Vegas

The protagonist

Uttering the words Las Vegas in any conversation usually evokes a smile. A smile not of the innocuous variety, the type that could be passed along with pleasantries and in situations of ease; but a gravid smile, one that withholds a reflex, an opinion, a judgment, or perhaps a memory that instantly flashed in the mind of the one who decided to bestow that smile to the utterer. On the face of it, Las Vegas is merely a city, slightly more than a century old, but it has a reputation preceding it. Once upon a time in the middle of a desert, humans dared to replace the oppressive heat and glittering sand with neon lights, excitement, and entertainment. The result was an opulent skyline dotted with some of the most grandiose experiments of a civilization, creating lavish structures that emerged from the surrounding desert like a mirage.

Everything in Las Vegas is by design, meticulously crafted to pump a potent mixture of light and sound, frolic and feast, celebration and sensation, channeled through swishing alcohol and fluttering dollar bills. The energy here is palpable, and with some extravagance, it is possible to witness and indulge in the finest accomplishments of the modern civilization – art, cuisine, fashion, wellness, spectacles, and nightlife. The Las Vegas Strip – a 7 km long arterial road through the city – is organized as a series of mega resorts, each as grand as a mini-city with its distinct architecture and theme, casinos, restaurants, hotels, and entertainment venues. The old ones such as Flamingo, Caesars Palace, or Mirage, or the more recent ones such as Bellagio, Venetian, Palazzo, Wynn, or Encore – each resort offers an endless array of unique experiences and adventures in the comfort of precisely conditioned buildings that never sleep. These luxurious buildings are the beating hearts of the multi-billion-dollar economy that helped catapult Las Vegas as the entertainment capital of the world.

The gravid smile that appears at the mention of Las Vegas usually originates from its erstwhile hedonistic reputation – “What happens here, stays here,” was a famous credo for marketing the city until four years ago. The new slogan is a subtle variation – “What happens here, only happens here,” and perhaps a more befitting ode to its glut of entertainment options that are increasingly family friendly. The city was dreamed as a bold destination, with its own Rialto Bridge, and Eiffel Tower, and Colosseum, and Statue of Liberty, and Egyptian Sphinx – different resorts attempt to replicate Venice, New York, Rome, Paris, Cairo, Marrakesh, et al within their compounds, offering an unmatched spectacle.

While gambling in the city’s endless casinos is its most common stereotype, the allure of Vegas as a panoply of human expression and arts is less recognized. Music forms the city’s soul, both with big name shows (Las Vegas is host to some of the biggest music festivals) as well as intimate performances. And it can also be found in astonishing settings, such as the Bellagio fountain featuring more than a thousand water fountains choreographed to music. A highly recommended experience is to visit one of the performances of Cirque du Soleil, the Canadian contemporary circus that hosts multiple permanent shows in the city: productions that defy what human bodies are capable of.

Las Vegas is a place with something for everyone. It's easy to take the route of casuistry in drafting one’s narrative, and fixate on the city’s history of crime, adult industry, and other vices. However, it might be more prudent to assess Vegas as a city of contrasts, where luxury and excess meet history and culture, where glamour and glitz often collide with continence and fortitude, and where foundational questions of philosophy about rights, wrongs, and justice appear both substantial and frivolous at once. When the bleak judgments are stripped off, what remains is a city of possibilities even for the most cautious of visitors, and a delightful escape from the mundanity of everyday life.

(Image courtesy: www.visitlasvegas.com)

The antagonist

The first thing one might notice after landing at LAS is the odious smell of fries. It is yet another unremarkable American airport, replete with fried potatoes, fried chicken, fried bacon, fried patties, sugary drinks, and coffee, interspersed between flight gates used by thousands of souls each day queuing up to be projected into the sky inside pressurized metal tubes. There is a swarm of humanity; humans in different shapes, sizes, and colors; babies, often crying; old people, lurching their way through; all attempting to escape the place they are at, to get somewhere else, quickly, right now. The precise point in history when fortunes such as ubiquitous food, and wonders such as flying, gave way to an all-pervasive ennui in human minds is unknown. On the other hand, it’s downstream effect – of unfettered consumption – is well known.

