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Monday, July 26, 2010

Solitary speaker

One day sooner than later, this monologue will have to end. Me continuously speaking and you hearing or listening I am not sure. Or even me writing and you reading. It has started to feel as if I am forcing you to live in my life, to be caged with me when you wish to fly away, be away from me. It feels like I am imprisoning you with my needs and my words.

Though you may believe it or not, I have tried to give you as much space as possible which according to me is a wide berth. I am not even sure whether you consider it a wide personal space or an empty space where I should have been there or you have ever noticed the space or not. Only if you talk to me, will I be able to know.

Is it wrong to expect few words from you? Is it too much to be expected when I want to know what is going on in your life, how are the people around you, or even how do you react to what I have to say? Is it?

Come on, talk to me… if not then write to me. I’ll go mad in this silence. Tell me I am a burden, I’ll leave right now. Tell me you want me, I’ll stay forever. Tell me to keep distance, you’ll find me only when you want to see me… but please tell me.

This monologue that I have kept going for quite some time had left me bereft. I do not know what you think, what you need, what you feel. It is maddening.

So, today, right now, I am giving you an option, either answer me or I’ll accept the silence for what it is, Rejection. And I shall accept it this time and move away from your life forever. I assure you I’ll not look back ever and you’ll not have to face me anytime in your entire lifetime. 

Sunday, July 25, 2010

The hungry "LEMONADE"r

So ok, I have put on weight and nobody seems happy about it. My attitude is perhaps the best among others, I don’t mind it. Why do the others mind it? Well ok they mind it… so… what???? Should I quit eating? Or should I walk, jog, run, and do mindless yoga all day? Should I even catch sleep on a tread mill? Well???? Oh! Ok… moderation… moderation huh!??? What is it anyway? Eat boiled vegetables and fruits all day long and 4 hours of exercise… Cool… Hey buddy that’s not for me. Good God! I did rather starve than eat such food. And don’t you start laughing. I can fast. I can go without food for 24 hours or so. I have done it before. I can do it again. Don’t you dare laugh. Don’t you laugh.

I wake up with a start. Oh! Ok I was dreaming. It was just a dream. I didn’t create a scene with…? Well, I don’t remember who I was with. Ah! It’s ok. It was only a dream.

So consoling myself on this point, I decide I need to go shopping for clothes. I don’t fit into my old ones anymore. And I am happy! Well, I am getting new clothes, am I not? It calls for celebration, which means pizza hut!!!! No!!! L I can’t… I had been teased as baby elephant just yesterday evening. I had better control my weight, even if I can’t reduce it.

And thus I am on my way to a mall. I look around, I buy clothes. I complain for the limited collections and the saleswoman politely tells me she has indeed a small collection for the largest size. I go for window shopping and suddenly I am ravenously hungry. I remember now, in my haste to get to the mall before the rains catch up with me I had forgotten my breakfast. And I also remember my resolution for having only lemonades today.

So I set out in the hunt of lemonades in the mall. But Oh no! really? Can’t someone do better? This mall has no lemonade stalls, not even stalls for tender coconuts. So what am I supposed to have? What am I supposed to do? Stay hungry? Oh! Oh my my! Oh, indeed. Fine, I’ll try.

Thinking thus I leave the mall and start on my way back home which is 45 minutes away, 30 on bus no 11 and 15 minutes on any other I get. I resignedly start walking picking up mental images of lemonade and fruit juices that I’ll prepare as soon as I get home and devour them just as quick. It won’t be difficult to stay hungry for 45 minutes, surely it won’t.

But the 20 minutes of walk takes its toll on me. I have to have some sugar in my bloodstream, the normal 80 pre-prandial. And the nearest food outlet…well J its McD… surely I can find something in there which I might have when I am on a diet regime. Oh! Sure!

Ecstatic I walk on to the counter of McD and salivate on the menu. I devour the menu with my eyes, but one little sensible part of my brain says, “Dear, diet control.” I try to ignore the voice and decide my menu of the day, but the voice refuses to be ignored. I halfheartedly, then search for some low calorie food. Not finding any my heart falls flat down to the sole of my feet agonizing about the next 25 minutes and more until I can gulp something down my throat. My eyes still on the menu card, I wonder about choices. Why are there choices when I can’t even have one? It feels like I am one of the characters in the ad for Naukari.com. “What is the use of choices if they don’t work for you?” or something like that.

Sighing I decide I might as well have a coke to keep me from dehydrating. And alas! I was just about to place my order when my cells starts beeping alerting me to a new text message. I reach for my cell and read the message. It is from time health and it tells me while dehydrating one must take salted water with sugar and not a drink containing soda which might cause the dehydration to be further severe.

Is the worse going to get over? Mulling and sulking I hit on the roads again and keep my eyes on the road lest it strays over to another food outlet and I am further tempted. I reach home, rush over to my refrigerator and…. Nooooooooooo!!!!!!

I had food in my refrigerator. I had kept a few lemons, some fruits, vegetables, sauces, syrups, cheese, butter, even ladoos. Where did it all go? Why is my fridge empty? Almost in panic I call on my flat mate and she calmly tells me she had to remove the food from the fridge and throw them all away because they were harboring fungi. Just today morning when she removed milk, it cheesed and in the process of discovering what was wrong with the milk, she found fungi in the fridge. She cleaned the fridge and has kept it switched off for defrosting. She informed me I might buy food provisions that will last me only a day and not more as the refrigerator will need to be kept switched off another 24 hours.

