Jobless Days - 3 Feb

3 Feb Confessions

When a writer writes, a painter paints, a singer sings, a dancer dances; he confesses. I writing journals and more than that not keeping them to private reading only, indeed has a motive. A motive to confess, or as I would like to call it- self-condemn. The power to observe is a curse. When you observe, you confess, you self condemn. For the time being, replace the word ‘confession’ from your vocabulary with ‘self-condemnation’, and try to remember the last time you observed something. Anything, it might be a gay couple at a beach, two close buddies in the bus, an old lady finding it too difficult to bend down and pick up her glasses, grand pa dozing off on his rocking chair, street children quenching their thirsts from the fountain near the broken BMC pipeline or simply the waves at the beach or the clouds passing by. While you observe, your brain constructs a metaphorical memory which happens to be the closest to your observation. Thus, you begin questioning your existence. While you are doing so, your self confidence is beaten cruelly by your gruesome guilt! As an outcome, your (so-called) friends term you as ‘lost’. Something like this is a commonplace in my life. I am known to be ‘lost’. It’s absolutely normal to be lost; but ‘how frequently’ is the thin line that separates me and you.

Finally, we got a Tata Sky connection. Since I chose to stay at home, I landed up coordinating with the chirpy Tata Sky engineer and his novice side kick to get the satellite signal ‘direct to my home’. The Idiot Box, which has been my friend since childhood, re-unified with me after 5 years. I see it has developed quite a bit. Has become thinner and has a new name- LCD! With the digitization infecting everything, my friend also got himself ‘digitized’ (thanks to the trusted Tata). Turning on the TV and watching my old friend talk about the 5 years we had lost was amazing. I, at a point wished that he never stopped. He looked so excited to tell me how much the world has changed and what I missed. The best thing about childhood friends is no matter after how many years you meet, the conversation seem like you never had been apart! He spoke with the same spirit, but thanks to the digitization, he had developed an accent. I tried mocking him a bit with that accent, but ended up being a laughing stock for few minutes. (Ah! I can never get that accent.) At a point while conversing with him, it occurred to me that I was excited more than him, but for a different reason. I was thinking the whole time of talking about our conversation to my new friend- The Social Network! And that was when I began self-condemning. I wasn’t excited to talk to my childhood friend, but I was excited to talk about him to my new friend. My guilt scored a point against my self confidence. I was looking at him, talking, gesturing, laughing, jumping, singing, dancing- but I wasn’t listening. I was rather bothered about what my new friend must be doing at the moment. I checked my cell phone - no texts. My guilt scores another point. The Idiot Box was so happy to meet me that it refused to take a breath; it was going on and on. From one topic to the other- no breaks! I was still thinking about Social Network. My self confidence was losing. I started thinking about the guilt of not trying to call The Idiot Box in these 5 years even once. I didn’t even write anything on his wall... wait, I just prioritized the Social Network over The Idiot Box! I stopped my thoughts. Self confidence has lost the battle. Guilt over powered, and celebrated his victory! My head burst with the sound of the fireworks. I couldn’t take it anymore. That’s when The Idiot Box asked me the first question about me- “So, tell me, what did you do in these 5 years? You never called or replied to my messages. What’s up?” He was smiling. (My guilt was hosting a naked pool party with his girlfriends in my head!) I smirked. He didn’t speak, he was smiling. I thought, he would avoid the topic and move on, but he didn’t. He waited for a reply.

My self confidence was laying injured, blood oozing out from each wound, face swollen up with the smashes. I closed my eyes and prayed, to give him one last chance. That’s when I recollected the scene from Deewar. (I have seen the film so many times with The Idiot Box!). Vijay climbs the step of the temple for the first time to beg God for his mother’s life! The bells ring, it starts storming. I visualized myself as Vijay ..err a fat Vijay (tried a lot to morph my paunch, but as I said my self-confidence was injured!). I screamed “Bhagwan, aaj main tere chaukhat pe..mere self confidence ka jaan ki bheek maangne aaya hun...” With that, the bells rang even louder. Melodramatic childhood days were getting back. The police raided the pool party; my self confidence rose and stood on his legs! My guilt was taken into custody; while going he said “This is just the beginning.” But I didn’t pay him any heat. My self confidence was back! I opened my eyes; the Idiot Box was still smiling, unaware of what just happened. I smiled too and said, “I missed you buddy.” We hugged. Then I spoke about my new friend- the Social Network; and guess what, he was eager to meet him, he had heard about him a lot. They had met once before and had clicked it off well! I was so glad! I was scared for nothing. I smiled. That’s when my friend (with a job) called me “Aye, Lost!”....I smiled. He had no clue why I smiled, and continued to tease me. But I and you both know now, what I went through confessing and self-condemning to my childhood friend! Phew! 

