Frames

She stared at the picture frame, looking through a window to the past, at a single moment frozen on Polaroid. Two smiling faces- blessed with ignorance. She held up her hand and looked at the new picture. The same woman, laughing with another man, but the laugh was more muted- hopeful but guarded. She looked at it for a long moment and then moved to the desk. She picked up the old picture and kept the new one in its place. She opened the drawer and kept the old one inside gently, but her hands shook when she tried to close it. She took it out again and kept it on the desk side by side with the new one. She felt herself ripped in two but fused together violently, unnaturally. Time did not seem to flow from one moment to the next. The past and the present seemed to exist together but not in peace with each other. She leaned with both hands on the desk, with her head bowed, as if in front of an altar.

After what seemed like a lifetime, she wiped her face and picked up the new picture frame. She took the photo out and tossed the frame into the trash. She moved to the old photo frame and ran her fingers delicately around the ornamental edge. Carefully, she lowered the new photo into the old frame on top of the old picture- the muted laughter of one moment superimposed over the carefree joy of another, a man’s face slipped over another’s....and walked away from both

Notes:

This was a writing exercise. The theme was supposed to be to write a scene which shows a character preparing for something significant. I took a female character for a change. The scenario, or the thing that she is preparing for is remarriage. Her first husband has been missing for years- presumed dead. She is about to start a new life, but has to do something which seems insignificant but is painful. Her house, her room and everything about it is a testament to an old life, a shrine to memories. But it cannot be that anymore. How much of the past should she let go of to start afresh? How much of letting go would be an insult to the past? How do you reconcile a glorious past with hope for a different future?

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Alive

I sat next to the hospital bed with my head bowed and watched my friend breathe. The once mighty chest rose and fell with a meekness he never showed in life. And yet, the monitors with the squiggly lines and the beeps said he was alive. Was this life? I remembered how he had behaved when someone tried to mug him. I was there, but a few seconds into the intended mugging, you couldn’t understand whowas mugging who. The only explanation he gave later was “When life comes at you with a knife, you go at it with a pickaxe”. I smiled at the memory, but mourned the present. Shouldn’t it be the other way around?

I pulled the cables. I turned off the monitors and knocked over the IV trip. His eyes fluttered open and looked at me, even as his body shook and struggled. But his eyes stayed fixed on me, till it glazed over in the end. Eyes that had remained closed for the past two weeks, reopened to see the end. I kept looking back, even as they rushed in and dragged me away. They would not believe it and I did not say it, but I knew what I saw in his eyes. They saw him die helpless, unassisted. I saw him die just as he had lived, just as he had wanted- defiant.

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Depth

Waves broke the stillness, foaming horses glittering in the sunlight. The horses galloped and pressed ahead, but one after the other they all sank into the stillness. He skipped across the water, leapt over the cresting waves. He staggered and went to one knee and got up and moved again. He ran on the surface, he ran on the edges of whirlpools and breaking waves.

Why do you run? They asked. Why do you move? He could not catch his breath for a while. The waves were too high. The water stilled for a fraction of a second. A pleasant break, but he kept moving. “If I don’t move, I will sink. It’s hard to stay afloat”. 

“What happens when you sink? What’s under the surface” The boy’s face turned wistful. His footfalls slowed down a moment, then picked up again. “Leagues and leagues into the depths, colors swirling and changing, deep hues and shimmering greens. A world with no end and no beginning. Running under every wave, every runner on the surface. Connecting everything but nothing”. “How does it feel when you go there?” “Elated,humbled..Like you pulled the world aside like a curtain and understood you were blinded till now. That when you run on the surface and look ahead and back and to the side, you think that’s all there is but under your feet there is eternity and endlessness horizons.."

"Why do you fight it then. Why stay here. “Its not a place for us. It’s a world that is somehow ours but yet not, a world where we cannot live our days and nights. I go down there and I am raptured but lost, enchanted but terrified. For the depths are too vast, too timeless for me to do anything. I am a grain of sand on a beach there, a speck in the sky. There are shadows there. Of everything happening on the surface. Only the shadows are longer down there than the ones who cast it. And every hint of movement on the surface ripples down there, magnified. Insignificant acts on the surface sparks off chaos down there. The butterfly flaps its wings and this is where the storm builds”

“Sometimes I wish I never saw the deep, never knew it was there. For once I knew, the pull was always there. But it is a pull I must resist, for there is no living in the depths. Only giving in.But yet I must visit from time to time, for to deny it is to lock away a part of yourself, to close your eyes and pretend it is dark. But each time I stand still,, each time I sink, I fear I will never come back up again. For once you’re there; everything on the surface seems insignificant. Reality seems inconsequential. But then I have to remember that reality is beautiful too. That imperfect as it is, there’s joy there, there’s sorrow, there’s music…and the chirping of birds.

“So they why go down there at all. Why go to a world where we can't belong, where you cant survive? Why do you visit the depths?”

His footfalls slowed down a bit, the water rose up to his ankles, his knees. His eyes glazed over and a wistful smile formed on his lips. ”For a touch of wonder..."

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The Looking Glass

Taken on a Thursday morning, a child playing with his parents tools as they build up the Silicon Valley of India around him

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Whispers in the dark

When you sit in a dark room, with your phones silent and your mind alone, you start hearing things which you didn’t notice before. The sound of cars on a nearby street, how a frame of light separates the doorway from darkness to light and eventually, whispers of a consciousness long buried by everyday life, your own.

They say that human beings are social animals. Is that why we constantly seek companionship? Is that why we don’t like eating alone or going to a movie alone or going for a walk alone? Or is there another reason too? Do we stay connected all the time so that the lines between ourselves and the world blur, and you can’t tell yourself and the world apart? Does it comfort us to join ourselves to an incomprehensibly large whole, so that in the ignorance we can find bliss? Do we avoid keeping our own company because we are afraid of looking in the mirror and seeing what is really in our eyes; or sitting in the dark in an empty room and hearing the whispers of our own souls, unburdened by the noise of the world?

The universe asks you difficult questions when you walk a bit off the road. It asks you where you’re going and who you are. Questions you once heard asked, once tried to answer. Questions I hear again when I sit in the dark. Questions I know I haven’t answered and maybe never will, but questions they remain.

