Fragments of a Thinking Mind

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[theshreedhar]

Love, life, loss and a cat

This is the story of Chotu. The love of my life. The light of my life. Born 17 Feb, 2012, she was 9 years, 4 months and 4 days old when she left this world on 21 June, 2021.

Chotu, as her name appropriately captures, was a small cat. She died of chronic kidney disease—apparently common in senior cats. We checked the size of her kidneys. They had become a little chotu too, just like her.

Slipping in

We didn’t adopt Chotu. She adopted us. People use this “we were adopted by insert pet’s name here” phrase quite often. But when I say it, I mean it quite literally. We didn’t pick her from a shelter or from the street. She was born in my building. Third floor. Much to the neighbours’ aghast. This is also how I know the exact date of her birth and also have a picture of her before she even opened her eyes for the first time.

Her mom, again appropriately named Motu, was a clever cat. She knew I had an affinity for cats, but others in my family (especially mom), not so much. I’d play with her. She’d scratch me at times. It was good.

Motu and I shared a secret. It was her secret, actually. I’d sleep late in the night, which is why she had to let me in on it.

We’d play during the day. Outside. But at night, when I was “studying” or doing whatever the hell I was, she’d slip into the house and below the table. And sleep a good night’s sleep. Before any of us woke up, she’d be gone.

This was good. This worked. For quite some time. But then, to her annoyance, she gave birth to Chotu. For a month or so, she was busy with her motherly duties and did away with the space of our home. But then she was back. With Chotu. I don’t remember how long this worked for Motu, but it wouldn’t be long before Chotu blew her secret. They were caught. By mom. You don’t want to be caught by mom.

There was hell. They were forbidden from coming in. The windows were to be shut. But, well, I was the one who stayed up. The authorities can make whatever the hell rules they like, it’s the men on the ground that implements them. I was the man on the ground. The cats kept coming in.

Until they were caught again. This time it was serious. Mom was not okay. Motu took the hint and stopped coming in. We settled on Chotu to be allowed in at night. I have no memory of how this happened. I don’t think I’d be able to convince mom to do this today. But Chotu always had an allure. Motu was cleverer. Sharper. But Chotu had the allure.

And that’s how Chotu adopted us. By being naive, not taking the hint, and continuing to come in where she wasn’t wanted (at least by the matriarch).

Acceptance

If you’ve got a pet, the essential thing to do is to get them neutered so that they can’t reproduce. If you don’t, one cat can become 10 in less than a year. And 10 cats can become 100 in two. It’s a no-brainer. Pet and stray animals alike must be neutered. It’s the only and most effective way to avoid suffering and death.

But to convince someone hell bent against neutering is impossible. Here again I was at loggerheads with mom. She didn’t want me to get Chotu (or any animal) operated upon.

But this was a non-negotiable for me. And she supposedly didn’t even care about her. Why would she care about this now? I was the decision maker. I called up a local NGO, didn’t tell anyone else, and off Chotu went. I told them only after she’d gone. Mom wasn’t happy. But it was okay—Chotu was to be back in a week.

But she didn’t turn up. I called them up. She’d apparently removed her stitches and had to be kept for longer. I called them up again after a week. Chotu was pulling out the stitches and not letting the incision heal, they said. And then again after a week.

Mom says she really enjoyed her motherhood. She always wanted to be a mother. I’ll never understand why. This is probably why she cried when Chotu wasn’t brought back. The thought of a disappearing motherhood along with fearing the worst. In her mind, she had assumed that the operation had failed, Chotu was gone, and they weren’t telling me. I had never for a second thought along those lines. But now I did. I cried too.

And then they called. Chotu’s incision had healed and they were bringing her back. We weren’t home, we’d all gone to Churchgate with the extended family for lunch. It goes without saying, I didn’t care about the lunch. I only wanted to get home.

Our neighbour Edith aunty collected Chotu. The first time I saw her it was magical. She sat on the window, quiet, in her classic rabbit-like poise. She had lost some weight, but it didn’t matter. A part of her ear was missing, but it didn’t matter. She was back, in full heart and soul. And she would never go away.

We brought her home. And it was then that I knew. Chotu was ours. And we were hers.

There were so many little things leading up to this moment that could alter what happened. And I don’t even mean the operation itself. Today most NGOs charge a fair amount for neutering surgeries. They’re a pricey procedure even at NGOs! I don’t know if I would’ve been able to pay to get her neutered. Whoever knows what would’ve happened then.

Cat things

Motu was a sharp and clever cat. I’ve said it before. Like a good mom, she once caught a pigeon for Chotu and herself to feast on. Chotu was intrigued. She was fascinated. I was seeing her from the window. She pawed the dead pigeon. A pigeon is a light, feathery animal. If you paw the body, it’s going to move. We know that. Chotu didn’t. That momentary movement and flutter of the dead pigeon absolutely terrified her. I knew then that she was a cat but not really.

She did a number of cat things. She loved climbing heights. Trees, cupboards, even doors.

Chotu also loved chasing pieces of thread. At least in her young years. A classic move that we played was to first entice her with a long rope, get her full attention, then turn it around her in circles a good few times. She’d spin! And be dizzy after that. She must’ve caught on, or just lost interest in threads, because we didn’t do this too many times. It’s one of our golden memories of her antics.

When you’ve got a little cat at home, there’s something already inside that’s absolutely terrified. No, no. Not rats. Chotu was no good with rats. It’s the furniture. Cats absolutely destroy furniture and upholstery.

Well, so did Chotu. But we stopped caring about it. We had to. We couldn’t buy her a dedicated scratch stand, our flat was too small for that (also we were on minimal expenses). I was and still am surprised how we just accepted that our furniture would have cat scratches and upholstery loose threads. I’m surprised but so, so happy. I’d much rather have my little girl’s happiness than a smooth sofa cover.

Today, we remember Chotu as a quiet, unfussy cat. Especially in the last few years, she was as undemanding as any cat could be. She’d ask for food, let us know when she wanted to go to the toilet (aka an imli tree in our building, which we’d take her to), and come back on her own. Earlier, she’d just slip in from the windows. As she grew older, she didn’t enjoy slipping in from the windows. Then she began knocking the doors! She would scratch at it, and the first time we were creeped out at the sound of it. But then we were amused and impressed. Every time. We had a cat who was not only ladylike enough to prefer doors over windows, she also knocked.

But she could get loud as hell when she wanted to. She could really scream. She sometimes did, at night. I’ve been awoken a few times. Didi many more times. Partially because I’m a deep sleeper, and also because she would care more than I would in the middle of the night.

MIAAOW MIAAAOW MIAAAAOWW.

It was lovely. Her voice was sweet like honey. Even when she screamed. I know I’m all emotional right now, so you probably won’t take it seriously. But she had the sweetest cat voice there could be. And extremely emotive. We’d know if she was distressed, or pleading, or hungry, or just confused. I can think of her miaowing and just break down.

But most satisfying was her presence. She would sit with us. Sleep with us. She loved our blankets, she loved our tummies. She would enjoy just being there. She loved people. Not so much other cats. She’d rest her chin on our arm and just fall asleep.

Disjoint reflections

Animals do not disappoint. They’re always there. With people, we’re always wary. We know things can go off rails. People mess up all the time. With Chotu, I was all in. She was the love of my life, and I don’t exaggerate when I say that. She was permanent, everything else was temporary. Because I knew she would never disappoint. Our love was infinite.

I sometimes joked that it was only our Chotu miaow that was normal in our household. All us humans were weird and dysfunctional. Chotu kept it all together. She was the only normal person. We would talk to her, smother her, just like a little human. She would have her occasional loud miaows to remind us of her felinity every now and then.

She was a charmer. Everyone that spent the least amount of time with her was smitten. Our house help loved her. Our relatives loved her. An uncle spent a week with her last year because everyone was away. He moved in to our place for a week just for her. He said she would greet him every time he came home. Like no one else had ever done.

One of the few scares that Chotu has given us was back in 2016. The day was Sunday. I was in Hyderabad and had gone for a hike. My friend and I were resting on a rock, when didi called me and told me that Chotu was missing. She was a semi outdoor cat and we never stopped her from stepping out whenever she wanted. She’d gone and not come back.

They searched for hours. They looked on roofs and on trees but couldn’t find her. All I could do was wait with my heart in my mouth. I thought of all the places where she could’ve gone, and somehow it struck me that we must check the neighbour’s house. He was rarely home. She may have slipped in.

Before I could call my sister and ask her to check, I got a call. It was her. Chotu was in the neighbour's house. The curious cat must’ve gone in and not known how to come back out. But she did know how to scream, nice and loud. I was so relieved.

Towards the end

Chotu was always a long-time picky eater. She ate well as a kitten, but as she grew older, her interest in eating waned.

When she was a kitten, I would bring a small packet of cat food for her and Motu. It would be over in 20 seconds flat. For some time after she was back from sterilisation, and we were in the process of “adopting” her, we still had no food for her. As vegetarians, we had little in common diet wise with Chotu. Which is why her food messiah was Edith. We’d give her some rice and she’d mix it with fish and that would be her food, twice a day.

One of the fondest memories I have of Chotu is of her screaming her lungs out when she heard Edith outside our door. Her voice was enough. So was the sound of her door grill. Chotu would be off! She’d meow like mad and insist on going out to eat. Edith would give her food and Chotu would come back home. Of course, we started giving her cat food later on.