Jobless Days - 2 Feb

2 Feb. A Serious Day

Good old school days! When they are gone, they leave their trail. Trail of hope, trail of despair. Suddenly Laxminarayan Sir becomes nice, his beatings and scolding seem to be desirable. Jyoti mam now gets a reason for her then-unreasonable punishments. How easily the then-harsh days fail to stand against the now-harsh days! And the best part of it is schools don’t get destroyed by earth quakes or broken down by the aliens (like we cursed hem years back), instead they enrol more children and turn them into students. There is a school near my house- they call it, ‘Victoria High School’. Guessable enough, it’s a catholic school with a church. I was walking down the foot path that crosses the school’s gate. It was recess. A huge lock prevented the gate to split open by the students’ mob (they were dying to get out!). I wondered what makes them so eager to break the gate. Say, they succeed, what next? The traffic jams? The bad bosses? The break ups? The drug over doses? The fake friends? The virtual reality? Social networks? They had no clue, I had a hint!

I crossed the same school today as well. My roommate- Nitin Uppot or as he is far famed as- Uppy was accompanying me to hunt for a Tata Sky franchisee store. We were supposed to meet up with Nandan near the Sitladevi temple (an agnostic choosing a temple as a landmark to meet is Armageddon calling!).

Earlier in the afternoon, Uppy had plaints about me not including him in my blogs. For few moments, I was overwhelmed! My blogs were getting famous. People wanted to be a part of them. The early morning reminder texts from Facebook about the appreciations that readers ‘comment’ under my posts really make my day (getting a job would still be longed though). I have started to attract few daily readers. Feels good! The idea for writing journals really did work out! I could have been lost in my pride land if Uppy would not have screamed “Its evening, go and brush fast, we need to leave!” I hate reality checks!

So, we crossed the school. The school must have just got over, and the gate must have been unlocked; for there were children coming out of the school building. I saw a group of 3 kids crossing the road, they were about to take the foot path on which were walking. I became inquisitive to listen to their conversation (did they get any beatings today?). When I took few eager steps towards the kids to eves drop at what they were chatting with so much gesture, I experienced a weird thing.

The world around me froze. I looked towards Uppy, he stood there without moving a muscle. The only thing moving in the vicinity was a leaf which was dropping from the tree above me. I looked up, I could see it coming and landing on my forehead. It felt cold. I looked down. I was standing on a giant replica of the leaf which had fallen on me. It was falling on a giant ‘me’ who stood underneath. I thought- A never ending loop! Acute loss of confidence and pain of numbness. The humour had evaporated to form clouds of sorrow and distress. A warm drop ran down from my right eye and left its mark on my right cheek. The silence around me broke. I could hear a sob, some was saying something in his sobs. The voice sounded familiar, the voice sounded like me. It was sobbing, reciting poetry perhaps. A poem with no rhyme scheme. A poem of absurdity:

“The blankness bleeding profusely into the hollowness inside me.

 Hyde is resting, his slumber driven by Jekyl’s harmonica.”

“So, he is gonna meet us at Sitladevi, right?” Uppy’s voice set the world back to its motion. The time-freeze broke. Having no clue of what just happened, I thought of penning it down in my journal (Perhaps one of my readers might have a clue and leave a comment!). I recollected, I was meeting Nandan; and before that, I was inquisitive about knowing what the kids were talking about. I looked around for the kids; they had gained some pace and were walking ahead of us. I nodded to Uppy as a ‘yes’, and was getting desperate to find out what the kids were talking. From their attire, they looked like the slum kids I used to teach during my internship. Two of them were brothers. The third one was a friend to the younger, which forcibly had made him do friendship with the elder brother. Perhaps they stayed in the same neighbourhood. Enough of the artistry, I thought. I was literally struggling to hear what they were talking. There must be a story getting cooked up! Uppy was busy smiling at the jokes he himself cracked. The traffic was getting intolerably loud! I could hear nothing what they were speaking. They crossed the road and took a different path.

Another disappointment in my list today, I wondered what I will write in my journal. Me, being proven as a loser again and again won’t make people laugh. To write about humour around me was a request by one of my readers and a good friend. But, I thought, after reading this, she shall understand, Jokers do cry. I looked at Uppy, he was searching for Nandan. The agnostic urchin lied to us. He wasn’t waiting; he was still in the cab!

Yes latter, we bought the Tata sky set top box, had lunch at a breakfast restaurant (Prakash) and returned home. I was still wondering about the sob I heard, and the time-freeze. What was it?