I have been lost, because I feared being lost. I stopped looking for my road because on the roads all wayfarers walk, no one asked for directions……..and ignorance was bliss

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A rant against supermarkets

I have a theory why. See, in prehistoric or pre-cookware times, human beings were hunter-gatherers. Some did the hunting, some did the gathering. Now I’m not an evolutionary biologist and I’m not a male chauvinist either (ladies please note) but I’m guessing mostly men did the hunting  and the women did the gathering. I present this thesis on the basis of observing how 98% of my female friends love shopping and 98% of my male friends hate shopping. @Sherman, if you are reading this, by the remaining 2% I mean you :) Ok so my theory is that I hate shopping coz I’m a hunter by genetic makeup  (suck it Bambi. I’m coming  for you).

Do any of you like supermarkets? I find them scary, especially the big ones, the ones in which you need directions to get to a 6 pack of eggs. I got lost  in a supermarket once. OK actually more than once but that one I remember coz I had a hand drawn map from my  brother in law to prevent exactly this scenario. It was very simple. He drew it exactly like what I would see when I walk in. But cabbages screwed me. I had an epiphany when I stood clueless in the middle of the vegetables section…I HAD NO FREAKING IDEA what a cabbage looked like pre-cooking!!! Oh wait that was the minor epiphany. The actual one was that supermarkets are unnatural places.
See for a hunter, a supermarket  is a very confusing  place. Suppose you want to buy some Goodday biscuits (One of the tasks my brother in law had assigned to me in the earlier mission). You go to the biscuits section and look for Goodday and what do you see? Goodday lite, Goodday fluffy, Goodday white, this, that what the hell. Immediately my hunter’s instincts screw me. See in the wild, my ancestors had it easy. You walk into the jungle with your badass bow & arrow or sharp sticks or whatever, the prey sees you, gets spooked and runs. As soon as a dumbass prey decides it’s the prey and runs, you recognize that it is the prey and run after it shouting with joy. The roles are clearly defined. But here…they hide in plain sight, alphabetically, mocking you.
Hence we get to my initial proposition. Supermarkets are unnatural. Of course, I know it makes things easier (if you have an aisle-wise sense of direction) and we all need to save time in our fast paced life. But I read somewhere that the biggest joke on mankind is that we keep inventing new things to make things we do easier to do and yet we end up working just as hard or harder, having as less or lesser spare time than before. 30 years ago someone would work a 9 to 5 job making manual entries in a register and now we work a 9 to 9 job even though we have computers. Coz with computers came SAP and all kinds of nonsense.
Just  food for thought. Talking of food, let me head to Safa supermart.
What??? Never seen a hypocrite before?

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Declaration of intentions

For a long time this blog has been dead. Why? A combination of the authors laziness + fear of lack of perfection and reluctance to open up.
When I think about writing, the procrastination goes something like this.
Step 1: I should write something.
Step 2: Who will read? And if I decide to spread it to a wider audience, do I want  them to read what I really have to say?
Step 3: If I write it has to be awesome. I should think of something awesome to write. Or at least as good or better than stuff I’ve already written here in this space.
Step 3: Hey look a cat doing flip flops in youtube.
The end….

This is me breaking out of the shell. Or trying to. I say screw the typos, screw the lack of a well defined title. Screw coherence, screw sequential thinking. Embrace the madness. Insanity can be rather fun you know, provided you’re crazy by choice. I have no idea what  the hell I’m talking about but you know what? I don’t give a damn. It’s my blog and I’ll ramble till I make some sense.

This is me, shouting into the night. I don’t know if anyone’s listening. And even if they are, I’m not talking much sense anyway. Lol. Hey this is the first time I said lol in bloggerspace. (screw victorian fukking written english)
Ok ok woosah woosah.
Let me try to make some sense. Where was I? ya. I’m reactivating this blog. Why?
Because I have things to say. It’s kinda like the SETI (Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence). Those dudes beam messages through radio signals into space. Reason? To see if anyone can get them, then ‘get’ what the hell they are talking about and reply. So far they are still talking one way into outer space but have they stopped? Hell no. From that I draw my inspiration. Maybe some froods out there will get this. Maybe not. And as for waiting for perfection, that’s like a batsman saying he wont go out to bat  until he’s sure he can get a century if he does. “Don’t play the game if you’re not willing to lose”
This is it. For now.
If any entities out there are receiving and comprehending this, peace out!

oh and stay tuned for more as well.

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Arrogance is the best insult you can get. It means the other guy knows that you think you’re better than him

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Travel Notes 3- Shivanasamudram falls (Shivasamudram), Bangalore

16-10-2011

6:29 AM

I woke up and forced myself out of bed. The guys had been calling for some time saying its time to go. Sherman was also up. I stretched my arms and stood at the open balcony door looking out. Our hostel building is adjacent to Tata BP Solar so we have a great view of drums and mechanical equipment and other mundane stuff from our balcony. Rather depressing really. But in between the two lumps of concrete that make up our building and Tata BP Solar, there is a tree with beautiful red flowers, although I’m not knowledgeable enough to know the name of the tree or the flower. Every morning, dew forms within the petals of the flower and a flock of birds (I don’t know the name of this species either) perch on the tree and drink water from the flowers. It’s a sight which strikes a stark contrast with the urbaneness all around. An oasis in a desert of concrete. One fine morning during exams when Sherman woke up early, he saw a bird and a squirrel drinking water from the same flower from two sides, facing each other. Unfortunately he was enjoying the sight so much that he forgot to get his camera out and take a snap. Today I stepped out and saw the birds drinking the dew as usual. No sign of any squirrel though. My camera’s batteries were charged up for the trip so I decided to start the day’s photo session with this. Would have gotten some better pictures if I wasn’t in a hurry.

10:00 AM

I sat at the back of the tempo traveller, looking out the window at the greenery rolling by. There were 12 of us in the tempo. The guys had been telling me to take my camera out for some time but I had meant to unpack it only once we got there. But nevertheless I took it out and took a few snaps from the bus.

We reached the falls around 10:20 AM. The driver stopped the bus at a viewing point where we could see the falls from a distance. A sight worth describing at length but since a picture is worth a thousand words, here goes.

And this was the group

Even though we got to see a spectacular view, I didn’t want to have to use the camera’s zoom to see the falls up close. But turned out our next destination was a place where you could get up close to the falls and go into the water, even though most of the articles we read online said it wasn’t safe to go into the water. It took us quite some time to get to that point, but I’m not complaining as there was some beautiful scenery on the way there as well.