Nearing the exit of LAS, the welcome signs adorned on walls are all too familiar gateways into the Sin City. Most narratives of the city’s history would describe Vegas as a twentieth century invention – of progressive government policies that transformed a land in the Mojave Desert into the entertainment capital of the world. It’s convenient: history is often too complex to fit into a text message, and usually unpleasant to indulge-in over fine dining. The Paiutes (the natives) who lived here for thousands of years since before the ‘common era’ began, and the story of their displacement by Europeans (the settlers, usually Mormon missionaries) and Americans (who fought with Mexicans to annex the entire region) is somber, complicated, and bears all hues of grey depending on the narrator. The history of these Native Americans isn’t obliterated either, it’s merely commoditized with casinos and hotels decorated with stereotypical imagery, where the tribal traditions are lost, and what remains is the vulgar cultural appropriation that could be exchanged for cash.

On Vegas’ streets, bright LED signboards, each the size of a church’s graveyard, display towering humans in front of garish graphics screaming for attention, goading other humans to consume something – a loud concert, some greasy food, a comic show, a place to gamble, clothes, or shoes, or women – anything with a promise of instant gratification, anything that can stoke concupiscence. The city's adult entertainment industry is a multi-billion-dollar business, built on the exploitation of women's bodies. Debauchery needs celebration, because when everything is available aplenty to the human race, there is little left that can satiate its forever quench for more. 

Las Vegas is affluence in-your-face, a desert where one walks more on carpets than on sand, expensive cars and limousines line up in garages, energy burns at twice the average rate for America with thousands of slot machines whirring inside every building, a giant water fountain uses millions of litres of desert water outside one, a mega beacon of light catapults a beam up into the night sky from the top of one, and other absurdities that are as imaginative as they are an assault on senses. And like any other affluent parcel on the planet, the city successfully hides the have-nots amidst its sheen – the homeless parked on every pedestrian bridge, the trash collectors, the men and women in asinine costumes coercing you for pictures, the casino workers with their unforgiving jobs, the pole dancers, and the drummers of empty plastic buckets attempting to be heard over the din of overlapping amplified music from every corner. The extravagant resorts and towering hotels on the Strip manufacture a world of illusions, where reality could be distorted and stowed away amidst glitz and glamour, and a lewd fantasy could be created by exploiting people and nature.

The frenzied swarm of humanity continuously flows through the city like murky sewage in its drainage system of walkways, bridges, elevators, and escalators. People balancing ‘yard drinks’ in their hands drift aimlessly through buildings of glass and concrete that eclipse the sky, and gape at crass recreations of Rome and Venice replete with plastic plants and artificial skies inside those buildings. Here, the present presents a sneak peek into an eerily dystopian future when the most predatory species on earth will perhaps get permanently relegated underground after the remaining flesh on the planet’s cadaver has also been scorched.

Las Vegas is synonymous with casinos. And it’s those opulent gigantic spaces with their stationary air mixed with smoke and sweat and nonstop fluttering screens and beeping machines that truly represent a generation lost – where the innate beauty of the most intelligent life on this planet got substituted with sparkling machines of chance, where the profundity of human experience got bartered away for mindless ‘recreation’, and where the most intimate and authentic human feelings perished forever in a seductive trap of life behind screens and alcohol. And all this while, dreary crowds continued to queue up at 5100, Las Vegas Boulevard South to get their pictures taken under a signboard. It said: Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas.