While Chotu did have one phase of being a heavy cat, she was a lean cat for most of her life. She didn’t eat a whole lot, and we often had to really encourage her to eat. Beyond her first year as a kitten, she was always ladylike around food. We would never be worried about her helping herself with any of our food lying open and uncovered, ever.

When Chotu first began eating less, a couple of months ago, we weren’t particularly worried. She also had teeth problems, it was just something that we had to live with. For about a month, her diet was affected. She ate well for two days, and then not so much again. She ate for a week, and then again stopped eating entirely. She lost weight.

That first trip to the vet constituted nervousness and hope. The vet’s initial assessment was that her teeth were paining way too much, which is why she couldn’t eat. Her haemoglobin was low, too. Her teeth would need to be extracted, but her haemoglobin was low, which meant that the procedure would carry an increased risk. She gave us painkillers for Chotu.

It took three people to feed Chotu the painkiller. Mom held her. Didi spoke to her and petted her. I shot the syringe into her mouth. It took about an hour. But that night, she ate like she was a kitten. The feeling was glorious. The entire week, she ate like it was her first year on earth. My joy was boundless.

In these last weeks, my mood was directly proportional to how much food Chotu ate. The vet soon informed us that it wasn’t just her teeth but also her kidneys that were off. There’s no cure. We just had to hope.

The next time Chotu stopped eating, we took the call to get her teeth removed. If she wasn’t eating because of her teeth, it would make only sense to do so. She would have to be put under general anaesthesia and there was a risk that she wouldn’t wake up. Her kidneys were too weak. But the girl weathered it through! They extracted 22 teeth. We had to feed her through a tube that went through her nose into her stomach, initially. But in a few days, she ate normally again.

Until she didn’t. She ate for about four days, before again losing all interest in food. This time I knew that this was it. She didn’t eat a single morsel for an entire day, and she would be too weak if she didn’t for another. I took her to the vet to get a tube installed again. That weekend was the last time she ever ate any food through her mouth.

This was not the life we wanted Chotu to live. Feeding her through the time was an acceptable temporary arrangement, but that’s all it was supposed to be. There were a lot of tears and a lot of weeping, but we took the call of hoping that she ate again, but not installing the tube again (it had to be removed after about a week) if she didn’t. We were preparing for her to go.

The end

I like to think that Chotu’s last few days were as comfortable as possible. I’d take her to the park everyday. She’d perch on my shoulder (she loved perching on people’s shoulders, that was her comfort zone) and we’d walk to the park a 30 second walk away. Then we’d just sit there in the grass, with curious people every now and then asking about her tube and showering pity (always annoying).

As non fussy as Chotu was, she was really stubborn about where she sat and slept. If she liked someplace, she’d spend all her time there. And this place kept changing. It would change from chairs to sofa to bedroom to random corner. Around this time, her territory was the general hall area. I missed her sleeping alongside me so much.

I spent the last few nights sleeping on the floor in the hall. The first night, she perched on my leg while I slept. In the morning, she was sleeping next to my leg.

It was Monday. It was about time to remove her tube. I fed her through the tube around noon. Her body rejected it. She vomited it all out. She had also begun drooling her stomach acid. After a couple of hours, I tried feeding her again. She was emaciated. This time, the acid wouldn’t stop.

I knew it was time.

Mom and I bawled while she readied herself to go. We bawled even though we knew that it was coming. Even if we had expected only a few days more with her.

I told Chotu we loved her. We would always love her. I held her paw and pet her in her favourite place below her neck. She stretched her neck in pleasure even while she was dying.

Chotu was the unfussiest of cats. But like I said, once she chose a spot she chose a spot. For her departure, she chose the loneliest, most inaccessible corner of the house, below the granite platform in front of the window, blocked by a potted plant. She’d never even stepped there before until two days ago.

And then she was gone. She breathed a few heavy breaths. I could hear them. She left with her eyes open. I let her know I loved her for the last time.

Just us

The most significant transformation that Chotu brought about was in mom. I remember one fight that we had had when Chotu was just a kitten, pre-sterilisation. Mom was disgusted by the idea of having a cat home and once ended up almost kicking Chotu when she came in her way.

“How could you do this to such a little being?”

“She shouldn’t be here in the first place. Get her out!”

As life does, mom spent the most time with Chotu than any of us. Sis would be at work. I was in Hyderabad. When I was away and mom told me she missed me, I’d ask her to go pet Chotu instead. She really would. Chotu and mom were secret buddies. They hung out together and alone.

When Chotu was first diagnosed with kidney disease, mom cried before any of us. When we took the risk of putting Chotu through surgery to extract her teeth, mom cried before I did. When Chotu was in her last moments, mom was there, crying, and praying.

Chotu was the invisible binder of our house. It didn’t matter if we had an altercation, if Chotu needed something, we had to work with each other to help her get it.

Mom is also probably the fastest to get over Chotu. She has her way of dealing with these things. Didi and I are going to take some more time. She was our little sister.

You know how in some movies, all the dead characters come back to life in the last scene, and they’re all happy and jolly? I’ve been imagining Chotu like that at times. Just laughing and meowing and running. Living life as she did. Oblivious of it all.

If only I could be awoken by her miaowing in the middle of the night again. One last time.

[theshreedhar]

Moving On, For Real

It’s been almost ten days since I ceased calling IIIT home. The campus, my home for five years, remains where it was. I have moved on.

It was 2014. 

I was so glad to be leaving Mumbai. The city of dreams could get suffocating. She’s filthy, she’s crowded and she was the materialisation of the metaphorical chains that bound me in my late teenagehood. The trains that took me to my classes in the mornings even before sunrise. The hanging peak-hour crowds that I occasionally chose to brave in order to reach college in good time. The girlfriend that was a joy… I loved them. And I hated them. The shackles were romantic. And just like the greatest romanticisms, lethal. 

The campus was everything that Mumbai was, but better. She was not Hyderabad. She was only an oasis in the city of Hyderabad and a panacea to all the hurt that Mumbai had inflicted. If Mumbai was free because of the anonymity that she offered, she was free because of the identity she accorded. If Bandstand and Carters were beautiful even if littered with garbage, she had an untouched forest within her boundary. If for me Mumbai housed the horror that was JEE preparation that subsumed three good years, she could terrify me too: but she would let me choose.

-- 

I never understood why my fellow batchmates were so meek as to not bring their laptops along with them, only because they were “not allowed in the first year” (not even true). The irreverence that Mumbai had taught me, the campus would take her time to teach them.

It may have been the first week. With the only laptop in the vicinity, a proposal to watch a movie could not be refused. There was no internet, but that didn’t matter, I also had with me a 2 TB stash that had more content than I could consume in my life (little did I know). I don’t remember the movie we watched, I don’t remember who were the dozen people in my room that I made space for. We pretended to like the movie, even though the movie was not their taste and the ambience, not mine.

The stash holds a special place in the hearts of all those who have one. For many, it’s the little green herb that gives them solace. For some such as myself, it’s the large collection of movies, TV shows and books that were individually collected and tended to. Before Netflix and Amazon came around and made that joy obsolete. 

The stash symbolises hope and ambition. But it in itself is also a paradox. It forces you to choose, even within itself. Do I choose the brilliant pieces of art that were movies or do I commit to spend hours on books? I was a confused lover. 198 movies, 85 books and a significant yet unaccounted for number of TV series later, I have chosen my muse (hint: it’s the oldest of the three).

--

As much as college and the campus were bucketfuls of opportunities, Shan once noticed that the way we spent our time was wholly predictable. Step inside any room in the hostel and its occupant would be doing something or the other on their laptop or PC. It could be something “productive” or something not-so-much. Sometimes both together. But computer usage was scarily pervasive. Gone were the times of quietly reading a book or having a heart-to-heart conversation with your roommate. Sometimes, Hyderabad being Hyderabad the power would be out. The chatter that would take over the rooms and the wing would be apparent.

Over time, I’ve tried to be aware of and deal with what was clearly an addiction on an unprecedented scale. There was no reason to always be online and always be connected. That facebook messenger tab which was always open, the ping of which I would hear and immediately switch, was closed. The whatsapp tab met the same fate.

In my latter year or two, my obsession with using my PC had dwindled considerably. I would often just read a book or, for some time, even cook when I was alone in my hostel room. That said, I am yet to be able to completely fight off the eerie pull that my phone still has on me.

--

Over the five years that the campus was mine, so were all her dogs. I was fortunate to be able to oversee their transition from strays that were sometimes fed to wholesome community dogs that were cared for and loved. They *always* stood by. They were *always* around. Just sitting by their side was cathartic. Friendships were built and love was exchanged.

I remember how often I would go to meet Spotty in the first year, a biscuit packet in tow. The biscuits were for her to eat, but they only fed my soul. It would be late night, well past midnight, I don’t remember the specific reasons why I would go, but I would be down for some reason or the other. She would sit there, at the place ‘Diti and I later endearingly named adda, staring at the moonlit trees and the occasional passing night owl, just as I did. Perhaps without an inkling of how meaningful her presence was for me.

Spotty and everyone else are my most valuable relationships from the campus. Each of the dogs was unique. Every one had their distinct behaviour. For the humans, the campus was a transient home. For the dogs, they were part of her. And they still are.

--

It’s 2019.

Hyderabad has changed. Immensely. The cars honk at your face. The flyovers flaunt their disregard. The supermarkets with promises unfulfilled. The summer sun stings and burns.

Mumbai has as well. Try renting a room. True to her name, she will only let you dream. 

But the campus is the same. She waits, just as she’s always had, to groom the progeny that await her.