11:30 AM

I clutched the branches of a fallen tree which lay across the part of the river we were trying to cross, struggling to maintain balance in the current. Even though the water only came up to my thighs, the current was very strong and we were walking on uneven, slippery rocks. I had packed my camera and my t-shirt in my waterproof drawstring backpack. I hadn’t brought any proper clothes for the water so went in my jeans and vest. There was a chain of people clutching the tree and crossing both in front and back of us. It took us a good ten minutes to cross just ten feet of gushing water and get to the bank, on the other side of which was the falls.

 

12 PM

I sat on a rock under the falls, water hitting the top of my head and back with force, threatening to wash me away. I looked sideways at the bank of the river where some of my friends were sitting. I looked at people frolicking in the water through sheets of water that fell from my brow like curtains before my eyes. I sat there and laughed. Somebody asked me why. I said ‘nothing’ and spread my arms out wide. I looked at the digital watch display on my wrist showing 12:00 through the water. I watched the water turn my blue jeans a deeper shade of blue and billowing it around, knowing that if the force of the water increased a little more I wouldn’t be able to stay there. I watched kids play in the water like a silent movie coz the only sound I could hear was water breaking on rocks. For a long time I just sat there and smiled. The watch somehow struck a chord. A symbol of technology showing me the digits by which we live our daily lives, but with crystal clear water frothing over it, reminding me that I came from a city to sit on a rock under the falls.

I had climbed up a rock which was about as high as my shoulder to get to that spot. But seeing some of us up there, people kept coming and coming. I finally decided to get down from there when one enthusiastic guy scrambled up the rock and ended up on my lap when the water hit him.

 

12:46 PM

We decided the main falls was too crowded and went to the smaller one which was about 50 metres away from the main one. There were some vines dangling down the rock next to the waterfall. I saw a guy climb up it and disappear. Somebody said its a crazy thing to do. There was a danger sign and all nearby but I packed my camera into my backpack and started climbing. I soon found out that I suck at vine climbing but turned out Robin was very proficient at it. He nipped right up and told me how to. I asked him how he’s so good at it and he said he’s stolen a lot of mangos as a kid. After we climbed the first rock using the vine there was another one in front of us but with no vines. I found out I was better at rock climbing than climbing with the vine. The rock wasn’t very high but it was still high enough to get injured because there was a crevice right next to the rock. We slowly found different finger holds and footholds and went up to get right to the side of the gushing waterfall.

 

 

And this is me next to the waterfall..

First photo below- my climbing partner Robin & to the right some of the others who were under the same waterfall,taken on Sherman’s camera

By the time we two got down the others were already leaving, having gotten tired of waiting. We had to cross the river again along the fallen tree to get back to our tempo. I was given the cricket bat this time. Oh I forgot to mention the cricket bat. Somebody in our group thought it would be a good idea to take a cricket bat and ball along with us on the trip and even to the waterfall. Don’t ask me why, I haven’t figured it out myself. Anyway on the way back I had to lug the said bat across the water, which was quite difficult as the current was so strong that it was hard to remain on balance even with two hands clutching the fallen tree. Also the current kept trying to wash the bat right out of my hand. People crossing the water in the other direction were looking at me weirdly. One guy struggled across a bit of the length to be crossed, paused for a bit, saw me and asked his friend ‘What the hell is that guy doing with a cricket bat’. I was thinking the same thing.

During the subsequent tempo ride for lunch and to the next destination, I got these panorama photos. Had to get the driver to stop the tempo several times but it was worth it.

The bridge…

 

The field…

4 PM

Final stop - Coracle ride.

Not as good as the one in Hoggenekkal. Here they only took us in a circle and came back to the same bank where we boarded from. The boat guy refused to take us down the river saying its too dangerous.

The coracle guy did the usual spin-the-coracle trick. We all just laid our heads back and watched the clouds as they spun round and round. Everybody commented on how beautiful the clouds were and how weird it is that there is such a spectacle above our heads all the times and we still never look up. We live right under the sky and never look up at the heavens. Very elementary observation but one that struck us profoundly as a collage of beautiful clouds spun before our eyes. I pushed my shades up to see the sky unrestricted but soon pulled them back down when the rotation of the coracle made me look at the sun. I kept popping my shades up and down- up for the clouds, down for the sun. Exquisite…

 

That was the end of a beautiful day. We had a long tempo ride back watching a movie and checking the pictures I took on my camera. I think I’ve found a new hobby – travelling and taking photos. Hope to post a new travel note soon. Until then peace out.

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Cages & Wings

Memory is a strange thing. Every once in a while it throws up something you had forgotten long ago and throws it up for re-examination, to challenge you to see things you didn’t see before, to understand things you were not capable of understanding before, not when it belonged to the world of your present.

Today I remembered my childhood; I remembered a parrot I once had for a pet. I saw flashes of images – flashes of green, flashes of wings. How long ago was it? How old was I? I couldn’t have been older than 9 or 10. I do not remember where I got the parrot from. I remember I got her in a small cage, too small for her to fly even for a few seconds.

I asked my dad to get her a big birdhouse so that she could fly around. He had one made in our own factory. It was four feet high and two feet wide. There were two iron bars running from one wall to the other, where the parrot could sit, and two rings suspended on vertical bars which were welded to the top bar where the bird could sit and swing. The walls, ceiling and floor of the cage were made of iron mesh with wide holes so that the bird could climb. It was the best cage a pet parrot had ever seen. People asked us why we had such a huge birdhouse for just one bird but we maintained that we wanted the best for our pet.

She used to have a jolly good time in her birdhouse, flapping from perch to perch, swinging on the swings, climbing on the meshed walls… I fed her rice every-day, and gave her chilli treats. She used to love those. There were other weird things that she loved but my memory is foggy. I had some big impressive name for her but no one ever used that name so I don’t even remember it now. Everybody used to call her ‘Thatha’ or ‘Thathamma’, Malayalam for ‘parrot’. Whenever I went to her cage she used to come near the mesh wall so that I could scratch her head. She even used to peck my finger with her beak, gently at most times but hard if she was hungry.

She was supposed to be a talking parrot but she never really learnt to talk. Her linguistic ability seemed to be limited to just answering to her name. If we called out ‘Thathamma’, she would scream ‘aaa’ back, opening her beak wide. I don’t know where she learnt that from. But sometimes early in the morning, just when dawn broke, my parents and grandparents used to hear her trying to talk. She only used to do it when nobody else was around, as if she was too shy to practice in front of us. I never used to wake up that early but my folks said she seemed to be trying to call my name, the pet name that everyone in the family called me. I wouldn’t believe them at first but I heard it a few times myself. It wasn’t very clear but it was definitely my name.

