DABBLER SCRIBBLES

“Miss Neer you look as pretty as ever”. Arnav blushed as he saw Miss Neer. It was the seventh floor of the company and Arnav has his desk in the rightmost corner of the floor, desk number 26. Arnav had a liking for Miss Neer. He loved the smell of her perfume, the sweet cardilac, the little pearl necklace around her neck, her wonderful smile and her pink dress that she wore every day!  Same pink skirt with that pretty pearl necklace …. Every day! She looked charming and Arnav never asked a reason for her monotonous attire.

                  3 months ago on 14 July, 2014, Arnav was hired as an accountant in the company. He has been a rather confined to work guys since then, except for his little chats to Miss Neer, whose desk was beside his…the last in the row…desk number 27! Miss Neer was shy too, she never spoke to anyone else, never left her desk even for coffee. People in the company giggled whenever Arnav speaks with her. Arnav never mentioned about his liking or never spoke of her with his colleagues. He got her coffee in the breaks, but Miss Neer never drank one. Every time he offered, she whispered “coffee kills” and chuckles refusing it. It all seemed like Arnav was her only friend in company and none bothered heeding her presence either.

                                 Saturday night and Arnav had to take an extra shift to complete his target. Miss Neer was at her desk too, and nobody else was on the floor. Arnav had to get a file to complete his documentation from the store room, the attender was already gone for the day and he left store keys with him. He smiled at Miss Neer and moved towards the store room. Third room from the lift, he walked amidst the silence of the floor and the dim light that shone only near his desk. Miss Neer was still at her desk, watching him, smiling. He opened the door and turned on the light. Pile of dowdy files covered by a sheet of dust filled the room. He kept searching with his eyes transfixed on the racks and files. He tumbled over a box and fell down and in his attempt to hold a rack, few files fell on the floor.                                                      

                                                                    Pink file, with blots of ink on it with a similar smell of cardilac fell near him and a paper peeped out of it. It was Miss Neer’s record. He got up and picked the file. A chill flowed through his spine when he read a news report amidst the documents…..

                            14 July, 2013

                                                  Neer, an employee in a reputed company, died an un-natural death yesterday when a coffee machine exploded at her house after she returned from her office…………………

        He caught his breathe to peep out. There was no body on the floor now!!!!

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Anybody can answer this? The professor cleared his throat only to scream again….. Anyone? I knew what he was asking for, what he expects as an answer but I chose not to raise a voice or my hand. Saturday afternoon cradling in the soft breezes which sneaked in through the window, accompanied by the euphoria of the new blossoms touched by their aroma, swept through the aisle between the desks and finally hit me on my face. It was the best season of the year, spring, and I was stuck in the monotonous loop of lectures. No one knows? The professor deeply craved for an answer now. But I did not raise my arm.

     Why be the first one to be telling, first one to raise a voice even if I am capable of? I drew back on my bench among the little whispers.

                100 decades back when the human race was on a merge of being a better civilization, a better society which encompassed the mark of beginning of kingship by what law was the first king chosen? I was struck by a random thought. The first one? Who would enjoy decades of dictatorship, years of royalty, and eras of unquestionable powers? Was it not someone who chose to be the first among the rest of equals………the equals who did not have the guts to raise a voice or be the first one? Over 60 eminent civilizations which have shaped the modern world came into existence only because someone from the mob decided to be the first one to start, the first to raise a thought…….Yes… indeed the first one!!

                                 I chuckled at my thoughts and raised my hand. Sir I do!!!!!  

“Click a pic!” Arnav threw his camera at me while he got himself busy appreciating the beauty of place. 9 am in the morning and we were at the fort palace of Nizams, rulers of Hyderabad and nothing got better than peeping over the city from the fort top. More than 5 decades since the abdication and the essence of strength has not abandon the fort yet. Beautiful gardens, like a speaking art of a connoisseur. Each boulders that measured half my height, piled up to make that place an everlasting fort. “Pic!” Arnav screamed from far, “use panorama mode”, he added while I was still busy exploring the fort. Panorama mode! I haven’t acquainted myself with it before. I surfed through his options of modes, 30 plus in number, before I slipped on panorama mode. I selected it.  A green bordered rectangle urged me to move the screen to right after I began clicking a shot. Move right! The voiceless arrow along the border was screaming. I did that without questioning. It stuck for a second on the screen and again urged me to move right. Right!!! Why go right when I have a better view downwards? I tried to fool it by sliding the screen down. The piece of wires breathing on software with the grace of few electrons giving it its life, was not ready to be fooled. The arrow pointed up. Why click a shot of a scene when I have a better view here?  