[theshreedhar]

The Other Guys at the Police Station

I had my phone stolen recently. It wasn’t very old, worked well and I had a trip planned to a strange, infamous-for-its-crime city (Delhi) in a few days and the phone would have helped me make the most of the trip.

Fortunately, I was going home first and could pick up a spare, which just wasn’t the same, but would have to do the work. I wasn’t disconcerted about my phone being stolen beyond this. It was a pity that I’d have to buy a new phone before my last lived its life to the end (as I usually allow my electronics to), but that was it. I was even a little excited at the prospect of getting a new phone!

However, as mobile phones are the personal devices that they are, with immense scope for abuse (and a little for retrieval), a visit to the police station to file an FIR was warranted.

As I entered the small railway police station, I was greeted by exactly what police stations are known best for - apathy. I spent a good part of my morning at the police station, but I won’t go into the functioning of the police personnel. This post isn’t about the police, it’s about those others like me who were waiting at the police station.

I joined two others on the couch outside the office where I was asked to wait by a policewoman who didn’t want me to interrupt her chat with her colleague. Now, it doesn’t matter who you are or who the others are. If you are in an unpleasant situation with others who are in a comparably unpleasant situation, you can see a sense of camaraderie automatically developing. You instinctively feel it acceptable to ask about each others’ problems, bitch about the authorities and lament about the unfortunate situation that you have found yourself in.

One of the two guys waiting smelled mildly of alcohol. Let’s call him Guy1. He was talkative and curious about what I had lost. I told him, and he shared his own experiences with me.

“My mobile phone was stolen yesterday and today my wallet has been stolen.” He had brought his FIR from yesterday along with him and showed it to me. “My fortune is the worst. I had found a lost purse the other day. It seemed to have a lot of money. But I gave it to the lost-and-found. And now my own wallet is stolen and I have no money.” I pitied him at this point. Everyone pities the good that have bad done to them. He had done the right thing by returning the purse that he had found, but his tone made it sound like he wouldn’t have done so if he could go back. Stealing perhaps has its own domino effect.

Guy2 did not say a lot in between all of this. He told me he had had his phone stolen as well, and that was that.

Guy1 then shared with me how he had his phone stolen yesterday. “Someone borrowed my phone to make a call. He kept walking about while speaking on the phone, and in no time he was out of sight.” Classic.

Guy1′s situation was all the more pitiable now. Two good deeds with two losses in two days. He went on to tell me how he had come from Delhi to Mumbai, with ₹300, in order to find work. But now that his wallet was gone, so was his driving licence, which would have enabled him to work as a driver. He would have to go back to Delhi now, somehow, since he had no money on him, and make a new licence. His frustration was apparent. A little too apparent.

“If I find the person who took my things, I will kill him. I swear.”

“I am so fucking frustrated. What will I say when I go home? I came here to earn money but ended up losing everything I had on me. I want to kill someone. Or maybe I’ll just kill myself. I want to kill someone, I swear I’ll kill someone or myself.”

Yes, he was clearly mentally unstable and with little support. While he wasn’t absolutely reeking of alcohol, the little I did smell on him was because he probably couldn’t afford to get himself drunk. And he did not seem tipsy at all, with the alcohol he did have, which meant that he had built a tolerance to it over some time.

Later, when I was with the police inside the office filing my FIR, I overheard the policewoman saying (in Marathi, so that Guy1 wouldn’t understand) that he was a drunk and probably lying (she was a lot more sure about the lying bit than I reveal here) and that his phone cost a meagre ₹1000 anyway . Who knows, maybe it was routine for her to have people lying about getting things stolen.

Guy2 may or may not have been just as shocked as I was with what Guy1 was saying. After all, I hadn’t shown my shock on my face even though I was. Once you brand someone as crazy in your head, it becomes easier to not care about revealing yourself in front of them.

Guy2 was a lot mellower than Guy1 in his outrage and general demeanour. But his situation was striking for me as well.

He was a security guard and had had night duty. He was sitting there with me at the police station with a heavy head and droopy eyes, as if he had almost given up. My ears were constantly perked up, waiting to be called in to file my FIR. I would have suspected it would be so for anyone waiting on a couch at the police station with their phone stolen. Not Guy2. He had fallen asleep while sitting, right there, and didn’t wake up until I specifically called out to him asking if it was he who was being called.

I don’t recall how Guy2 lost his phone, but I do recall him telling me of how this was all right, because in the past someone had actually broken into his home and stolen his things. Undoubtedly, his threshold of tolerance and normalcy had shifted because of his past experiences with getting stolen from.

Being stolen from is an unpleasant experience at the very least and extremely traumatic at the worst. No one likes being stolen from, regardless of their income level. It is an act of intrusion and makes people feel unsafe about themselves and their surroundings.

But my visit to the police station made it clear to me that the victims of this act are disproportionately those from lower income groups. We might think that we are more susceptible to thievery because of the expensive gadgets that we inadvertently flaunt. We might suffer a greater monetary loss when misfortune does strike. But it isn’t and hopefully shall never be a part of our lives in the way it is theirs.

[theshreedhar]

Moving On, Too Soon

I will come clean. I find the idea of moving on alluring. There’s no other word for it. 

Moving on, to me, is akin to liberation. It represents an idea that we know but don’t consciously acknowledge. That there are aspects of life that we haven’t yet come across, possibly better than what we know now, which we will eventually cherish as much as we cherish the things we do right now, if not more. Moving on is that door which lets us access this vast expanse of unknownness. Getting through this door is essential, even though we may not always correctly guess what lies on the other side. New environment, new problems, new goals, new expectations, new life, and perhaps most importantly–new people.

The Hero of the Story

There is a minor-ish problem with my earlier line of thought, however. It assumes that the onus of moving on is on you, who is undoubtedly the protagonist in your own life. It is your responsibility to be the strong guy who takes to the next day with joy, head held high and with utmost optimism.

That’s what the hero does. But sometimes (often), you are not the hero.

And how does one deal with that? How does one come to terms with not being the strong, confident person going through the door and into the future? In some ways, we are all part of someone’s past, but when the demarcation is evident, it is only just as painful.

No one can answer these (somewhat) rhetorical questions that I ask. To each his own could surely be the only way to go.

To the Future

Quoting Avicii -

One day you'll leave this world behind. So, live a life you will remember.

The time that went past had its moments, and it’s the future that remains. There were opportunities and regrets, but it’s only new beginnings that remain.

[theshreedhar]

The End of My Tryst with the Megalomaniac Called Facebook

I was 13. My parents asked me not to do it. No one was sure why, though.

So we settled mid way. I created my Facebook account, but with a fake name. The name couldn’t get weirder than what it was - Rahul Anwar. Somehow I saw humour in two first names together, one predominantly Hindu and the other, Muslim. I added all my friends, or Rahul Anwar did, and he was immediately inside their closest circles.

But I failed to see what was wrong. I was on Facebook with the cool peeps, seeing their photos and status updates and there was nothing wrong. I was still living my usual life and that was enough for me to believe that Facebook was the harmless creature that I saw it to be. Rahul Anwar turned into Shreedhar Manek.

Between then and now, a lot of things have changed. 10 years have passed, and in these years I may have deactivated Facebook many times, without ever properly understanding why. But now we know. We know the beast that Facebook is and the monster that it can be.

Reason 1 Facebook can and often does make you feel bad.

There are studies that say that Facebook makes people feel bad, and other studies that suggest otherwise. Facebook themselves try to answer the question, they even admit that too much FB can be bad!

So how exactly can Facebook make one feel bad? Sure, a lot of studies can answer this in detail, but here is my take on it. 

Those likes are like tests. Who likes taking tests? But we do it, voluntarily, every time we upload something online. For every thumbs up, there is a certain part of our brain that feels rewarded, which makes us want to do it more and want it more. And tests often make us feel bad, don’t they? With a lesser than expected thumbs up count, we feel bad too. Those among us who we consider “petty” even sometimes cheat on these tests by asking their close friends to “like” their latest picture. It might sound a petty thing to do and it probably is, but how many of us haven’t cheated on a test?

Reason 2 Constant, almost immediate validation is addictive. It makes us less patient.

As a kid, or rather, back in the day, reading a book was easy. Just pick it up and don’t leave it until you’re done with it. But those days are long gone. I am easily distracted. It’s not that I don’t enjoy the book that I’m reading, but I’ve gone from waiting for the best to always enjoying it. And that make the waiting less fun.

Maybe I’m taking a leap when I blame (even partially) the likes I expect on Facebook with my reducing patience to read books (which I still enjoy). I can almost see people making the same argument when the first movie was made. Reading books requires time and patience, but the constant dopamine uptake that Facebook, or indeed, social media has made us used to, has changed the internal reward mechanisms such that, leaving aside books, doing anything that requires time and patience becomes more of a task. Say, establishing meaningful relationships. They take time, effort and patience, things that we have long foregone. I love how Chamath Palihapitiya, a former Facebook executive, puts it: The short-term, dopamine-driven feedback loops that we have created are destroying how society works. No civil discourse, no cooperation, misinformation, mistruth.

Reason 3 Facebook does not show you the facts, it shows you what will keep you on their platform longer.

Back in the day, when Facebook only had the potential of being dangerous, as opposed to actually being dangerous, there was a beloved button on people’s newsfeed - the ‘most recent’ button. The purpose of this button was, as is obvious, to show the most recent posts. It would enable the user browsing through the posts of all their followed friends and pages chronologically. Everything would show up and everything would be seen by the user based on when it was posted.