After a while I started feeling guilty about locking her up. I saw other birds in the sky and wondered how it would feel like, wondered how she would feel to be free. I didn’t want to lose my pet, but the guilt nagged at me. One day I went to feed her and paused when I was closing the door. I opened the door wide and walked away. I stood at a distance to watch. She flew down to the open frame and stood at the edge, craning her neck out, looking in all directions. But she didn’t leave. She never went back inside either; she stood at the frame, perched on the boundary line separating familiarity and freedom. After a while I went back and closed it, afraid that a cat will get in and afraid that I would lose her. My conscience was sated. I had opened the door, she chose not to leave. Also after that incident my parents and many other people told me that birds raised in captivity die quickly if they are let out. They said they don’t know how to fend for themselves and find food and water. They said they often get pecked to death by other birds, like crows. So I gave up the idea of freeing her. She didn’t want to leave anyway and I didn’t want my beloved pet to die in a cruel world she didn’t know. But I still kept leaving the door open when I went to refill and clean her water dish. Sometimes I used to sit near her cage and leave the door open so that she could sit at the edge and watch the world outside, unmarred by metal bars in her view. I knew she wouldn’t leave. She was happy where she was. She just wanted to watch the world from the door at times.

Months later, I walked out of the house and saw another parrot on top of the cage – a large, wild one. My parrot was perched just near the wild parrot, only on the other side of the iron mesh. She was excited and cackling. The wild parrot flew away when it saw me. I think it was a male. But the wild one kept returning when we weren’t nearby. Over the weeks we saw it several times, and it always flew away when we approached. We laughed about their bird romance.

One fine morning, I woke up and went to feed my pet. I tickled her beak and gave her a chilli. I saw that the water dish was dirty and went to change it. I left the door open as usual, out of habit. I whistled a tune and changed the water. I walked back towards her birdhouse from the tap and was shocked to see her wobbling in the air two feet above my head, flapping her wings frantically, unsure of their full use. I dropped the water dish and ran after her screaming at her to get back in the cage. I tried to catch her but she flew higher every time I tried. She perched on top of the car for a moment and then flew to a nearby tree as I ran after her. Finally she opened her wings wide and pushed at the air with her full might. And in the flash of an eye she was gone, soaring through the air between the treetops, flapping furiously and purposefully. I walked through the woods crying for her to come back till my parents came looking for me and took me back.

I worried and worried every day. I wondered who would feed her. I worried if she would be able to find water and whether the crows would peck her to death. I wondered if the wild parrot which used to visit her would help her. That parrot, how I hated it. Before it came along she was happy in the house we built for her. Now she was gone, with no one to care for her.

In the next few days my grandpa told me he heard her cry in the morning from the nearby woods. He said there was an old tree with a hole in the side and that she might be there. I walked around the woods calling for her. The tree he told me about was too tall for me to see into the hole but I hoped she was there. One time I thought I saw her, flying out of a tree and then back in. But there were crows there too. The days went on and we stopped hearing anything. I walked through the woods everyday but never saw anything.

My family said she must have flown away, looking for food and water. There aren’t many parrots in that small wood. There was also the dark possibility that no one said out loud. She might have starved or gotten pecked. There was no way to find out.

I grieved for the loss of my pet till time made my memory foggy and my life filled with other concerns. Over the years I forgot about the parrot completely. And now, years later a conversation with a friend about freedom made me remember her again. To my surprise, life and experiences have changed how I feel about the same incident. After these many years, my pet parrot is dead for sure. If she hadn’t flown away and had stayed in the birdhouse, I would still be remembering a bird that died long ago. The difference is that I would have been remembering a life which was spent shackled to the ground, unable to take off.

I walked out the door of my house and looked at the treetops in the wood through which she had made her break for freedom all those years ago. I imagined how it would have felt, flying into the unknown, with just the thrill of flight and vague hope, not knowing where food, shelter or security would come from. She must have been afraid but she still flew.

Today I see triumph in what I saw as tragedy all those years ago. Today I understand what I didn’t understand back then- that a cage is a cage, even if it is made of love. Life is not about knowing where the next meal comes from, or being comforted by familiarity. Life is about hope, and courage. My little parrot had it, even though it took me years to figure the same out for myself.

Wings are made to fly. Who are we to put bars on the horizon?

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Life & JD

To love without holding back,

To live without fearing death,

To die without regretting life,

 

and to drink without a hangover.

- SCG

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How to scare airport security with dirty laundry

‘This was a bad, bad idea’ I thought to myself as I sat on the back of my friend’s bike with my head lowered against the rain. I had a flight home at 6:30 PM. How I wished I had taken the bus instead. We stopped near a shop and ran for shelter. Desperate, I called my brother in law and explained the situation. He told me to get an auto to Brigade road and that he will pick me up from there and rush to the airport. So after half an hour of gruelling, slow moving traffic in the rain, I stepped out of the auto with my bags. A few minutes later, Roshan showed up in his Santro and I jumped in and shook my wet head. ‘How will we ever make it in this traffic’ I asked. ‘Let’s see’ he said. It took us half an hour to get out of city traffic. The time was 5:30 PM. I would be late for reporting time but maybe I could still make the flight. Roshan drove like a maniac, pushing the Santro to its limits.

Miles of crazy driving later, we braked in front of the airport building at 6:00 PM. ‘Run. Run. I’ll park. Can’t stay here for more than 2 minutes. Don’t check in you duffel bag. Take it as a carry bag. No time’ He said. ‘Ok ok.’ I said and ran with my bags, not really listening. I skidded to a stop at the counter and told them my ticket number and got the ticket. Then I ran to the gate and tried to get in, but for some reason people kept pushing me out, coming in the opposite direction. ‘What the hell’ I thought and kept trying to push my way in. Finally a kindly elderly man said ‘Son’ and pointed at the board – Departure. ’Damn it. Where’s arrival’ I asked. He pointed across the floor. I thanked him and ran again. By the time I got to the check in counter, I had 10 minutes left. I didn’t really remember what Roshan had said about the bags, so I just kept saying ‘Cochin flight. 6:15. No time.’ The guy hesitated, and then asked ‘Do you have any sprays, shampoos, or anything liquid’. ‘Just get rid of any of that. I don’t care’ I said, panting. The guy thought for a second and then gave my bag back to me after putting a tag on it. My laptop bag was still with me and he gave me another tag. ‘I need this too?’ I asked. I hadn’t travelled by flight much. The guy just looked at me. ‘Whatever’.’ I said and ran looking for the security check thing.

