Like a meek, shy deer, eyes lowered, she followed the swinging sari out of the room. A quick stop nears the door to put on her favourite shoes, and she was into the rain. The rain had paused, for a little while, but even so, the water was all around.

Having no other choice, with the door closing behind her with a brutal snap, she was left standing in the ankle deep water. With the first touch of the flowing water, the shoes and her Ghaghara were seeped in the dark water. Just a few steps into the water, the flowing water brought with it a tattered and dirty plastic bag, which seemed alive in the water as it wound itself round and round her fragile ankle. Munni was scared, and wet, and miserable standing in the rain. She tried to budge and free her foot from the plastic bag that had wrapped itself around her ankle, but to no avail. She tried to outrun it, but the current was against her, and the more she ran, the tighter the plastic bag wound itself around the shoe. The torn plastic got between her toes, almost tripping her twice, as the little drenched girl ran to free herself from the death grip of the dirty black plastic bag.

Her tiny feet pattered in the fast paced water, as she desperately tried to get away from the life that she had. She couldn’t take it anymore, and she started running away. Her legs flailing about, the plastic bag started to loosen, and it finally began to slide off; in her hasty joy, she failed to notice that along with the plastic bag, her right shoe was coming off as well. The plastic bag fell off finally, but it swallowed her pretty brown shoes with it before sliding off Munni’s foot. Munni didn’t notice, and shook off her shoe. The flow of the water carried it away and deposited it somewhere Munni would never find it again.

Not until she was right in front of her client’s dingy little apartment that she noticed one of her shoes missing. She looked around for them in the vicinity, but her heart told her that she would never be able to find it. Sadly, she took off the other shoe as well and left it outside before walking into the dirty apartment. For the first time in her life, Munni did her dance, her business, knowing that she would never see her beloved pair of brown shoes again.

P.S. 10 points to whoever guesses where the story comes from.

Snow White

The first rays of the sun fell on the new lanes of the old city. It was a new day, but the old man's life was still the same. The sunlight inched forwards, while the old man raised his sleepy eyes towards them and waited for that warm touch. The white cat purred softly beside him, while the old man looked down at the white cat, waiting for something magical to happen, just like every day. He sat up, and saw the shadows receding; he knew it wouldn't be long before the light would reach them, and the thought gave life to a mad euphoria in his eyes.

Then, the bright shiny light touched the white fur. The sunlight reached into the snow white strands, making the cat glow in the light early morning mist. Even the cat felt something, and mewed softly – but she dared not move, for she wasn't quite sure how to react to this beauty that was both inside and outside her. The old man's smile turned into a jovial laugh, as he stretched his wrinkled, bony fingers and stroked the cat's head softly.

"My dear Phanush, what would the day be without you," said the old man to the cat, while she purred lovingly in answer.

The old man stood up, and thus began his day. The footpath was waiting, as was his tattered rug where his days were spent. The loose change spared by the generous souls of the harsh city was his way to a semi filling breakfast. His stomach rumbling, he hastened to get started with his work day, and took his spot like every day. The tree overhead provided him with a little shade from the sun during the hot days, and a little cover from the water on rainy days.

It was a bright sunny day, and somehow the white cat didn't care too much to stay under the shade of the tree all day long. The day was calling out to him, and her stomach was rumbling too. She needed a bit of food, and so she left her old man behind and ventured across the street. She turned back once, and saw her old man wearing a sad face that seemed to work very effectively on the steady flow of feet, and the change flowed steadily into the little aluminium bowl in his hand. Reassured that the old man was fine for now, she moved further along.

Still early in the morning, the world around her had already begun in full swing. The shops along the street were thrown open, and the people bustling around everywhere would stop at one or the other shop for a quick bite. The myriad of smells that surrounded her made her stop a few times to investigate, but nothing seemed to appeal to the manic hunger of a restrained predator early in the morning. She looked back again, and saw her old man looking at her for a while with a happy gleam in his eyes, before going back to his aluminium bowl. 'A beggar has no business looking happy,' he used to say, and so she turned away from him knowing that it was bad for his business.