                         It was 7 years ago that Arnav decided to take up science even after having a love for literature. Science! Why not literature, I seemed to have asked him all these years only to never get an answer. Sheets of scores from his childhood bragging about his excellence in sciences fooled him into tacking sciences, but his heart still beats for literature, craving for a chance. But what now? The arrow now pointed towards right, move right, urging voicelessly. He has come too far to make a choice now. He didn't choose the right grounds to start the panorama mode of his life and now he can just only follow the arrow, his decision, the ever urging one, yes……..his only panorama of life!!!

“Excuse me, which way is to the bus station?” I asked a heavy built man who was all dressed up in the south Indian attire.” Which way…..to the bus station?” I asked him again. 12 pm in the noon and I was all lost in the streets of an old city of Madras. Old city, I guessed, going by the houses and their architecture. Sweating in the heat, breathing hard and all tired of the futile walk to get to bus station, I had a little luggage that I dragged with myself. No other means of transport made itself available and the people at the center couldn't understand my say. The sign boards that read the address, name of shops, were all in the local language and I stood staring at them like a non-literate. Non literate! Like a guy who cannot map himself to any of the gibberish that was written. Trying hard to make sense out of them but failing all the time. Like a mouse trapped in a cheese trap. The words on the sign board were laughing at me! Scared and distorted, I drew myself to the shade of a shop. The words still dancing in my head, screaming, making me all helpless. Helpless! Yes… the most helpless of all creations ever. Helpless because I couldn't fathom the script, couldn't understand them…. Helpless because I couldn't contemplate anything for myself at the moment. Helpless because I felt helpless. I closed my eyes and took a deep breathe.

                                    7 billion people in the word and almost 1 billion of them stand non-literate, I remembered an article on” ILLITERACY RATE”! Whoa, 1 billion, that’s 26% of world’s population, I was amazed by the memory of the facts. 1 billion people who feel helpless every day, every moment, who feel like they are living in the trap, not trying to escape it anymore…. Not trying to free themselves anymore….. Simply because they cannot. 1 billion people who stare at every sign board waiting for it to speak for itself. 1 billion people who feel lost at every step of their life, 1 billion people who are helpless forever and I was worried at my little helplessness? I chuckled at my thoughts! 

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It was not before the fall of spring that he realized what he was getting into. Why his nights go insomniac, why he feels a rush of blood every time now, why he fumbles or at times end up eating all the words, why he plays that song again and again, why he couldn't get his classes right anymore. So many whys and he has already waited over a year to understand the feeling.

      The little green plant, the 5 pebbles on his table, his books, the box of his favorite pens and his beautiful diary, everything lay untouched for over a week now. He doesn't sit at his table anymore, he doesn't write a new verse or even utter a word. Calm and drenched in his thoughts.

                 Staring out of his room’s window, letting the breeze feel his breathe, gazing at the stars at night, watching the leaves of his orange blossom tree dance, counting her only picture in his phone over and over again. 1248 times … 1249 times now and it was not before the fall of spring, when the orange blossom tree decided to bloom for him, not before the fireflies decided to glow for him on that moonless night, not before the picture in his phone smiled back at him, not before he played her favorite song over a million times and not before he closed his eyes over a shooting star and whispered to himself, “I love her, damn I do”, that he knew that he was in love.

Down at soul where I breathe my dreams,

The voice of my heart screams,

I have fumbled, fallen million times,

Hold my hand and show what love means,

I have burnt myself in the rains,

Felt it deep till my veins,

For this life and all the ones to come,

With you in it now, is all which means,

Down at soul where I breathe my dreams

Can’t breathe without you anymore,

My love, the heart screams.

    

Long, long ago. Wait!! Not very long before WhatsApp came into picture, a great user whom all the rest called “THE CREATOR”, created a group, “THE KINGDOM” and added all the contacts of the world. He subsequently passed the group Adminship to his users era after era and the present admin was Prince Of Verona. Years of chat were carried with all the love and affection before two contacts by name Montagues and Capulets, due to personal conflicts, finally left the group. Prince of Verona, mad at this, decreed that anyone else who created a problem will have their accounts deleted, and he meant it this time. On the other side the Montagues and the Capulets made their own personal groups and never chatted again with each other.