I stood in the queue restless. When it was my turn, I put my laptop in some tray and put my backpack and the duffel bag through the scanner. Just before me, a foreign guy was being rudely told by the security guy to disassemble his camera and leave it in the tray. As I went through the metal detector, he came back to do it. I stuck my head back through the frame and asked ‘hey do I have to put my play-station in the tray too?’ ‘Play-station, railway station, put everything in the tray’ said the guard and laughed. ‘Smartass’ I muttered and went back. I went through the detector again and the guy who frisked me told me to go put my cell phone in the tray. Pissed off, I ran back again. Then when I went back in again, I remembered I had another phone in my other pocket and rushed back yet again red faced. People watched me with amused expressions. Finally I got through the detector and past the frisker, saw my backpack coming out of the scanner, grabbed it, stuffed my laptop and play-station portable and cell phones into it and ran, making squeaking noises with my wet shoe soles. As I ran, there was an airlines guy yelling ‘Hurry, Hurry’ from the side of the passage. I nodded and ran like the wind through the passage connecting the building to the plane. Unbidden, an image popped into my head - myself as a boy, running after the school bus, with other kids cheering ‘Run Sharath run.’ If this was a Bollywood movie, they would have showed the two scenes in adjacent boxes on the screen, in slow motion. I dashed through the open door of the plane and punched the air with my fist in triumph. The crew shut the door right after I got in. Smiling, I showed my boarding pass to the air hostess and she pointed me to a nearby window seat. I sat down and stretched my legs, still smiling ear to ear. ‘This sure feels good’ I thought as I settled down in my seat. ‘Damn this seat is comfortable. And so much leg space?’ I looked around. There was a curtain behind me and the window was at a comfortable distance to me to lounge back and peer outside. The air hostess brought me some wine and a few magazines. ‘Wow. I never knew Air India was so awesome’ I thought.’ I mean compared to that dingy flight I came in last time, with my legs cramped for space and chairs that reclined only on paper, this was heaven’. They gave me a nice lunch with chicken kebab and all kinds of tasty things and the food tray folded out from under the arm of my seat in a complex set of manoeuvres like a scene out of the movie ‘Transformers’.

After 45 minutes of relaxation I walked into Cochin airport and went to get my baggage. I stood at the conveyor belt, calm and happy that I was going home after a triumphant last minute dash like that. I checked my ticket and was surprised to see ‘Business class’ written. ‘Oh I got a free upgrade from economy. So that’s why the seats were so good’ I thought, laughing at my dumbness and continued waiting for my bags with the confident, and in retrospect – dumb smile of a guy who expected his bag to turn up any second. But as everybody else trickled out and the conveyor belt offered less bags than chicken pieces at our hostel mess, my smile faded. I stood there with a puzzled expression and started rewinding the events of the past 2 hours in my head – my brother in law’s advice, the check in counter, and the tags. ‘The tags!!’ I thought and looked at the one I was holding in my hand. ‘Wait...So this tag wasn’t like given so that I can recognize the similar tag on my duffel bag?’ My eyes bulged as I understood it was supposed to be put on my backpack and not as a token. ’But that means…’ I saw myself putting my bags into the scanner and taking only the backpack out of it and running. I gasped. “God damn it. So they don’t send that bag directly to the luggage area you dummy’ I thought to myself. ‘Of course they won’t. How the hell would they know which one goes to the luggage and which one with you?’ answered another voice in my head. ‘So the tag doesn’t give them that info?’ ‘No!! You IDIOT!!’ I swallowed and muttered ‘Uh-oh.’ Ten minutes later, I was in the office of an airport officer. ‘So you left your bag in the scanner and ran?’ he asked. ’Uh yeah’ said I. ‘I see. And what do you do?’ ‘Uh…I’m a management student’. He twisted his lip up in a smirk. His assistant came back in, ‘Sir. I called up Bangalore. They have the bag. They handed it over to airport security. They just finished checking for bomb threats and cleared it.’ I put my fist up to my mouth and tried to keep a straight face. ‘Airport security? Bomb threat?’ I thought. There was nothing but dirty socks and underwear in that bag, and maybe a deodorant spray. ‘I wonder if they called sniffer dogs’ I suppressed a chuckle. ‘Maybe they thought my deodorant spray was a liquid explosive.’ ‘You think this is funny?’ the officer asked, narrowing his eyes. ‘No sir’, I said, biting my lip. ‘You can collect your bag at lost and found at Bangalore when you get back. Now leave’, he said.’ ‘Yes sir’, I replied. On my way out I stopped and thanked him but he just sat there and glared so I left in a hurry, wondering how I manage to do these things.

A few weeks later I stood at the lost & found section at Bangalore airport describing my green bag. ‘Oh you’re the laundry bag guy’, said the girl, laughing. A few minutes later she handed me my bag and said with a smirk, ‘Congratulations. You created a bomb scare with just socks and underwear.’

Note: The blunders given above were performed by an experienced trouble maker. Don’t try this yourself.

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Notorious student ‘Tintumon’ expelled for modifying old proverb

Changanasherry, Kerala. Controversy has broken out about the expulsion of 5^th std. student Tintu Vijayan  ( known in the playgrounds as ‘Tintumon’) from Sacred Heart’s Elementary School for writing an old proverb with a twist on the class blackboard. The incident occurred on the morning of 5^th April, when Tintu allegedly came to class late. According to school sources, Tintu is often tardy on Monday mornings.

However this time, the class teacher, Mrs. Ammini Abraham took offence to his misdemeanour and set him to work writing the proverb “the early bird got the worm” 10 times on the blackboard in an effort to set an example to the other students and teach them the importance of rising early as well. However at this point, Mrs. Ammini got a phone call and had to step out of the class for a few minutes. On returning to the class she found Tintu standing in front of the blackboard being applauded by his classmates and even exchanging high fives with some of them. The confused Miss. Ammini looked at the blackboard and found written ten times in capital letters “The early worm got eaten”. She also accuses Tintu of having drawn a suggestive cartoon of her in one corner (something that has been denied by Tintu).