Over the years, FB made its best attempt to hide this most recent button. It made it difficult to reach, and most people now don’t even know that it exists. A google search tells me that users can now only temporarily switch to the most recent newsfeed.

This was important to FB in order to control what we see. What you see now, is entirely in the control of Facebook. Are you a liberal? Here, some liberal propaganda for you. Conservative? 10 reasons why the mandir must be made in Ayodhya. Something even more insidious, say, two news outlets post articles of the same event, but frame them differently giving a slightly different picture. Facebook will show you the one it thinks conforms to your existing bias (or not, if it sees a reason to do so). Consuming news via Facebook has especially turned into one big circle jerk of information where people feed their existing biases and in turn make them stronger.

Reason 4 Facebook is fucking evil.

Big statement, isn’t it? I think so too. I am unsure who I mean by “Facebook”. Zuckerberg? Probably. The engineers? Probably not. But as a corporation on the whole, FB takes the cake in how evil you can be without actually killing anyone.

Remember Reason 1 about FB making you feel bad? FB thought they could do it, and they took the liberty to try it out. They experimented by controlling the feeds of a large number of people, limiting or increasing what they say, and realized, with absolute certainty this time, that they could control people’s emotions. Happy days, right?

This is also only a little before they introduced “reactions” to posts, as opposed to just “likes”. They might claim that they want its users to “express themselves better” et al, but by now we know that they just want to know how we feel about certain things, so that they can use that to control how we feel, don’t we?

Another example of Facebook’s evil is their attempt to push for what they called Free Basics in India. The now dead Free Basics was supposed to be Facebook’s way of reaching out to the poor of India and give them free internet. Free Basic’s policy was a mishmash of misleading statements and half truths and the whole PR team tried their best to spin them into something that sounded good. Their “we do not have advertising on Free Basics”, for example, which did not translate to “we will never have advertisements on Free Basics”, or their lack of mention of what they could or couldn’t do with data. I am not sure what FB’s official stance on net neutrality is (or was) in the US, but here in India, it made its best attempt to ensure we lose it. What grind my gears the most, however, is Zuckerberg’s post on his own personal FB account, where he, in the most sanctimonious way possible tried to explain how his money making scheme was good for the poor people of India. 

Reason 5 Facebook cares little about our data, is helping spread fake news and influencing elections.

Reason 5 is probably the tipping point for me. The reason for Facebook being in the news right now.

We knew that Facebook used our data to better market things to us and improve revenue from advertisers. We didn’t care about it. But now, even though FB denies it and will keep denying it, it gave access to data of millions to a researcher and even a profit making company, Cambridge Analytica, that went on to help political outfits win elections. While CA may not have gained access to the data of millions ethically, Facebook itself has a political unit that does just the same work as CA.

What Now?

There are no two ways about it. WhatsApp’s co-founder Brian Acton said it and Elon Musk did it. Zuckerberg has apologized for the many lapses (but what about evil by intent?) and it’s time.

Does this imply that I mean that Facebook has no utility and can just be deleted right of the bat? No! Facebook can be very useful at times, it can be a force of real good, and it has many everyday benefits. But it will have to be a new FB. A new social media platform that has a different foundation. For the time being we will have to move back to RSS feeds and subscriptions by email (I just added an ugly subscription form to my blog).

It has to go.

Bonus Scary Stuff A friend just introduced me to Data Selfie, a browser extension that tracks what FB can track about you and shows it to you in a readable format. Watch the video here.

[theshreedhar]

An Hour

I must have been crazy that night. Or maybe there was something about that night. It was one of those nights when something just seems to be out of place. Something that you cannot see in front of yourself, something that isn't obvious at all. But you can feel it in your skin.. There's something amiss.

Or maybe it was just that I was sitting all alone, in the dead of the night, on the second floor of an abandoned building. And that there were mosquitoes all over me. I wore shorts, not one of the better decisions I've made in my life taking all the mosquitoes into consideration, on this lonely night that I chose to venture out in search of solace from the dark world.

Why do I call the world dark? Even at 4 am, half the world was still out and bright. Maybe I was too self-centered to think about the rest of the world at the time. Maybe the best I could do was notice the darkness of the moonless night around me.

As a kid, who had just learned about 'repetition' being a figure of speech, I did not get what the fuss was all about. It's just, well, repetition! You're repeating something that you've already written. Compare that with 'metaphor', say. My teacher back in school would very passionately tell us that a metaphor was when a comparison was indirect. I was fascinated! You could compare two things without having to explicitly make the comparison obvious to the reader. There's art in subtlety, and subtlety in art.

But repetition! At the time it was something that I could not understand. But now I see it. But now, I see what was so special about it. The simplicity. Repeating something gave it a simple emphasis that was sweet and strong at the same time.

I might have gone slightly off track there, or maybe a little more, right from describing the extent of my self-centredness to recalling little me's fascination with metaphors. I was there that charcoal night, with light only from the sky's reflection of the streetlights, not wanting anything in particular, just pondering about the extent of my self centredness.

What was it that made people dislike each other? Sometimes it could be one's actions. Hell yes, I'm going to dislike someone who's behaved roughly with me! But how often was it actually something so outright and simple? If people were honest with themselves and the people around them, just as the night was with me about its darkness, I'm sure that there would be a lot less people actively disliking each other. Perhaps, humans have naturally evolved to be suspicious of one another. Maybe there's a puddle of suspicion, and with it all other emotions that fertilize human displeasure. This puddle I would say is what we call a communication gap. If only we could be honest enough to be sufficiently capable to bridge this gap with honest communication, perhaps we would have a really, really small number of people who would look at each other with a negative thought in mind.

Darkness and honesty, the night with a hint of self reflection, this was already starting to be one night that I had quite longed for. When you're alone, there's no one to lie to. There's no one to fear because you know that you're with the one person who you trust - yourself. You look at a light flickering at a distance, and you get a new thought with every flicker. What would the world be like if... You know there's something at the back of your mind that's trying to think so hard of an alternate reality, of a different world, that was maybe only a little better than what there is now, but it ultimately gives up. If there are parallel worlds that exist, covering all possibilities in time, in how many of those would I exist with the existential crisis that I have in this world? And in how many am I satisfied with the way things are going? Maybe in one of the latter ones, I'm a monk, or a professional trekker, or a wildlife explorer. If one could look through time and space and into one's own parallel existences, it would be so convenient as to choosing which world that you like the best and choosing a path based on the world which caught your eye. Maybe the reason reality chose not to have such a thing was the ubiquitous hysteria that there would be. Every person wanting just something better for oneself, wanting something better. Lost in the maze that are the worlds, representative of reality.

Just as the sun shows me its pretty face and the darkness bids me goodbye, I know that I have to make my way back home. There's something in the soft light that strikes you on your skin, that makes you feel a little bit alive, a little bit happier that the night with all its comfort and solitude is not all that exists for you, and there's someone reaching out for you from in between the dark coat of the night that loves you so. Something that loves you just a little bit more.

And as much as I'd like the dawn to shelter me in this isolated, abandoned building, waking up later lying on the hard ground with my head on a dusty step, with a dog curled up by my side, one who has a tinge of hope that he might have just come across someone just like him - someone who finds solace in abandoned buildings, I make my way down the stairs that I trust not to give up on me, out the building, taking the shortest path to reach the place that is so affectionately named home.

[theshreedhar]

Supermarket Intern

“Who does an internship at a supermarket?”I thought out loud, as I looked up the internship list on the notice board.

I had applied for an internship at a newspaper! What’s a newspaper have to do with a supermarket? What did do they expect me to do at a supermarket anyway? Will I be an intern cashier? Will I read out the prices so that it’s easier for the cashier to type the prices in when the barcode scanner isn’t working?

Saint Lokmanya Theresa High School (SLTHS) was one of the more forward schools in the neighbourhood. They aimed for all round exposure which also included hands-on work experience with a local company that would help students expand their limited horizon and gain enough exposure to get a worldview that would help them in college, and beyond, to pursue their interests and make an informed decision to decide on the same.

Well, that is what SLTHS claimed, anyway. I asked for the local newspaper and they sent me to the local supermarket.

With the clear inability to hide my disappointment, I squirmed away from the crowd gathered at the notice board, only to go back in, to actually check the role that I had been offered. If it would have said cashier, and I had a genuine fear at the back of my mind that it did, it would have been funny! I would spend the summer interning with or as a cashier.

It said - RESEARCHER. Yes, in caps. I looked up and down the list. None of the other intern roles that I glanced at were in caps. Why me, I wondered.

--

I entered the supermarket at precisely 10 am, that time that I was called at. I looked around and found someone who looked like he was in charge and approached him.

“Excuse me, hi! I have come for a research internship here. Would you have any idea about it?” I began, with a slight uncertain tone.

“Oh, you must be Tanmay. We’ve been expecting you. I’ll show you your office and brief you there as to what you’re supposed to do,” the man said.

An office. I am actually going to have an office! This internship of sorts did begin on a positive note.

He led me to the office, which was situated next to the cash registers. I had never been to this supermarket, but just by glancing at the office that they were giving an intern, I was impressed. It was really well located - I had a brilliant one-way window with which I had a clear view of the entire floor of the supermarket, right from the cash registers next to me, to the grocery shelves farthest from me. I had a neat looking PC waiting for me, with accompanying comfy chairs. Not just any comfy chairs. Revolving office chairs. The ones that you can just sit and turn around in when there’s nothing better to do.