Thirty-Seven

As a number, 37 is rather coarse and inelegant. Perhaps the only reputation a number like 37 may hold is that of being a prime number. The term ‘prime’ in there isn’t even coquettish — in the ‘in-one’s-prime’ sort of way — which could have made 37 at least mildly interesting. ‘Prime’ numbers are named so merely because all natural numbers are primarily their multiples — Mathematics, as most of us would appreciate, is not exactly a science with much literary flair or style (maybe because it was largely a dominion of men). When applied to the chronological age of a human, birthday number 37 remains, at best, a stodgy nondescript footnote in the bell-curve of life, a “use by” date on product packaging written in small font that usually gets ignored. It’s an odd number, like getting a Johnny Depp year while counting down life, when one would have preferred more of a George Clooney elegance. Scruffy, burly, inflexible, difficult-to-pronounce, and yet thoroughly quotidian, it’s the number where one has already dealt with all the midlife crisis life could possibly throw, stretched, yawned, and comfortably settled, possibly looking for chocolate and cheese after one’s next meal. There are no inspirational stories either that could possibly begin with “by the age of 37…”; any noteworthy mention of someone at this age would perhaps include a crime and subsequent arrest, or a premature death. If the cancel culture was more inclusive, I reckon it would have advocated for 37 being cancelled.

Two years ago, on my birthday number 35 as an exercise in vanity, I jotted down my learnings, considering the moment as a poignant half-life marker of my existence. My thoughts then fell short of prescribing what my tombstone should read or whether I would prefer a cremation, but they did have the distinguished benefit of digital permanence that would allow obituary writers a place to copy-paste stuff from, should I get the privilege of an obituary by the time I am done on the planet. In the intervening two years since expressing my ‘learnings’, I shared a pandemic-infested world screeched to a halt (the irony of just one mammal temporarily incapacitated by a pathogen declaring the world as ‘stopped’ didn’t escape me — as if the world were synonymous with humans), went through a separation, emigrated from India, and shifted jobs from one where I was doing things to one where I had to tell others how to do things. The two years seem to have passed in a blip, much like the ‘Skip Intro’ button on Netflix, but they managed to substantially change my personal station in life.

A recent feedback at work encouraged me to be a direct communicator. In response, I think I would have really liked if the civilized world was more open to calling-out assholes, and I would have contributed wholeheartedly to any social media hashtag doing so. I would have been much less involved with movements encouraging expressions of gratitude in oral or written communications, since I already feel fatigued by the proliferation of insincere thank-yous at work. Digressions aside, in the spirit of more direct communication, perhaps there are two thoughts worth jotting down at my thirty-seventh milestone footnote for future reference.

One, it’s important to accept that the world is a messy enterprise. Cultures are good and bad at the same time, civilizations are sophisticated and perplexing, governance models have finesse and imperfections, states concurrently espouse both freedom and slavery, religions are both orthodox and emancipating, and the same person could be fantastic and a jerk at once. To enjoy this enterprise, I would probably do better by taking off the edges, being vulnerable, reducing the urge to classify people and things into admirable or worthless, and being capable of holding and critically evaluating opposing ideas and thoughts. Corollary: one can’t be the best version of oneself for everyone else in the world.

Two, life’s possibilities and optimism can be enjoyed in moderation. There are indeed things that are unlikely to happen in the rest of my life: playing guitar by the bonfire in a freshman party, winning a sports championship, restarting career from scratch, learning parkour, filing a patent in machine learning, or owning a yacht. But it’s also a phase where realization has set in about a precious few things that truly matter, and could be worth striving for — those aspirations and dreams that are sufficiently ambitious, but have nonetheless been tempered into pragmatism by an evolving mix of wisdom, skills, and an appreciation of real vs. perceived worth. And to accomplish and savor those would perhaps constitute the fullest life.

Time's sublimest target

Is a soul "forgot!"