The shocked and visibly upset Miss. Ammini stormed to the principal’s office to register a complaint straight away, following which Tintu was expelled. Tintu’s parents has filed a case against the school and also contacted the education minister of the state Mr. M.A Baby who has assured them of launching a full enquiry into the incident. However since the documentary evidence was destroyed when the class leader and Tintu’s close friend Akhil Pradeesh erased the blackboard, the investigation will be difficult, added the minister. Eyewitness accounts are varying from time to time as Tintu’s classmates are telling a different story each time. The school authorities allege that ‘Tintumon’ is a notorious gang-leader in the class and that the students are supporting him either because they are afraid of him, or because they too have been influenced by his rebellious ways.

The school authorities have also come under criticism from various prominent literary figures in society, for suppressing literary talent. Popular author and activist, Prof. Anne Vincent argues that Tintu in fact applied a well known literary practice called deconstruction, in which an old and accepted literary piece is deconstructed and reconstructed in a new light.

Tintu has so far remained silent about the debate on his expulsion. The expulsion has reportedly made Tintu busier than ever, as he has been in the neighbourhood playground playing various games ever since he was expelled. Your correspondent finally tracked Tintu down as he was taking an ice cream break at a nearby shop during a game of cricket. When asked if the motive behind his act was literary deconstruction, or just plain mischief (as alleged by the school), Tintumon shrugged and said, “I don’t like waking up early. Ammini can go to hell.”

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Footnotes in history

“A man who can keep his childhood dreams in all their purity,
Preserving them in his naked and defenceless breast,
Who, despite the laughter of this world, dares to live as he had dreamed in his childhood,
Down to his last day: yes, that is a man, a man in all he is.”

This was a poem that came in a newspaper, the clipping of which was sent by Henning Von Tresckow to his wife Erika a few days before he sent her a disguised farewell letter.

Henning Von Tresckow was a Major General in the German military and one of the principal organizers of German resistance against Adolf Hitler. Tresckow was a veteran who had volunteered for the army at the age of sixteen and became the youngest lieutenant in the army in 1918. He served in the first world and was awarded the Iron Cross 1st class for exemplary courage and independent action against enemy forces.

Though a die hard patriot, he was appalled by the atrocities done under Hitler’s orders such as the mass shootings of Jewish women and children, the treatment of prisoners of war, the Commissar order, etc. After Tresckow witnessed the killing of captured soldiers in 1941, he decided that Hitler’s government had to be overthrown. He organized several failed attempts on Hitler’s life, the last and most famous being the July 20th, 1944 plot carried out by Clauss von Stauffenberg, whom he had recruited in 1942. Stauffenberg planted a bomb at a meeting attended by Hitler on July 20th, however due to some unexpected problems, Hitler survived the bomb blast even though his right arm was badly injured. The bomb killed four other men in the hut and would have succeeded in killing Hitler if the conference table leg hadn’t shielded him from the impact. If the assassination attempt and the following coup had succeeded, the war may have been over in 1944. The July 20th plot was depicted in the popular movie ‘Valkyrie’, although the character of Tresckow wasn’t given the deserved importance in the movie. 


A few days before the assassination attempt, when asked by Stauffenberg why they should risk their lives so blatantly when the military situation suggested that the Allies would end the dictatorship soon enough, Tresckow replied 
“The assassination has to take place, whatever the cost. Even if it doesn’t succeed, we have to try. Now it is no longer the object of the assassination that matters, but rather to show the whole world and history that the German resistance movement dared to gamble everything, even at the risk of its own life. All the rest, in the end, is merely secondary”.
In this, they succeeded. Even though the world will by and large remember Hitler whenever they talk about pre-WW II Germany, Tresckow and his men ensured that history records, at least in the footnotes that there were men in Germany who resisted Hitler and that they died for their principles.


On hearing about the failure of the attempt on Hitler’s life, Tresckow decided to commit suicide saying he wont let their enemies have the satisfaction of taking his life as well. However to protect his co-conspirators towards whom investigations may lead if he committed suicide, he carefully faked an enemy ambush giving attention to details such as the submachine gun he was holding and the grenade he pressed against his belly and resulted in his death. For a while. people believed he died in a lethal skirmish and his body was taken back to Germany and buried on his family estate with military honours. However a month later. investigations pointed at his involvement in the conspiracy and the SS came to dig up and dispose of his body. His wife was arrested and his children placed in foster homes, however she was later released and survived the war.
Henning von Tresckow’s parting words to his cousin and co-conspirator Fabian von Schlabrendorff were


"The whole world will vilify us now, but I am still totally convinced that we did the right thing. Hitler is the archenemy not only of Germany but of the world. When, in few hours' time, I go before God to account for what I have done and left undone, I know I will be able to justify what I did in the struggle against Hitler. God promised Abraham that He would not destroy Sodom if just ten righteous men could be found in the city, and so I hope that for our sake God will not destroy Germany. No one among us can complain about his death, for whoever joined our ranks put on the shirt of Nessus*. A man's moral worth is established only at the point where he is ready to give up his life in defence of his convictions."


* The shirt of Nessus was the poisoned shirt that killed Heracles in Greek mythology.
References:

1. Valkyrie: the Plot to Kill Hitler: by Philipp von Boeselager, a memoir by the last survivor of the conspiracy.
2. http://www.gdw-berlin.de/bio/ausgabe_mit-e.php?id=13
3. http://www.wikipedia.org/

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Bridges

Islands are us
Bridges we build.

Built to last
But burnt to ash.

Wood to ash,
ash to smoke.

but ne'er smoke to ash.
never ash to wood

Bridges we build
But fools, we burn.

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Magic Hour

What do you do when your life slows down? How do you live when you wake up in the morning and have nothing important to do? Do you watch television? Or read a book? Does that satisfy you? Watching or reading about the great deeds of other people while you’re twiddling your thumbs, forgotten by the world? I’m asking, coz it bugs the hell out of me. My life wasn’t always like this. Until a few months ago, I had a very eventful life. There was action, there was adventure. There were challenges to overcome and ill wishers to defy. Things weren’t always good. Sometimes they were bad, really bad, but never was it uneventful, never was I a spectator on the sidelines, watching others dance the dance of life. I always threw myself into the thick of things, for better or for worse. I was never one to hang around the back of the crowd.

But that was then….this is now. Now I wake up in the morning and know that it doesn’t matter if I jump out of bed or close my eyes and sleep again. I drag my feet around the house, read the paper, watch the news. Or I read another book. I watch and read about the world going on in growing frustration, the frustration of a guy who wants to play the game and not watch it being played from the shadows of the galleries.