She turned back to the street and to the task at hand; finding breakfast. The street was full of the smells of food, but there was something there that she couldn't find. Her nose twitched slightly and led her on, in search of something so wonderful that she didn't even bother to look around at anything else. The smell of that special something had gotten hold of her so completely, so wholly, that nothing else seemed to exist at that point of time for her. She was carried forward by the scent that had caught her nose, and she glided forward effortlessly, dodging deftly between the many feet that pattered away on the busy footpath. She could feel her quarry getting nearer with every step, and the many generations of instinct that flowed through her veins told her to slow down. Her gait became slower, as she cautiously headed forward still. One quick glance behind, and she could see her old man looking at her with half a bewildered look on his face; but the overpowering scent of her prey drove all other thoughts out of his mind in a flash.

The butcher's shop was just a few steps ahead of her, and she had reached the butcher's block. Her senses tingling, she slowed down to a stop just in front of the block. Her muscles were ready to leap and catch the little, bloody sinew dangling near the edge of the beaten and cracked block. Her paws were hanging in mid air, ready to make the swipe if needed. Adrenaline and instincts pumped her heart, coursing through her blood. She stood there, frozen in time, waiting for the perfect moment to snatch that little piece of meat that had been calling out to her for so long. So still was she that nobody noticed her, and the butcher continued to cut up the meat on the block. She took a moment more, and then leaped towards her target.

Just as she was about to snap and free that little piece, the butcher's hand came out of nowhere and swatted at her face. She tried to dodge the hand, but in that midair change of direction, she fell a few feet short of the block. Landing on her feet as lightly as a feather, she could see the butcher raise his knife. Defeated, she streaked away, leaving that little piece of meat with the selfish butcher, while he hurled abuses that she never heard. Still hungry and humiliated, she looked around to see if her old man was still watching her.

She crossed the street and slowly walked back to the old man, who was still wearing a sorry face. He glanced quickly at her as she reached him, and sat down on his old ragged coat. From the look on his face, she could see that he hadn't seen her defeat; the ragged old coat was just as warm as before, and nothing seemed to have changed – but she kept wondering, if the one man who had always been so proud of her, the one man who had so unconditionally loved her through and through, thought lesser of her having seen that humiliating defeat back at the butcher's block.

Schizophrenic Sid

On a typical rainy morning, Schizophrenic Siddharth and his imaginary sidekick Sandesh were having a typical discussion, on one of the typical topics that they cooked up between the two of them.

“Here we are, standing in the bloody rain, early in the morning, all according to the whims of someone else. What’s the damn meaning of all this?”

“Sandesh, we’re going to work!”

“I hate it! You’re the one who wants this job, and I have to tag along with you every day. You don’t even let me talk when you’re in office.”

“Of course I don’t, you idiot! That’s where I work; it’s not a place where I want to have conversations with you.”

“But, you know there are so many things that I want to talk to you about, Sid.”

After many failed attempts at hailing a rickshaw, Sid was finally able to wave one down. The rain was falling steadily, and in his desperate bid to be in office on time, Sid had asked another desperate man like him if they could share a rickshaw together. Now, with the rickshaw waiting obediently in front of them, trailing a bluish white cloud of engine smoke behind it, the three of them got inside. The man told Sid where he wanted to get off, and that was the end of the conversation between them. The rickshaw started off, and Sid’s attention went back to Sandesh and his extreme desire to talk to Sid.

“I miss Li’l Al,” said Sandesh suddenly; Sid hadn’t seen it coming at all, and so that sudden mention of his long gone friend made him lose focus of the beautiful Audi that was stuck right in front of them in the early morning traffic jam.

“Why, suddenly, Sandesh?” asked Sid. “How come you suddenly miss him this much?”

“I’ve been thinking about stuff, recently, and been thinking about the whole death thing.”

“What death thing?”

“You know, how people are born, and then they do stuff all their lives, and then they just die?”

“Yeah.”

“I’ve been thinking, what’s the meaning of it all?”

“The point? We’re alive, we’re here! We’re doing everything we’re doing just so we can live, and that itself is a miracle.”

“But the purpose of it all? I mean, what’s the purpose of life, ultimately?”

“To live it.”

“Is it really that simple?”

“Well, it can be that simple, but you really have to want it to be that simple. You get it?”

“Not entirely. I mean, here we are sitting in the auto early in the morning, doing something that you

think you want to do. Still, how’s it impacting things?”

“I’m going to work. It’s what I do. I earn money this way, and that’s how I live.”

“Yes, but that’s for the time being, isn’t it?”