“We certainly don’t expect much work from you on your first day here,” the man began to tell me, bringing an end to me imagining myself revolving in the comfy office chair, “but what we want from you by the end of your internship, is a comprehensive mapping of data, from product to person. We need to have a better idea of what the crowd that we cater to and what they want so that we can accordingly change our business tactics which will include but won’t be limited to procurement of products and marketing, but also things as simple as the arrangement of products in our store. I know this sounds complicated to you, but there’s nothing to worry about. Shantanu will guide you through the whole thing. He should be here any moment now.”

I heaved a sigh of relief as the man left, and waited for this Shantanu to arrive while whiling away using nice PC and revolving in my even better chair.

Shantanu was a 20-something, really cool guy! We hit it off almost immediately, with him simplifying what the man said and helping me get started. I worked for at least 2 hours, in a totally casual way. With Shantanu cracking the occasional joke to cheer up the atmosphere and me showing him a meme now and then that I could see on my Facebook feed that I had on in the background. You do get an idea of how cool Shan was, don’t you?

“Hey Tanmay, did you notice her?” Shantanu asked, all of a sudden.

“Notice whom?” I replied, having no idea what he was talking about.

“The cashier, look, she’s been looking at you on and off for the past 15 minutes. I’ve been noticing. She looks about your age, doesn’t she?”

Now let me tell you about some previous encounters that I have had with girls, right from my diary -

In the first standard,

A girl bit me because I accidentally touched her hand while sitting next to her in class.

In the fifth standard,

A friend jokingly pushed me (a little too hard) in front of my crush who was sitting on the bench, and I fell into her lap.

In the tenth standard,

there was a girl… and it’s best I do not mention here what happened, but it wasn’t good. That’s all you need to know.

A girl. Damn. My heart immediately sat still with its increased weight. I didn’t want to look unsure or unnerved. I replied, “Oh yeah? Haha, that’s cool!” and waved him off like it was nothing. Inside, my heart had started beating again, loudly. It threatened to give me away. I breathed in, and I breathed out, unable to concentrate on what I was doing.

Five minutes in, Shantanu got up. “Do you want to go have something to eat? It’s your first day of an internship, you really need not put in all this work. Sandwich! Let’s go.”

I did not want to give myself away. I would have, had I looked at him. Without looking up from the screen on which I was doing nothing, I said, “It’s fine, it’s fine. You go.”

With Shantanu out of the way, my heart finally lost its extra fat. I looked outside the window and saw her. She would be 18 or 19, I would say. Not exactly my age, but not too older.

She was cute. Yes, she was. Those dimples really made her cheeks look alive. She smiled at every person who she approached her register. I forgot about the PC, forgot about the comfy revolving chair, and looked at her. She looked a couple or so times at me, I thought. Right into my eyes. But of course, I knew she couldn’t. So I kept looking. I looked at her like kids look at a giraffe at the zoo for the first time. I knew beings of the sort existed, but I was still wholly awed seeing the creature in reality.

Then I remembered about my revolving chair. And I still looked at her, only half-revolving my chair at the same time. All this time, while she was doing her work.

Just as I was staring at the previously ascertained piece of art, Shantanu entered.

“Ho, ho, ho. You looked really happy from outside. What’s the deal?” he asked.

From the outside? What does he mean?

“Uhh, I’m not sure what you mean. I’ve been doing my work, just took a moment off,” I replied.

“You did? I see, I see,” Shantanu replied back.

Was it sarcasm? It didn’t sound like a natural response. Then my heart gained back its lost weight. It isn’t. It isn’t. It cannot have been.

“Toilet break!” I shouted and almost ran outside. I was outside the office and only needed to turn around. But I didn’t, not yet. I went to the toilet, splashed some water on my face and reassured myself of my irrational fear, and made my way back to the office.

The irrational (not so irrational) fear was right. The window was just normal glass. I had been staring creepily at this very pretty girl, like she was a zoo animal, right into her eyes, for the past 15 minutes.

I entered the office with my eyes closed, picked up my bag, all with my eyes closed, and left. Never to return.

In the 12th standard, ...

The End.

Heavily inspired by -

https://www.reddit.com/r/tifu/comments/3tkn7t/tifu_by_staring_at_a_girl/

[theshreedhar]

The Train Journey.

Traveling in Indian trains is a different experience altogether. The people you meet, the experiences that you gain… they are unmatchable. If there is one good thing that the Brits gave India, it is the railway lines.

Pete was but a backpacker who had come to this grand country to satisfy his thirst to explore. Not the country, not the world, but himself. Go to India, if you want to find yourself. He had heard this statement once as a child, a time when he didn’t understand what finding yourself could possibly mean. But he had always been a curious kid. The land of the elephants, the rhinos, the lions and the tigers! He was awed in a way only children could be. It was the little things that he found so fascinating.

He had become a seasoned traveler now. Initially, of course, there was a culture shock. Everyone just keeps staring at me! But then he got used to it and though he wouldn’t admit it,  he even started liking it. It made him feel special.

The train journey was from Hyderabad to Mumbai. He shared the sleeper compartment with seven other people - a family of four, and a group of three guys. The little kid of the family was looking at Pete as if he had seen nothing like him before.

“Namaste,” Pete said with a smile. It always worked. It made them realise that he was just one of them- no different. It made him seem more human in front of them.

The kid blushed and dug his face into his mom’s bosom. The mother, embarrassed, pulled him aside, smiled and said, “Say namaste to uncle, Krishna. Come on!.”

“Namaste,” he responded a little meekly.

“Krishna is such a beautiful name! I have been to a lot of Lord Krishna’s temples in Mathura, do you know?”. Pete was trying to get inside the kid’s comfort zone.

On hearing this, Krishna’s eyes lit up. This time his voice was a tad bit more confident. “Wow, I like to go to temples too! Lord Krishna is my favourite god.”  The mother looked approvingly at her child and beamed. She looked at Pete and said, “Beta, would you like something to eat? Where are you getting off? Are you going all the way to Mumbai?” She saw him nod and continued, “It is a long journey! Do you have something to eat? Don’t eat the food from the train, you will fall ill! The water they use is worse than tap water. I have some home food with me. Have you had bhindi before? I have roti and bhindi, would you like some? Without waiting for a reply, she whipped out a paper plate and said, “Here I’ll serve you..”

All this while, Pete was just looking at her, smiling. This was not the first time that an Indian family had opened up to him after a seemingly small conversation. He had travelled all over this vast country and everywhere the people and their cultures were truly unique. But the familial affection was the same. He knew there was no point in refusing. “Yes, please. I love bhindi!”

She beamed at him like she had at her child.

In most Indian families, he had noticed that the dads, initially, were on the shy side. The moms had the food and the kids up their sleeves, and they would always get comfortable sooner. But eventually the dads would come through and ask polite questions.

“Where are you from?” came the first question.

“America,” I replied. “But I have been here for some time now. You could say my new home is in Himachal. I have been volunteering at an NGO there. That’s where my ‘Indian base’ is, so to speak.”

“America is good, America is good. I have a brother in USA. He likes the cold.”

Pete knew that he had to come to his rescue at this point. “Where are you from? What is your hometown?” he asked with a smile. Indians loved being asked about their hometown. They wore their differences with pride and kept their roots intact.

“Oh, we are Gujarati! We live in Mumbai and had gone to Hyderabad to visit a relative.” He was happy to see the interest and returned Pete’s smile with an even bigger smile.

Pete was feeling a little sympathetic for the other group of the three guys. He asked them where they were going.

“Mumbai is the city of dreams,” one of them replied. “We are going to work with a friend. He has assured us a place where we can sell sugarcane juice” said the other. “We worked in Hyderabad for a while, but now we are moving to a bigger city, with bigger dreams.”

This made Pete beam. He looked at them and saw himself in them. The aspirations were completely different, yet, so similar. They were trying to find out a niche for themselves. They were trying to find out what they wanted to do. Maybe it was Mumbai where they would find out what was best for them. Maybe it needn’t be the Himalayas’ serenity that gave peace of mind. Maybe it was in between all the people, in between all the cars and bikes, that some people found solace. Maybe this solace was just as genuine as his was.

Pete finished eating a wholesome dinner and climbed up to the upper berth and started reading a book. Even though he held the book in front of himself, he really was thinking about the three guys.

In the middle of the night he heard people screaming loudly. Something had happened and it wasn’t good.

“A kid is hurt. Right in his eye!” someone screamed.

Pete was befuddled. He didn’t know what was happening. He asked the father of the family in his compartment to explain the situation to him.

“I think we are crossing Solapur. It is known that the windows must always be kept closed when going past Solapur. This place is notorious for people throwing stones at trains. Hooligans! The kid must have opened his window.” Just as he finished saying this, he quickly stole a glance at his own kid. Krishna was scared, but with both eyes intact.

“Oh sweet heavens!” Pete replied with shock in his voice. He hadn’t known that. “What do we do now?”.

“I think they will give him the required first aid and then take him to the closest hospital once we reach the next station. It is such a pity. We cannot even stop the train here because dacoits might enter the train. This place is not good for trains.”

Pete felt a little numb. In all his travel, he was bound to meet people who were up to no good. But this case was different. Whoever had done this had gained nothing. It wasn’t even for money. Nothing justified it. It was a plain and simple act of sadism. Morals aside, there was no rational explanation for throwing a stone at a train.

The next day they reached Mumbai and went their separate ways. He hugged the kid and each of the three guys and wished them the best of luck. He saw himself in them, despite the evidently different lifestyles that they had chosen. The previous night had been very eventful. He had seen the parents of the kids get off at Solapur station and take their injured, wailing kid away into the city, in the safety of their arms, in the dead of the night.