Everywhere around me, life goes on feverishly. Friends get married; go for higher studies, starts new jobs. Me, I wrote my supplies and haven’t gotten my result yet. I’m neither here nor there. Everyone and everything seems to be racing towards something. Even the earth starts the day racing against time to finish rotating around its axis within 23 hours 56 minutes 04. 09053 seconds. But me, I fall asleep in a chair reading a book and it doesn’t even matter.

But then someone up there gave me a lifeline. Basketball at 5 p.m. I know you’re wondering what the big deal is, about a bunch of jobless guys in their early twenties playing ball in the evening. But to me and I think to the rest of our brotherhood of the ball, it’s nothing short of a new cause in life. Maybe not a big one, or one that is important to anyone else but to us, it’s something to look forward to every day. Every evening, I put on my track pants and a sleeveless t-shirt, lace up my sports shoes tightly and ride like the wind on my bike to get to the court by 5 P.M. The leaf covered basketball court at C.M.S college is my Colosseum, although I usually enter by jumping the compound wall and the only audience we have are the tall old trees around the court. There are no lettered jerseys, no neon scoreboards and the referee system is mostly based on arguing skills, but we are damn serious about it all.

For 60 minutes a day, I get to beat myself up trying, I get to run and jump even when my muscles scream in protest. I get to fall flat on my face and gain the pleasure of getting back up again. I play when the weather is nice or when it’s raining like hell. When my ankle gets injured, I play with a limp. When I have a cold, I drink chicken soup and come and play. I have a target now - a circular ring around 18 inches in diameter. And I have challenges to overcome, like when I run and dodge and dribble & pass and receive passes to take the ball almost to the basket and then someone in the opposition whisks it away and flies to ours. Do I stand there and try to catch my breath and preserve my energy for a more hopeful cause or do I go after them at full throttle with what breath I have left........And people will definitely notice if I fall asleep, coz I’m not a spectator anymore. In our little world, I have the opportunity to win glory and accolades (at least on the days I play well).

Every morning the sun rises and people go to work, kids go to school and college, birds fly from their nest. And every evening, as the sun sets, they go back home or wherever they go after a days work. But there’s a time of the day, when the sun hasn’t completely set, though it is low on the horizon, a time of the day when the sun’s rays are weaker, but still not completely snuffed out. It’s called magic hour. Photographers call it that because it’s the time of the day when the light is perfect for photos. But I call it magic hour for a different reason. Coz for that one hour, I’m not forgotten anymore. For those 60 minutes, I get to make a statement, I get to prove to myself that the day may not be mine anymore, but twilight is still mine. The new dawn may not be here yet, but magic hour is mine. For 60 minutes a day, I am alive again.

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The world within

Nov 18th, 5 pm:

I parked my car in a small patch near the winding road near Earekadave. We put two beers in Aju's backpack and stashed an opener in my jeans pocket and walked the rest of the way so as to remain inconspicuous. When we got nearer to the kadave, there were some kids playing hide and seek there, prompting us to start cursing them for not sitting home and studying. I thought about telling them to go and study instead of having to have beers to unwind after a supplementary exam like me. Anything to have our spot to ourselves. But luckily they didn't venture further. So we walked up the road- (more like a path wide enough for a car really) and found to our delight that it was completely deserted. The road is like a radial line from the circumference to the centre of a huge circle of water. It just ends there. There's a stream in front and flooded paddy fields all around to the sides, and beautiful plains beyond all those. Our destination was a spot under the shade of a groove of coconut trees about 30 feet to the left of the road. There's a narrow path, a varambe dissecting the water on both sides to get there. We got there and settled down under the shade on the few steps leading into the water. It was flooded just up to the top step where we sat. We opened the beers and lounged there, enjoying the stunning panoramic view. A few kilometres away we could see the neon board on top of hotel Arcadia. Then there was a railway track about half a km away crossing the street. Nothing else, no roads, no buildings nothing. I never tire of coming here. There aren't any resorts here. Nobody takes u there as part of a packaged tour. Its a place thats common knowledge but still neglected. Its a place u have to jump over slightly flooded water to get to, a place that's no secret but still remains deserted except for us. We sipped our beer's and watched strange floating islands with grass growing all over drift downstream. We wondered aloud what exactly those things were, then concluded that it was big bunches of moss and algae that accumulated mud on top of it and had grass growing on top of that. I watched one after the other float away to be replaced by another one till about 3 or 4 went by. We didn't know our geography well enough to know where the water of the stream or river or whatever was going. "Where the hell are these going" I asked, pointing with my beer bottle."Well where the hell are we going?" Aju wisely asked. I didn't know so we both drank thoughtfully. After the floating grassy island, we watched a bunch of ducks frolicking in the water until a guy came rowing along in a small vallam (canoe) which was big enough for only 1 or 2 people. Then he started shepherding the ducks in the water on his canoe. That was an interesting sight too, so we watched that next. "Everybody lives, some way" said Aju and i asked "huh"."I mean that guy lives, raising ducks. That's his life" Aju clarified."True" said I. Apparently we were just spectators in life at this point. But great spot to spectate from, I thought.

I wanted to take an award winning photo of the canoe guy and his ducks but all attempts at photography resulted in a pale shadow of the real thing. Either our mobile camera's suck, or our photography sucks or maybe both. But even if we had both of those covered, a photo still wouldn't compare. It cant convey that feeling of vastness of nature in the span of a square of pixels. We did get one okay pic in which the canoe seemed to be racing a train that just passed by head on. But even that was a very pathetic reproduction. "The people in the train know where they are heading" said Aju."ya think about it.hundreds of people with a hundred different thought and dreams and ideas, just passing through in 5 seconds. Just a flash in our lives" I said and waved.

This is life at its best. I mean, we are clueless about where to go from this point in life. I dont know where or what i would or should be doing an year from now, and neither does my buddy.But sometimes, when you're too thoughtful about where you're going, you forget to enjoy the ride. I suppose the past should be remembered too, well in the case of my supplies its kind of hard to forget. Remember what was, fight for what should be or will be, but live...in the moment. And right now, this is where life is...sipping a frothy beer watching the sun setting over the distant clouds. Every day, everybody goes to town, to work, to a movie. Everyday we commute by the main roads, so much that we forget what the world is like in the side roads, where there are canoes and ducks and the cool evening breeze by the side of a river. Hardly a kilometre or two from town but a world away.