Years later, Romeo Montague, who was friend of Rosaline and Juliet Capulet, who was a friend of Paris got accidentally added to a group called “Masquerade Ball”. Not knowing each other’s family groups, Romeo and Juliet chatted and eventually fell in love. Later they realized that they were from a rival group and cannot be together. Knowing of the apocalypse, Romeo asked Friar Laurence, a friend of Romeo, to create a group with his and Juliet’s alternate numbers. Romeo gave his new number and Juliet asked her nurse to give her number to Friar Laurence. Her nurse met Mercutio, another friend of Romeo and gave him Juliet’s number to give it to Friar.

Friar created a new group and after joining Romeo and Juliet, quitted the group and made Romeo the group admin. He also changed their location status on Google.

         A little later Tybalt Capulet of the Capulets forcibly deleted the account of Benvolio Montague. Mad at this Romeo deleted the account of Tybalt Capulet.

         The PRINCE OF VERONA, admin of the great group “THE KINGDOM”, decided to punish Romeo by deleting his account. Romeo scared of it hid his online status for some time.

         Juliet came to know about all this when her nurse messaged her. Meanwhile the lord Capulet decided that Juliet should change her number and join a group with Paris within 2 days. Paris forcefully tried to change her number but could not succeed.

     A little later, amidst the chaos, Friar Laurence hatched a plan to avoid the number exchange by asking Juliet to uninstall her Whatsapp for 42 hours. She agrees to do so but could not inform Romeo because of bad network signals.

    Romeo got a notification, a rumor, that Juliet has deleted her account. Taken back by the tragedy he deletes his account himself. Just then Juliet re installs her Whatsapp and re activates her account. Shell shocked by the incident she mourns about her loss. Meanwhile Paris tries to send angry emoticon to her. 

 Broken into tears she finally deletes her account and goes offline forever with her Romeo.

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Listen, look at the man over there, “He is mad”, my friend chuckled as he pointed at an old man ,at the steps of a closed shop. Bedraggled clothes, dowdy hair having all the twists and turns that a river would have running down a mountain, overgrown beard  almost hiding his face, bluntly showing his desire to disguise himself, nails grown enough to cut through anything but not his madness. A pack of newspapers, few empty cans, a half squeezed bottle and a totally different world was all that he had.  A world which dates back to his past, back to his family, back to the time when he was sane businessman who lost everything to a disaster, an apocalypse of his life.  He sat at the steps mumbling numbers to himself as he rustled through the newspaper, numbers that made no sense to me.
       My friend was more amused than concerned. He muttered, “Mad man”, and started giggling. Mad man! That was a strong word and I grew curious about his judgment. What allowed him to decide that he was lunatic and to be disgusted? May be  his half torn clothes and his constant mumbling of numbers, but then what would the saints of this country be called, who spend years meditating and mumbling over millions of god’s name not bothered about their attire or even their existence…….. Are they mad too? Or maybe it was his different world that he lived in….!! A world that does not even exist!! But then what about the writers and poets and the scientists, who see what does not even exist but still believe in it. What about the sages of our country who foretell the future…. A future that they believe they can see… isn't the future a different world too. Can we call them lunatic? Definitely not! But that one.. near the steps, lost in his thoughts was surely a mad man.

I drew closer and sat nearer to him, listening to what this mad man has got to tell about his world… a world that might have existed. .... Yes a world in the MAD MAN’S TALK, who can never be sane again.



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10 am in the morning and I swayed in the streets along the countryside gandering at everything. Two streets off and I was stuck at the courtyard of a hut. Covered in hay stack it had walls of brick that held it. The wall owned many cracks that smuggled light into and eventually opened in an entrance covered by rugged sheet of cloth. None of these caught my sight but the spinning wheel at the wall’s feet. Covered in layers of indistinct mud, it spun endlessly. It splashed drops of muddied water at the wall and the potter, who himself looked nothing less than a statue of mud unless he decided to draw his stick to spin the wheel. I stood there with my eyes transfixed on the transition that was going to impose a question on mankind.

     The potter drew his stick to spin the wheel, this time more vigorously. He bestowed a block of clay to the wheel which curiously spun aping the nature of time…it spun like the never stopping time and with it spun the clay too. The potter drew his hands closer to the clay and touched it. Like a sorcerer’s touch to a lifeless body, the clay started to take shape. Molding itself!! The wheel spun with vigorous enthusiasm as if it was curious about the consequences of the touch… as if it was curious about the clay’s fate. The clay continued to mold itself but the potter’s touch has decided its fate already. The touch has defined its existence already like the million years of humankind which has endlessly spun on the wheels of time molding itself by the touch of his society, by the touch of his thoughts, by the touch of his experiences….and like the one which will continue to spin for a million years to come seeking for a touch that would better his existence, justify his eras of evolution and a touch that would define him finally. He spins like the clay on the wheel…. Waiting for the touch of his soul!! He spins!!! I chuckled.