He checked into a hostel dorm that he had found out about in Lonely Planet, and slept. It was early morning, but his mind was weary and his head ached.

Pete awoke late in the evening. He hadn’t eaten anything, so he grabbed a vada pav-a local favourite-from a roadside vendor and walked. He was feeling lost. He thought of his journey up till now. It had had its ups and downs, but why was it that yesterday affected him so much?

Mumbai has a brilliant sea front. He walked along the seaside promenade, with wind blowing in the direction opposite his walk. The wind was strong and it made it slightly difficult to walk, but it was soothing and cool at the same time. It left a salty taste on his lips and made his skin sticky.

His mind was as full as the wind was salty. He knew it was the irrationality of what happened yesterday that troubled him, but that explanation did not satisfy him.

It was late evening, yet there were a few beggars trying to gain some money. There was a mother and two toddlers. Pete had read about organised begging in Mumbai and knew better than to give money to the beggars. He politely refused when she approached him and though the lady spent a minute there hoping for some loose change, she eventually decided to move along.

Pete was a person who was very aware and observant of his surroundings. He was aware of the demeanor of the typical Indian family and he was aware of his environment and the contributions that were needed from him. On turning away the lady beggar, he realized that it was his awareness that made it easy for him. It was this awareness that instructed him to do his little bit by refusing the lady money, rather than giving in to sympathy. It was an active, informed action that he took to change the situation that existed.

It was the helplessness, Pete realized. It was the inability to do a single meaningful act, however small, in order to right a wrong. It was what troubled him so much about yesterday. Here was a guy, who turned vegan to prevent animal abuse, stopped using plastic bags and helped a local family in a rural Rajasthan village start a paper bag business. He believed in contributing, in whatever small way, to good.  He never thought that the end was close and he believed in second chances.

As he sat on a bench at the promenade, deep in his thoughts, with the strong wind blowing, he closed his eyes and sat in comfort.

Just as he put his faith in the people around him, when he closed his eyes in the night in a strange city far from home and sat in perceived solitude, he put his faith in the universe.

[theshreedhar]

Love, As We Know Not.

She looked up at him as he told her of his plans.

“I want to travel around the world. I quit my job this morning and spent the rest of the day wondering where I should head off to first, ” she heard him say.

It was not easy for him. There was a conflict inside of him. On the one hand, he really felt that he needed to go somewhere far off. His job was a disaster that lasted from 9 to 5 everyday, his friends were two-faced poseurs, he spent more time browsing Reddit at work than he did reading a book at home. Life seemed black and bland. He could endure it no more. But on the other, there was she. She had stood by him during high times and low. He was what he was because of her. He loved her.

“How did this happen, all of a sudden?” she responded. “Why is it that this is the first I’m hearing of it? Why did you not tell me about how you felt before? What about our life here?  What about..me?”

This conversation had caught her unawares. Yes, she knew of his enthusiasm for travel since college. Yes, he frequently shared travel blogs of all sorts with her. The other day it was one about a female solo traveler who had spent years in China, and before that, of a vegan couple who were globetrotting around the world.

But who would have expected this?  Scenarios like this seem just so implausible that one simply does not consider them. And then comes a time when one isn't left with a choice.

As his flight took off, he looked out the window, to the speck of dots, one of which was her, his sweetheart. He thought of the conversation of when he informed her of his decision, his speechlessness when she asked her questions. Yet, as he looked down, he knew that she had taken it in a good spirit. He was positive that she would understand his love for travel and that she understood that he had to pursue his passion, or live in regret. Who would have ever thought that one love would have to make way for the other? Thinking thus, he removed a book from his backpack and immersed himself in it.

It still had to sink in. Just yesterday, he was here and now he was a thousand kilometres away. She called up her boss at work and informed her that she would not be able to make it for a couple of days.

Once the tears had dried up, she switched her laptop on and visited the blog he had set up. It was empty. ‘Follow’, she clicked. Little did he know that he had already got his most dedicated fan and visitor, who was eagerly waiting for his first post.

It was exactly a year later that there was his first post on the blog. One year of oblivion, it was to her. One difficult year of oblivion. She had considered it all. There was the one time she almost quit her job and go traveling with him, giving him a huge surprise.

But pragmatism finally came to the rescue. She was not cut out for a life on the move. She liked a calm, stress free life, just as he wanted one that always had something going.

She had known he had left for Thailand. “Visas on arrival,” he had told her. And so he had left the very next day after he had dropped the bomb.

He was an English teacher in Thailand! He spent more than a year in a single country! She dug her face into a pillow and bit it to avoid screaming out loud. He had left a job in a multinational company to teach in a remote village in Thailand? It was the most dumbfounding thing she had heard in a while!

Yet, she followed his blog, each day, gave her honest feedback. Shared those posts that she found interesting and suggested improvements to those that she did not. Sometimes she felt jealous of his life, sometimes of that girl who seemed to be his new girlfriend, but she accepted it as a part and parcel of who he was, and took it with grace.

With time, she moved on.

It is a calm evening in her home city of Mumbai. Mumbai is infamous as the city that’s on the run. The city that has no time to wait. But this little, quaint cafe in Bandra, was where she always came when she needed time off. It was where she knew she could find the solace that Mumbai seldom allowed for.

She was here with her 8 year old daughter, Natasha. She liked the place very very much too. A veggie bagel in a peaceful, isolated cafe with her daughter, what could be better? Life was good.

Here he was. He helped himself to a cup of black, sugarless coffee and joined her at her table.

“I see your tastes have changed,” she said. He replied, “When it comes to coffee, I realized I never actually had a taste."

He looked very young for his age. He had aged gracefully.

Just as she was about to say something, Natasha let out an excited squeal! Her eyes had caught his wrist. She loved his watch! She always had a thing for watches. For an 8 year old, it was an unusual interest to have.

He removed his watch and passed it on to her. Natasha was elated and wore it in an instant.

She could not help let out a laugh on seeing the joy in Natasha’s face.

“It’s nice to see you laugh,” he said. “It reminds me of the college days. I miss it so much.”

This was the ice breaker that was needed. As Natasha spent time appreciating his watch, they talked about times, old and new. They talked about the friends that they made and the people they met. He told her about the colourful toucans in Mexico and she about the new Prime Minister that people were so hopeful about in India.

When they finally left the cafe, they promised to keep in touch via Facebook, just as they had till now. Her tongue-in-cheek comments on his post about being naked in a Finnish sauna, and his comments about the pictures of herself and her hubby that she had uploaded were, after all, to continue. They left the cafe pleased for the other. Pleased, that their first love was well. Pleased, that their first love was just as happy as themselves.

She picked up her backpack and boarded the train. She was not sure of where it was headed, but she knew that there was something or the other that she would learn on her journey to where she knew not.

As she crossed the border, her GPS enabled watch auto synced the time according to the changing timezone.

Natasha was content.

[theshreedhar]

Red Ants.

This post is to highlight the plight of the students in my college. There is a persisting problem which the college authorities show no interest in solving - Red ants.

The number of red ants in our college are reaching new heights! Be it in the campus or in my room in the hostel, or in the classroom, red ants are omnipresent, and in huge numbers!

It is not that I am scared of red ants, not that the rest of the country does not have red ants, but I have come here for an education! These red ants have no place in my temple of education. They must be relocated to where they belong! The forest! Wait, the IIIT campus is right now where a forest once was..uh, then to another forest! But they absolutely, definitely, most certainly do not belong among us people.

As a clarification, I would like to mention that it is not that I am personally scared of them. I am not! In fact, I am neutral toward them, I have a couple ants at home myself. But it is for the greater good that I write this post. People are scared of the ants, and that warrants appropriate action on part of the authorities concerned.

I would like to mention some of the nuisance that these ants have created. Keeping food uncovered is off limits. Hell, keeping food at all is off limits. They will be taken over by the ant army in no time. Walking in the campus with food in my hands is a risk in itself. There will be ants of all sorts that follow me with an eye on the food. It irks people out, and with good reason!

This is not all. They seem to be territorial in nature. Very territorial. There are people who have stopped visiting the labs in the nights, because a certain groups of ants have made the area near them their possession, their territory. The ant lovers claim that this territory is guarded by them only from strangers and other groups of ants. But I refuse to believe that! I know that they have their territory, so I’m sure that they don’t want me there and will attack me if I go there, regardless of what anyone tells me, and regardless of if I see those ant lovers spending time with them harmlessly. 

Coming to these so called ant lovers. Oh my god. You should see how these ant lovers encourage their ant friends. They are the main cause of this issue on campus. I mean, sure, ants are everywhere in the country and a lot of other college campuses have this ant menace too, but in our campus, it is solely because of these ant lovers. Would they take responsibility should a single ant go haywire and bite one of us sane people? I thought not.

I say that we should kill these ants. Who gives a shit if there are new ants that will take their place and they might be actually aggressive? Kill them too! Or..the ant lovers should adopt these ants and keep them in their hostel rooms. Yes, this sounds like a good alternative.

The least we can do is put up a poll on Facebook. Those for and against the ants can vote accordingly. And then go with what the majority chooses. Democracy is the best form of government. 