— Emily Dickinson

Dichotomies

07:00

The boats have returned to the shores of the Arabian Sea and are pulled up far back on the beach, far enough to keep them dry even when the tide gets high. The teamwork on display is nearly perfect: five men and two women sorting through the nets, wringing out half-dead marine life stuck in them with nudges, jolts, and, when needed, knives. This harvest of fish, mollusks, and crustaceans falls on the blue tarpaulin spread below, bluer than the sky and ocean combined. For a hunt that started at four in the morning, the overbearing empty blue spaces on the tarpaulin imply that this catch isn’t a bounty, but as with most matters of life, it may be considered a reasonable, though unnecessary concession ceded to the impoverished. The harvest has been dwindling over the years ever since trawlers were invented to monopolize the seas, outsmarting the humble outboard marine engines of these tiny fishing boats by a gap – understandably – as wide as that between the rich and the poor of the world. A woman is sorting the catch in buckets, classifying the creatures in a vocabulary well understood by humans, while ignoring their zoological taxonomy; the latter doesn’t fetch money. The sun is shyly rising somewhere on the other side of the mountains, and the teeming buckets slowly make their way to local markets, carried on the heads of the womenfolk. The nets and the tarpaulin are hurriedly stowed back in the boats, their sorting postponed to the latter half of the day: the more pressing endeavor of using the sunshine to earn a living reasonably takes precedence.

A man in bright red running gear has descended from the steps of the resort’s beach-access gate. It’s a fine morning, and while the western coasts aren’t the perfect settings for a sunrise, they are admirable for a fine detox. The town’s quaint villages, away from the hustle-bustle of the loud beaches are a must-visit, he was told last evening, and a stroll in one of the local markets is very much on today’s agenda.

17:00

The sun, almost double its usual size and bright orange in color, is floating above the calm ocean. Silhouettes of those manmade vessels that rule the ocean during the day are visible with their twinkling lights just at the horizon: perhaps a perfect composition for an earnest photographer who might want to capture this in a frame and title it with a phrase that might have something to do with earth, water, fire, air, and space. And undoubtedly, with an accompanying hashtag about the elements. A man bathing alone in the waters is heard calling out to his friends, apparently a group that might have descended in this town to breathe-in some nature: “Tum log nakli zindagi jeete ho yaar!” (All of you lead false lives). It might be an overdose of enthusiasm, or of alcohol, presumably both – a combination which has generally been known to bring poignancy and philosophical musings to individual minds – that has elicited this war cry from the bathing man. The evening looks promising, though, with flickering lights of beachside restaurants that will showcase the day’s fresh catch, and serve the patrons in a cooking style selected by them, accompanied with a choice of cocktails fixed to perfection.

Near the fishing boats that were moored at the beach earlier in the morning, a woman and a girl begin their evening enterprise: untangling of the fishing nets that were hurriedly stowed in the morning after clearance of the harvest. The process is elaborate and requires patience. The nets are long with a tendency to get enmeshed, and only a pair of deft hands hardened by years of seafaring life can skillfully make them ready for the next day's hunt in the cold, early morning waters. The job will take at least a few hours, and by the time it is accomplished, it will be dark; dark enough to successfully hide the nondescript lives of these two women amidst the brightness and noise of the restaurants and clubs.

21:00

The sands are lit up with neon lights in all shapes and patterns as far as the eyes can see. Tables are set on the sand almost until the edge of the water for hosting guests who would dine and drink in this electric atmosphere. Music oozes out loudly from individual shacks, superimposing on each other and competing to create a frenzy that hooks every soul who is looking for a good time. The air has whiffs of pan-seared prawns, grilled fish, and fried crabs, and every other species that made its way to the plate. At places, it is thick with the smoke of the sheesha. Alcohol is visible in the glasses set on each table, as well as in the breaths of men and women gyrating on dance floors set on the sand.

A woman is walking around on the sand carrying numerous woven handbags, jewelry crafted from stones and shells, and other knick-knacks, stopping by at each table with the hope of striking a deal with anyone who might get swayed under influence and actually make a purchase. It’s a sigh of relief when the girl stops her at a table; just the initial conversation offers the woman an excuse to place her load on the empty chair, at least momentarily. A sale is made, but she tries to prolong the conversation that might allow a few more moments of relief before she will need to get on with her wandering in the sands. A story is narrated about when she got to the beach (perhaps around seven), when she will return home (somewhere around eleven, considering the commute that will require a hitch-hike), and the displeasing thought of her kids waiting on her instead of just eating their dinner on time which she cooked before leaving home. The girl on the table asks her a question: “If there was one thing you could change about your life, what would that be?” The woman considers it, and replies: “I wish the smell of fish could leave my hands. It just never goes away!”