Funny, we often wonder why they call this place gods own country. All the politicians are progress-phobes who never let any development happen. We see so many things going to hell that we dont see the good stuff. You just have to forget where you're going for an hour, pack a couple of beers and walk and jump over flooded waters with a friend to find it, to find that it was here all along, hiding in the shadows of our far sightedness...Gods own country. Cheers.

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3 feet

At 7.50 a.m i threw a shirt over my sleeveless vest, grabbed my helmet and got on my bike, still drowsy. The electric start seems to be as groggy as me, as it tries half-heartedly to wake up the engine. I pulled out the lever and kick-started it instead. The roar of the engine woke me from my trance and put a smile on my lips as i lowered my helmet's visor and streaked out the front gate and on to k.k road. The wind blows my shirt open, I smell the sweet air, fresh from a morning shower. The sound of the engine revving is...well to call it music is pushing it a bit too far, but sure sounds good. This is one of the great things about riding a bike. All 5 senses, our windows to experience life, go into overdrive. Just like the needle showing the r.p.m going into the upper band. Oh, wait a second..4 senses i guess.sorry, forgot I'm not really tasting anything. But still, you get the general idea.

In some ways, I discovered myself on my bike. When i was depressed in class in brilliant when i had just turned 18, I would dream about the bike I would get after the entrance exam. I would fantasize about riding to the edge of a cliff, wearing a cool jacket and sunglasses, whipping my brilliant study centre i.d card out of my pocket, lighting it with a match and throwing the flaming combo of paper and plastic over the edge. Got me through most of those blue moods, that pleasent daydream. As soon as I got my bike and learnt the basics of riding, I went to Pala, to Brilliant on my bike. Told my parents I'm only riding around the neighbourhood. I wore my new denim jacket and fast track sunglasses. I still remember, how I had to take a deviation coz the main road was blocked at one point. The alternate road was full of pot-holes and mud. But very scenic. I learnt the joy of the ride for the first time, as I struggled to figure out how to control my bike on the rough, muddy, hilly road with a picturesque setting on either side of me. When i finally reached Brilliant, I rode into the compound, got off and walked inside with an air of confidence. No more the kid who went there everyday for an year languishing in self pity. But as a boy reborn, striding with attitude and looking around with a kind of laid back indifference. Sharath C George had arrived. They confiscated my i.d card when they gave me my library deposit back. I argued for a while, to no avail. If I had known, I would have let them keep the bloody 500 rs. I really wanted to burn that damn thing (a few months later i did burn my report card when I found it while cleaning my room though)

It's been four or five years since that day, and my perception about life has changed a lot in that time. Mostly through the good, bad and ugly experiences in college, I guess. But as I weave through the light morning traffic en route to the gym today morning, I know in my heart that I'm still that boy who loved to ride. I may commute by car a lot now. Maybe I'll mostly be in a car in the future. But I'll still be that guy.

I discovered a certain joy in writing recently. Words have a sort of magic. But I'm unable to get too flowery or poetic in my ramblings. I did try to write a poem once. The only two words I got to rhyme were 'swagger' and 'stagger'. I understood then, that I'm poetically challenged. Sometimes I wonder, if the course of my life had been different, would i have been a poet, Would I have lived life as a glorious dreamer. Some say that such people fly, soaring high above the rest of us mortals, up in the sky. But I know now that I'll never be one of those people. Im not completely on the ground either. I'll always be a biker boy at heart. The rubber of the tyres and spokes of the alloy wheels below me..Tying me to the ground and yet....elevating me. This will always be my place in the world, in life.....

Birds, planes and poets fly up in the sky. Have fun up there.

I'll be here where I belong....3 feet above the ground, flying....

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Road trip

Its hard to decide if my decision to drive to Bangalore was a good one or not. Fatigue was competing with joy of the drive. I stared at miles and miles of the sun baked asphalt ahead. Mirages appeared in the distance and disappeared as i drove closer, as if nature was trying to show us flashing images on the dark tarmac, reminding us of itself. I adjusted my borrowed sunglasses on my nose. Can you believe it, i never get in a car without sunglasses and yet i forgot to take it when I left for this long trip. So I had to borrow a pair from my brother in law for the return trip. I looked through the tinted shades and observed that this highway was one of the best roads I've driven on. A glance at the speedo told me that i was doing 130 kph. I looked sideways at my dad and saw that he was reading the newspaper we got at the petrol pump, immersed in the news report about the missing Andhra Pradesh chief minister. So i pushed the pedal till the speedo hit 150. Pretty good for a hatchback car. No vibration at all. Maruti Ritz rocks. A light drizzle started suddenly. I reached for the wiper knob but paused when I realized that the rain drops were rolling up the windshield as soon as it hit the glass. Fascinating....so you don't need wipers at this speed. I suppose more experienced drivers would have known that, but it was a first for me. It was as if someone had hit the rewind button and time was running backwards. 'NH-7', I read on a board on the side. I felt a stab of nostalgia. The deserted stretch where our bus broke down during the final year tour was somewhere on this same highway. Almost an entire day spent on and near the broken down bus- making Megha sing songs in Malayalam and laughing at her heavy Hindi accent, us guys doing push-ups on the divider while the girls shot the video on their cameras, Ajin being abused in Kannada or Tamil (cant tell which) by a bike rider for prancing in front of him on the road as he and I went searching for a shop or somewhere to get a drink of water. I took a sip from the can of red bull I picked up earlier and sighed at the sweet memories. The stereo was playing dard-e-tanhai from Jashnn. Beautiful lyrics, sung with a soft caress...fitting for the mood I was in. Pity I have no idea what it means. But I'm sure the singer isn't singing about morning coffee or something similarly mundane. Someday, I ll learn enough Hindi to understand these kinda songs, I told myself solemnly. The rain stopped just as suddenly as it had started, bringing me back from the trip down memory lane. Ha ha. It literally was like a memory lane on the highway. Memories which made you unsure, about whether you want to laugh or cry. But,the road goes on.....I took a look at the gleaming digital odometer display- which informed me that I still had around 300 km to go to reach home. I took another swig from my can and laughed quietly...Miles to go before I sleep...miles to go before I sleep.

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What is a bad dream?

What is a bad dream? Is it the one you wake up from screaming, drenched in cold sweat and realize, with relief that you're back to reality?....Or is it the one that fills you with hope and joy..until you realise...that it was never real, that it was...just a dream....
I had a bad dream for days, maybe weeks. Im awake now

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