There was recently a “Dealing with Ants on Campus” workshop that was very poorly attended. But why should we attend it, really? Why should we listen to someone blabbering about why ants are good and useful for the ecosystem? Or why it is counter productive to relocate them? Why should we actually make an effort and come together to actually solve a problem, when we can complain on forums and send emails, and put it on others to do the dirty work. In all honesty, it is actually fun to make witty comments on Facebook. The number of likes my witty comments and memes attract! I’m like a likes-generating machine.

I shall wind up this post by reaffirming that I have no problem with ants. It is only for the others that I speak out. This post is satirical and written in good humour. It is inspired by the ongoing debate of stray dogs on campus. No disrespect is intended toward anyone and I have written this solely to have a light laugh. Cheers :)

[theshreedhar]

Denial of Existence.

I took the food from the counter and proceeded toward finding a nice corner place for myself. I like the lonesome corner. It makes me feel safe.. like an unwatched observer. 

As I made my way toward my seat I desired, I saw a group of people sharing a table. And the mess had plenty of other places where they could seat themselves. 

There was something about being alone that people could not appreciate. They preferred sitting physically along with someone even though deep inside they could not care less for them. I could never get this behaviour. While trying to gain someone else's company, they inevitably ended up losing their own.

As I found a place in the far corner of the rectangular room which we called the mess, I heaved a sigh of relief and sat down to eat. 

But then there was disaster approaching. Why was she walking toward me? Were her friends around? No. God, she's alone. Maybe she's one of the guys who avoid sitting alone as long as they can help it. Damn.

"Hey! Would you mind if I sat here?", she asked.

"Of course."

She smiled and made herself comfortable. Language is a wonderful tool of communication. I wonder why people don't use it the way they should. Technically, I had said 'of course, I would mind.' She sat down anyway.

And now was the difficult bit. I was deep in thought about random hypothetical situations that I was recreating in my mind. 'Here we go', I told myself, as I sensed her trying to make conversation.

"Why do you, um, always sit alone in the corner here?"

"It helps me think. I get to know myself better."

"Oh, nice. You know I need my alone time too, every now and then."

I don't need my alone time every now and then. I need it now and again. Every time.

"What were you thinking about, anyway?".

Nothing that would concern you.

"Oh just something about whether it would be possible for a person to deny his own existence."

"Well, uh, care to elaborate just a wee bit more?"

No, I don't care to elaborate. I was pretty eloquent the first time.

"Sure. What if a person awoke one day, and simply denied his own previous existence? He claimed that he had never existed before that day. However, people remembered him from what was supposedly his work, as also the people who claimed to be friends and family, remembered him."

"Oh, wow. Why not just look around for ID, or photographs? Or Google. Something that might remind him of his past, which was so obviously forgotten by him for some reason or another."

"That is what. There is no ID. It has seemingly all disappeared overnight. At least that's what everyone else thinks. Our guy simply claims to never have existed. And people who haven't existed won't have identification lying around."

"So here we have a guy, who is remembered by everyone. However he claims to have not existed before the day in question. There are no photographs or any sort of identification that can confirm his existence, not with them, not with the government. Doesn't that seem a bit far fetched? Obviously if there is nothing, the small group of people are lying and he must surely be someone new?"

"So you are ready to believe that a person came into existence from naught, but not that the person somehow did away with all proof of his existence, which is difficult, but possible, nevertheless."

That got her thinking. She thought for a minute, shook her head, and took a sip of water from her half filled glass. 

She said, "This makes me think, what is existence, at all? Did the guy not exist because he didn't remember his past, and there was no evidence in the form of photographs or writing? There still may have been enough evidence, but might simply be inaccessible. However, the people still did remember him. But that didn't suffice in proving his past existence."

"You're absolutely right. And that's why I sit alone in this corner every meal", I said.

"What? I have no idea what you're talking about."

"To exist. Getting to know myself better is essential for me to exist."

For a second, she looked at me like I was crazy. Then she looked directly into my eyes, and smiled.

We ate our lunch quietly, washed our plates and walked out together, without saying a word. 

Then she asked, "Mind a glass of watermelon juice?".

"Of course", I replied, as we walked together toward the juice stall.

[theshreedhar]

It's a Dog's Tale

I was waiting on the porch for dad to arrive. I remember that day so clearly.

I heard the car and wagged my tail with excitement.

But it was mom. Nevertheless, I ran and climbed on top of her and gave her a lick. Mom was awesome too! Finally I would get a pat on the back, after which I could continue waiting on the porch for dad to arrive. Mom smiled at me and went inside the house. I saw the bathroom light turn on and the heard sound of the water from the shower hit the floor. I don't get humans' obsession with getting themselves wet with water. Not only does it not make sense, it also makes it difficult for me to smell them from afar.

Just as I was waiting, I heard a sound from inside. It was mom, she was sobbing very loudly. I had no idea what was going on, but it sounded very desperate.

I ran inside as fast as I could, only to find mom sitting on the bed with a deadpan expression and a tear rolling down her face. Now my eyes have never watered like this, but past experience has told me that when it came to a human, any human, especially mom, something bad was up. No worries, I thought to myself, dad would make everything all right, it's only a matter of time before he arrives, and proceeded to comfort mom.

As I put my nose to her face and looked into her eyes, I could see a kind of pain that I'd never seen before. I gave her a nudge and then a lick, but she didn't budge. Then, out of nowhere, she grabbed hold of me and gave me a tight hug!

This is something that had never happened before! Yes, I loved her and she loved me, but she was never into being 'touchy touchy' and always liked to maintain her distance. But this time around, she hugged me so tight and hard, that it was a little uncomfortable for me. Regardless of the discomfort, I am guilty of enjoying every second of that hug. But then I felt her tears rolling down my fur. She had dug her face into my fur and was crying uncontrollably.

I knew something was dreadfully wrong! If only dad came sooner! I was not very good in situations like this.

After what seemed like an age, mom nudged me aside and went inside my room and brought my comforter. I didn't get why she did that, she was the one who needed comfort!

But like the obedient child I was, I knew what I had to do. I went to the couch where she was waiting for me and laid myself on it. Dad wasn't home, but listening to mom seemed more important at this point in time. As she put the comforter over me, I saw her wiping a tear with her free hand, but there was nothing I could do. I couldn't bear her being sad and gave a slight involuntary whimper, but all she did was kiss my head and close my eyes shut. Yes, she definitely wanted me to go to sleep right now. Moments later, I heard the house door slam shut. I was prepared to spend the night alone.

The next day, I awoke early and ran to the bedroom to find mom sleeping alone. She wasn't actually sleeping, I knew, but I didn't want to disturb her anyway. We were both waiting for dad to come home soon. I didn't know where he was but I was sure that he was thinking of me, just as I was of him, and was trying his best to be home as soon as he could. Thinking so, I headed toward the porch.

It's been a while now, but I know that dad will be back. No man can stay away from home all this while. I must know! The time when I spent the night out in the park was not a pleasant time, to say the least. Mom called out to me for lunch, and so in I went. If dad did come while I was inside, I was sure that he wouldn't feel bad. He was always understanding like that. Mom's friend was sitting at the dining table with my sweet sister. He has been living with us since a while, just before my sister was born, but it's okay, he was a very friendly guy and I really liked him! I'm sure dad would too! 

I hurriedly finished my lunch and went back to the porch. I have become a little fat and over sized for my age, you know. Sitting is not good at all for my health.

But I sat there, waiting on the porch for dad to arrive.

[theshreedhar]

Random reminiscence of school.

How often do people think about their school? That place where we spent 10/12 formative years of our lives?

I don't. Not much.

School was a very difficult time for me. It was a time when my independence was limited to its minimum. Yes, I was still way more independent than those around me, but that wasn't enough for me.

Going to college, I enjoy a fair amount of decision making power, and that is what elates me. It is in fact, having the choice of deciding the course of your entire future! What could be more important, or joyful?

What is it that you think of when you think of school? When I close me eyes and think of my school, I can see myself playing basketball. It is the inter class basketball finals and it has been reduced to shooting a penalty of sorts into the hoop. Yeah, it doesn't make much sense, but that's all we could think of to settle equal score (after a considerable amount of cheating that I am not proud of).

And oh, wasn't I a nervous wreck back in school?

I was shivering the whole time. I had a lot of complexes back in school. In some way, I think it was directly connected with the shortcomings of my school. 

But yup, I made the baskets and we won. And it was this memory of all that got etched into my brain forever. This memory can be read into a lot, though. Maybe this memory is one of the only times when I actually won at anything in school? I just wasn't like anyone back in school! The sole reason for this is peer pressure, I think. People were too afraid to be themselves and always wanted to emulate that one person who they thought was perfect. It could be the cool guy in class or anyone else who was closer than you to that ideal person that society so cherished.

I really think we should alter the way children look at life.

Because just being yourself is so much fun!

[theshreedhar]

A Page from a Diary - Choice, or not?

I had seen her from a distance. She smiled as I caught her eye.

Who would have known things would turn out to be the way they did. Who'd have thought that that smile would be something so elusive to me in the not-so-far future? 

Things were actually looking up, initially. I was just where I wanted to be, what could be better? It wasn't really my intention to fall in love. Of course, one could argue that falling in love was more a choice than something that 'just happened', but I did not consciously make that choice, oh no. It was a decision that my subconscious took because of the existing circumstances. Looking back, there really wasn't a need for me to go to that extremity, was there? Stupid subconscious!

Just as I am here, penning down my thoughts, my computer decides to randomly start playing 'Let Her Go' by Passenger. I sometimes wonder if my computer has a subconscious of its own? Maybe me using it, it somehow aligns itself like my subconscious, and consequently behaves the same way? Pulling my leg and making life difficult seems to be their favourite past time.