“No, it’s forever.”

“Not forever. For as long as you live, right?”

“I think I know what you mean there, but even so. This is what I do.”

“Ok, but do you leave an impact in the world?”

“Well, kind of. I mean, I’ve got my whole family who’s proud of me at this very moment, and they all feel that I’m doing a wonderful job here.”

“And then, one by one, they all die. Then you too die, someday.”

“Yes; just so you know, you’re scaring me a little bit here, but that is true. I know I will die someday.”

“Exactly. One day, you’ll die, and when that day comes, what would be the meaning of all of this?”

“I don’t think I understand what you mean exactly, Sandesh.”

“Well, you remember Li’l Al, right?”

“Of course I do.”

“You remember all the things that he used to do? The things he used to say to us when we were growing up?”

“Yeah, I do.”

“Well, what I’m trying to say has two sides to it, so it might take a little bit of time. Firstly, when Al lived amongst us, and when he told us all those things, it was all so real, right?”

“Yeah, it was.”

“So, in that moment, we knew he existed. There was so much he told us, about how we should live, and that’s the way we remember him, right?”

“Yes, Sandesh. What’s your point?”

“Well, my point here is somewhat linked to the second point that I’m trying to raise here. In a way, Al existed because we remember what all he did, how he lived his life, and everything that he told us during his life. We used to do that while Al was alive as well, didn’t we?”

“You mean, think about everything that he said? Yes, of course we used to.”

“Even poetically, many people have said that even after death, people can live on as memories. What if that’s actually true? Not in the physical sense perhaps, but what if right now, I’m alive because of the fact that people still remember me? What if, there’s a part of me that’s going to stay alive even after my death, because people still remember who I was, and what I said, and how I lived my life, and they can predict almost perfectly what my life would have been like, had I been alive?”

“That makes sense, in a very screwed up way. I don’t have the answer to it, but it does make sense; a whole lot of it.”

“I know what you mean. Even I don’t have the answer to that, it’s still all a mystery to me. And the weirdest bit about the whole thing is the second point that I was trying to raise here. Imagine that Li’l Al lives somewhere far away, and there’s no way that we can contact him. Now, how do we know that he existed? How do we know that he’s not with us anymore? How do we know that he’s dead?”

“That’s because we saw Al die, Sandesh. We were there at his funeral, remember?”

“No, that’s not what I meant. I’m talking about a hypothetical question. Imagine that he didn’t die, he just moved away; really far away. In that kind of a situation, how would you know if he’s alive or dead? More importantly, how would you know that he existed in the first place, if you can’t contact him ever again?”

Sid stopped talking, and sat up in the auto thinking. Sid was a big guy, and the auto was a little small for him; his shoulder kept banging against the stranger who sat beside him, and Sandesh didn’t really like this part of the morning ever. Thankfully, on that day however, Sandesh seemed to have other things on his mind than Sid’s shoulder banging against those of strangers in the auto as they met up with every pothole of the city.

“You know what I’m talking about now?” asked Sandesh, as Sid tried to adjust a little better in the cramped environment. “How do we know whether someone existed, beyond what we remember of them?”

“Ok, now I’m starting to get confused, even though everything you’ve said here makes almost perfect sense.”

“With an example, then. We know that Li’l Al existed because we remember him – but what if Al existed only in our minds? What if the reason he seems so real to us is because of the fact that our memories are so vivid, and so clear? Maybe he wasn’t there, maybe we just imagined him all up, and then somehow forgot the fact that we had conjured him up in the mind. Maybe, that’s why, even though he was fiction, he seemed so real.”

“What have you got against Li’l Al, Sandesh? Why are you so hell bent on making him imaginary, when you very well know that he was just as real as you are!”

“I know that, Sid. I was just talking about a hypothetical situation.”

“Well, if you must insist on making people imaginary, then you might as well do that with people I don’t know, or people I’m not that close to.”

“Like that guy who was sitting beside you, until a little while ago?”

Sid looked beside him, and saw that the auto was empty. Somewhere along the way, the man had reached his destination, put his part of the fare silently into Sid’s hands, and disappeared in the world outside the little auto. Now, with Sandesh laughing silently in his head, the silent stranger existed only in his memories; like Li’l Al, like the many nameless faces Sid saw every morning, and even though he’d never admit it, like Sandesh himself.