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                                               (Does the pic say nothing or something!)

Nothing!! That’s a strange word. 4 pm at the coffee shop on a Sunday evening, I asked her,” What’s between us?” Nothing”, she whispered while texting to her friend. Nothing!!” How could there be nothing?” I thought to myself. I drew back on my chair and felt the breeze hit the chimes at the shop’s door. The chimes were singing now and the air glided from the door and slithered between our coffee mugs. Between the gap where there was “nothing”!! Nothing!! I was still whispering it to myself … softly! A series of thoughts stroked my thinking and I went from air to molecules to atoms to electrons to quartz trying to find her “nothing”.

                                                   Nothing!! Having my eyes still fixed at the gaps, I thought  if air existed between everything, what existed between the air molecules?? Nothing!? I put my palm between the gaps to feel the air again! Vacuum, a voice screamed in my head and my thoughts rolled on an article over vacuum and space, does nothing mean vacuum? Does vacuum mean not having anything? Then how does our universe have vacuum and still have something? A bunch of lilies, set of tissue papers, 2 spoons, knitted cloth covering, I saw nothing of them but just the two coffee mugs. Sweet coffee aroma mixed in the fragrance of the raspberries from the pie, I felt nothing of them but just the air gliding through the gap, still wondering what nothing is? Does nothing mean having something so minute that it could adeptly hid itself? Does nothing mean having something and not reckoning its presence? Does nothing mean not meaning nothing at all? May be yes…yes!! So there is always a minute something in every nothing!

                             I looked at her, chuckled and whispered, yeah nothing…… may be “nothing”!!!

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“Filthy! Do you even read your work?? What gives the clue that you could be a writer?? “, the publisher threw the paper on my face as he chewed on a few more beetle nut bits.” Next time if you go to a publisher, make sure you have read your filth first”. Filthy work? He calls my work filthy!! “If people like him were to publish works, Shakespeare would have never dared writing one”, I thought to self while picking up the papers. “Get out!” he screamed again. I slithered out of his cabin, dodged his employee who was haunted by his deadlines, missed his mail boy by inches who rushed in like a marathon winner, glided down his 58 steps to reach the ground, muttering to self, “Is my work really filthy?, why don’t they get the zeal of it?”. A flash of light followed by a honk of a car horn made me realize that I was on the road already. Four lane wide road divided by a pair of street lights, nothing brighter than the road itself with a fleet of over powered lifeless metal bodies carrying even lifeless human beings from their offices, screaming their presence in the lot!! It was dark and I tried to smuggle myself to the other side of the road amidst the ragging flash lights. Hard! Every time I moved an inch a gang of them rushed to throw me off the road. I slithered first and rushed through the rest. Relieved!! Alive!! Cursing the lot.

       Wet green grass, lavender flowers in the company of sleepy trees, cradling branches in the lullabies of the fragrant breeze followed by a rhythm of songs by toads and hoppers….Can a place be so placid amidst the chaotic human lives??, I chose not to  answer that but settled myself on the sloppy meadows near the lavenders, still thinking,” filthy! 72 publishers by now and all they have to say is filthy? Is there anyone who would want to read my work!! “I chuckled sarcastically. I smuggled the papers out of my bag and gander at them, but chose not to read them now. 432 times I have already read my work and I still didn't find it filthy. I breathed deep. Slipping the papers back into the bag I gazed up!!Dark blue cover with diamonds sparkling like they were embroidered by a connoisseur of art. Beautiful! I whispered to self. 1…2…3… that makes the Orion’s belt, I figured out Sagittarius too! I had already started counting the star,” 88 constellations and I managed to spot a few of them!” The article on “universe and stars” that accidentally reached my desk two weeks back declared that we have around 176 billion galaxies, each having a god damn 100 million stars!! Whoa! 100 million stars and 176 billion galaxies, that’s a huge number, I chuckled at the fact thinking that if even 0.1% of the 100 million stars in every galaxy had a solar system like ours, then there would be 10 million solar systems. 10 million! I screamed only to realize that there were none listening. 10 million earths, 10 million trillion people! Gosh, I don’t even know so many numbers, I stood amazed by the counts…..its huge!! And in this 10 million trillion people there would be a bunch of them who would not consider my work filthy!! A bunch at least! Yes…. A bunch at least, I whispered to self, chuckled and smuggled a piece of paper out of my bag. The next publisher's address…the 73^rd one! Out of the millions to come just the 73^rd one. 

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