Good heavens! I am tired and hungry and have no food even the most oily or fatty food in the world to survive me. I will have to go out again to hunt some food. I take few deep breaths and calm myself down. Hey! Come on. You just had your last meal 16 hours back. See its 16 only, not even 24. You are ok… have some water with salt and sugar and you will be fine.

I am fine and I am going out to find a loaf of bread, never mind whether its white or brown. Something is always better than nothing. And I just happen to step out of my flat and the heavens open.

The downpour that started didn’t end till the next morning. My flat mate and the rest of the working people in this big city had to take refuge in their offices for the night and came home early next morning. I, unable to keep one foot out of my doors, had to stay hungry or rather without food surviving on water, salt and sugar till the morning proving I would rather starve than go on a strict diet regime. 

Friday, July 2, 2010

The Adventure Lasts 24 hours

Kemmenangudi, a small, peaceful, rainy town in Chikmaglur district of Karnataka has breathtaking views. Not that I noticed it at first, as we reached it in darkness before dawn precisely at 5.30 am in a group of 15 people. It was raining in the earnest as we got off the mini bus that would remain with us till the end of the tour. We reached the dormitories reserved for us drenched wet and all of us wanted a hot drink. There was no touching the water, it was freezing cold. Few went off to sleep and few of us watched the dawn breaking and the sun trying its best to show its presence inspite of the thick clouds pouring out their mass on us. Our cameras had a thorough usage although they could hardly do justice to what our eyes were feasting upon. The early morning mist on tall trees, rain drops caught in all leaves and twigs around, bright red, yellow and white bell shaped flowers, a terrestrial pattern of small huts, a downpour that turned to torrential rain to a slight drizzle and everything in between within the hour. It simply converted all the lactic acid in the muscles to glucose again and blew the webs of sleep away.


As soon as we could have a decent breakfast, we started in the direction of our first destination, the Kalahasthi falls. The waterfall was small and had been maneuvered to flow through certain path by human efforts. As there was a temple before the falls, we started the climb to the falls barefooted. Smooth stones and rocks, some carved some otherwise for footholds were dotted in the water. So was slime and algae on top of these rocks which made the climb tricky along with the continuous rain. All the troubles felt fruitful when I finally came down and felt very, very alive. Who knew five hours later I would be thanking heavens again.  

After this initial excitement, we headed for lunch and then came the turn of Hebbe falls. All any one of us knew of this fall was that it was a 5km trekking expedition to the waterfall. But as soon as we headed that way, we were told it was a 14km walk or a jeep that would take us for the first 11 km. The jeep being able to accommodate 6 people at the maximum was discarded and we began the descent down along a trail that was wide enough to allow four people to pass together. This trail was less tricky and had beautiful views to occupy the mind. Tall trees covered with creepers from the ground to the first branch, purple and red ferns, conifers, the sound of water everywhere, the water being mainly rain water.

And then



Then came my first ever encounter with blood suckers, LEECHES. No, they were not on my foot but on someone else’s. Gone was the feeling of tranquility henceforth and I watched the trail instead of the surroundings. Even though there was no leech on me in the entire duration, there was always a pseudo feeling that does not come even when a leech has a completely satiated gut. One of our team always proclaimed we had another 2 km to walk through out the 11 km walk to the river. Then came the momentous decision of crossing the river, which was dared only by four people and the rest of us walked back to a cemented place to get rid of the leeches. There was no way any of us would walk back we all proclaimed. Hence we hired a pickup truck from the service providers. When the truck arrived we all realized that the truck was in fact a milk van.

This was the peak moment of the adventure. For the next half an hour all of us were standing in the milk van making the best of the railings and other supports provided by the structure of the van. In this journey, I was thankful for few things. One, I had an empty stomach by then. Two, nobody other than me had motion sickness. That was when I realized how brutal the Nazis were on the Jews. I had always thought while reading any literature on the Nazi torture that the journey was difficult because of the lack of food and the weather conditions and because many people were crammed up in a small space. I had never imagined the torture of the travel itself. For the entire duration, our entire body was “abused as never before,” to quote someone else. But there was a delight in that too. Watching the greeneries past and knowing there was earth below and a sky that was still pouring had a great effect on the senses.

Returning to the mini bus I thanked heavens to keep me alive and in good shape after this great adventure. All of us were wet to the bones and decided we cannot go through another of such a day to see the Z point at sunrise when there was no knowing if the sun will be able to break through the clouds next day. We decided to get dry, have dinner, and go back to the city at the earliest. The return journey was also an adventure of sorts for me as muscles I didn’t even acknowledge before were aching. We reached back to the safety of our homes at 5.30 early next morning. It took me another 24 hours to gather myself.

It was a journey of a sort that I realized very much later that gives two pleasures to a human; the site seeing for nature at its widest with the exhilaration of facing odds and making the best of them. Exactly a week later I am able to write objectively about the entire episode. If I were asked then I would have simply said this is the last adventure of my life. Now I say I need more. I need to have fresh, clean , unadulterated air and I need the sense of excitement to fill me with wonder at my own self.