Continuing.. things were going great in the beginning. We talked everyday, of course. To think of it now, it was I who talked everyday. Yes, normal talking requires at least two participants, but what I meant was, it was I who initialized the conversations. Always. Looking back, she never seemed interested at all. She was just being polite -  All. The. Time.

But obviously, I waded off the slightest inkling of her not being all that into me, and continued being.. me! Apparently, that was not something that she immensely looked forward to. Asked me to 'give her some space', she did. 

Those who know me, know that I am incredibly straightforward with my thoughts. I thought she was too. How in the world would I have known that 'give me some space' is code for 'back off and try not to contact me again'?. I was positive that all she meant was that she was busy and needed some time to work. I was more than happy to give her some time to herself.

Using the word 'positive' just makes me aware of how very optimistic love makes people. And happy. The optimism associated with love comes with happiness in tow! What could be better?

So I laid back a little, for a while, and then was back on. I have to give her that she was a sweetheart to meet me that day. Maybe she felt guilty for letting me down?

That is when I told her how I felt. It came out of nowhere, but didn't it feel good! She seemed shell shocked for 5 seconds. She took a while to get over that shock, but then she said that it was all right. 

Undoubtedly, I took this reply in the most optimistic way possible! 'She just needs time', I told myself. No one would have seen that coming!

This is where I guess the distancing first began. I wouldn't say she was avoiding me, she was far too sweet for that, but I did feel there was something in the air, and it definitely wasn't love.

She was too busy, I told myself. That was all. I turned a blind eye toward all the pictures on Facebook. Attended a party, so what?! It doesn't imply anything. She needs to keep up with her colleagues too! I should have let her.

This is where my story ends. Yep, that's it folks. Was it worth the read? No? Too bad. This one has an abrupt ending right here.

After desperate attempts to get a chance to have some face to face time with her, I gave up. I did not force myself on her, no no. I tried my best to set up a meeting with her. I just wanted to see that smile.

It was someone else, no doubt. I think I should leave the details, but I was heart broken when I found out. I came to terms with it, didn't I? I did. I believe that love is a choice, and she had most definitely made hers.

Not long back, I met a friend of hers. Childhood friend. What a lucky guy, I thought. Without wasting any time, I inquired what was up with her. She had made her choice, yes, but turns out I still needed to change mine! He wasn't in touch! How could someone not be in touch with someone who I thought of multiple times a day? Too clingy, he said. I was baffled! I did not see her as clingy at all!

She was the same since childhood! Clingy and needy, so he felt. She needed a lot of attention, whether it was while playing football in the backyard, or if it was something else entirely.

This was an entirely new light for me to see her in, especially, the part about her as a kid. I had never thought of her as a kid! She had her imperfections as a kid! She got cranky when she lacked attention, cried when she lost a football game, maybe peed her bed until she was twelve..!

She was no angel, she was but human. 

And I finally made the choice to look beyond her.

[theshreedhar]

Just a hitman.

He placed the cigarette to his lips and took in a puff. It was a slow, deep puff. He was in no hurry to take it in. He made the most of it. He was, after all, trying to quit.

He made sure to stub out the cigarette with a swift stamp when he had let out the smoke from inside him.

This was at least a bi-monthly business for him these days, if not more. Yet, it always made him nervous. There was always a part of him that did not want to do it anymore. Sometimes he felt burdened, burdened because he had taken the life of someone who lived. Someone who had grown up, right from being a baby to being someone with his own identity and personality.

It had all abruptly ended. All in a jiffy, just like that. All it had taken was a gunshot, and everything from the past just seemed to reach a cul-de-sac. It had all ended then and there, amounting to nothing but a hole in the head with blood making its way out.

--

It is said that life flashes before your eyes when you die. Now I wouldn't know about that , but the victim's life sure does flash before the killer. I have seen the lives of all my targets, each one, right from beginning to end. Pulling that trigger isn't child's play. It takes immense courage to live the life of someone you're just about to kill, even if just for a second. I have done precisely that.

--

He was not a religious man. He didn't believe in souls either. If you asked him what he thought happened to all those people he had killed, his answer would be the same - "They just..died, I guess.".

They had decided on a spot for him to pick up the money. It was inside a post office box in a secluded location in a part of the city that he wasn't acquainted with. 'No worries,' he thought,  he shared a history with these people. He, and his dad before him. Real particular, they were, sent him a key to the PO Box too. How difficult could it be to change the lock of one in a secluded part of the city? Does anyone even use one of those these days?

Finally, he reached his place of solace. He'd made sure to buy a decent pair of clothes, just like every time. He'd stashed his usual pair of clothes in one of the dust bins. He'd pick them up later. This is what he always did.

As he walked in the place called 'Little Flowers Orphanage', the children seemed overjoyed to see him walk in. They knew he had treats, and presents. Oh, a lot of them.

--

"What name should I mention in the donation register?". "Anonymous, like always," I replied. I always wondered about why they cared about my name so much that they asked for it each time. Maybe it was because of the amount. These government people always wanted something to crib about. Maybe I should visit a few more orphanages next time and spread the money better.

--

Walking into his home, back in his usual clothes, he was happy. He had spent an hour at the orphanage, looked into the eyes of those kids. Seen himself in some of them, and his victims in others. But he wanted none of them to end up like either.

--

"Get inside and get your work done, you ungrateful pig!". I had parked myself at this beautiful homeless shelter started by these beautiful people. I had had some dishes to wash and some clothes to clean in return of their generosity. But I had had other business to do today. 

I smiled as I picked up the scrub.

[theshreedhar]

Serra.

You could say that he was not sure of what he was doing. Either that or he was absolutely mental. He was hanging from the 7th floor of his building.

Hi, I’m Michael. You can call me Mike. That is what my friends call me. They do however call me as and what I please, because they don’t actually exist. Yes, I’m an absolute loner. People repel me. I like no one, and though people sometimes sympathize with me, I doubt they like me all that much either.

But there’s someone who I love a lot in this world. Her name is Serra. The little girl..she is the apple of my eye, the icing on my cake, the sail of my boat, the earth to my moon. She was my life and my life revolved around her.

I was sitting on my balcony along with my darling Serra. She told me about how she had fun chasing the pesky little kids from across the neighbourhood slum. None of my neighbours liked them, and they all cheered when my Serra ran after them. I did feel pitiful for them at times, but I was sure that Serra was only looking to have a ball and had no negative feelings in mind. She was my darling, after all. The way she ran, though, how adorable! She indeed was my lifeline in this world.

As I was sitting there, talking with her and telling her about my day, and about the difficult bug in my program that I recently fixed, sipping from a glass full of the finest tea from Darjeeling, there was the sudden sound of the bell. I was not used to such sounds. There was an instinctive jerk on my side which hit Serra on the head, and I saw the love of my life, the reason for my prolonged existence, topple over the balcony, right along with the saucer of hot milk that she was enjoying.

I was broken for what seemed like a minute. There was nothing for me to think. I had to end my life. I saw no way out.

Just as I was about to release myself from the balcony and from this life of misery, I heard a soft mew from the aluminium roof of the floor below.

The next day, there was a small article on the 7th page of the local newspaper, whose headline read, “Fire brigade saves man trying to save cat from 7th floor.”

[theshreedhar]

End Sems.

It's almost December (my favourite month of the year) and the end semester exams mark the end of a tight schedule (which I absolutely could not keep up with) and the beginning of a month of, what I call, "doing what makes one happy."

So what is it that makes me happy? What am I going to do? For starters, I'll be going back to Mumbai. I have a huge agenda planned for the holidays. To the average eye it may come off as boring and bland, but to me, it is what genuinely makes me feel like if there's something that I like to do, it is that!

The first thing that I want to do is to learn C++! I've done C in college and Python by myself, but it is C++ that comes handy for algorithmic programming for sport. From what I've heard of it from my friends, it sounds very promising and it sure is an exciting prospect to learn a better way to do something.

NEXT, I'm looking forward to contributing to one or maybe two, interesting open source projects. I've already come across SCons and it does seem very interesting. This is something that I hope that I DO NOT put under the rug for algorithmic, as this is what I wanted to do whenever I envisioned learning "Computer Science" as a kid.

The next thing that I want to pick up is game programming, Whether it is continuing with Pygame with Python and participating in Ludum Dare or trying out an entirely alien concept of a game engine like Panda 3D, that lefts to be seen. The way I see it, I cannot draw or paint, so why not use games as an outlet for my thoughts? Yes, there's always writing, but two did no one any harm, did it? I really want to learn how to use Beautfiul Soup and another Python module or two. They come really handy for when you need them and I cannot wait for there actually to be a need, can I? Well yes, it's only when there's a need that the best learning takes place, but it is fun to just try out new things, loitering about.

Now comes something that will really help me do the others, only better. Typing. The time I waste typing as slowly as I do, I need to sit myself down, spend a few hours on a tutorial for touch typing, and then continually head to typeracer and let me typing skills speak for itself. Yes, I have considerably improved my typing speed after coming to IIIT, but there's still a long way to go and a lot of races to win (on typeracer, of course).

The list of things to do is virtually never ending. There's mysql left to learn and javascript and codeforces problems to solve and a plethora of books to read and tons of BBC Horizon videos to watch. But I am not complaining. It's this list of things-to-do that gives my life meaning, It's this list that gives me peace of mind. There's always something to do. There's always something to move on to next. There's always something to look forward to next. There's always something that you'll like if what you're doing right now isn't it.

There's always an always.