Dusting the past

“Did you know that cleanliness is next to godliness?” it asked him, hoping to strike a conversation. It knew that the task ahead was arduous and lonely, and the human mind often needs indulgences to accomplish such things. 

He was perhaps absorbed in his own thoughts and didn’t need small talk to get through this. He replied half-heartedly: “Not really. Who told you that?”

It tried again, this time with apparent erudition: “I just hear it a lot. If you think about it, the company you keep matters. It’s the same way with your habitation, the objects you surround yourself with, and how you treat them. A cluttered environment is a sign of a befuddled mind, while an unkempt environment is a sign of a vacuous mind. Surround yourself with beauty and aesthetics that speak to you, and you have the power to anchor yourself to the rhythm of the universe. That’s as close to the idea of God as one can get to.”

He wasn’t used to deference in the face of such commentary which he considered as opinions garbed as wisdom. He retorted with a completely off-the-track remark: “Quite wise. And where do you fit in that description? The last I called you from amidst the objects I surround myself with, you were hanging behind the washing machine in the rear balcony.”

It knew that a nerve was somewhere touched, and replied patiently: “Well, the last time you dusted the bottom shelf of your bookshelf, you read the forgotten tiny note she wrote for you on the inside cover of that red book and cried a little. Those are the moments when the universe speaks to you, and you get stronger.”

He was exasperated: “I wish I had a Roomba instead of these damn dusters that can’t keep their trap shut.”

The tempo

“Hey, you got a minute?” she called out to him. Her voice seemed raspy from days of non-stop counting, as if they were spent measuring each second and each minute for which the earth had been breathing.

He looked around with mild curiosity: “That’s ironic, coming from you.”

“Well, sometimes I can be like that. So anyway, when was the last time you thought I added value to your life?” she settled straight on her question. She gave the appearance of someone who wasn’t used to small talk and pleasantries, and might even look upon such indulgences as being extravagant with one’s time.

He wasn’t sure of what to say, and stuttered in his diffidence: “I don’t know. I think you are pretty. Everyone thinks so as well.”

She refused to help him out with his apparent discomfort and continued with her drill: “You know that my existence isn’t defined by how pretty I look, right? I am expected to serve a larger purpose.”

“Yeah, I know. But hey, the world is different. Our lives look nothing like how they used to, just fifteen years ago. Things change!” He tried being cheerful, evidently in vain.

At this point, her eyebrows went up and it seemed for a second that she might be impatient. But if there was one thing she epitomized, it was patience: “You realize that you are talking to me about time, don’t you? Don’t tell me that the world has changed and is constantly changing. You are scared to acknowledge that you only have a finite time to live on this planet. You are frightened when thinking about how many years it has already been since you took your first breath and what is it that you accomplished during all that time. You live a dichotomous life of constant trepidation about the future, and a baffling temerity about the present. Think about my purpose in your life, instead of whiling your days away.”

He gave up: “You know what, it’s a bit warm today and the air-conditioner’s remote isn’t working. I will just take out your battery and put it in the remote. These days, I need nine hours of good sleep. Of course you know that.” With that, he took the wall-clock off the nail it was hanging on, and pulled the battery out. Her tick-tock of a heartbeat died instantly.

Five senses

“Do you have feelings?” she asked.

He was a bit perplexed with this seemingly innocuous question: “What do you mean? Everybody has feelings.”

“I mean, do you ever pause, reflect inwards, and try to recognize how you are feeling?” she explained her question and converted it into a leading one, perhaps sensing that she already had her answer.

“I still don’t get it,” he stood awkwardly, bewildered.

She began her erudite response: “You see, this is what social conditioning does to you. Your culture never prepared you to answer the simple question: how am I feeling today? In all these years, you could never develop the faculties that can parse the happy moments from the deluge of mindless ones, until someone else validates them for you. You cannot tell you are feeling like shit, until your body revolts and makes you restless. You never learnt paying attention to yourself and communicating with your soul.”

He fumbled for a befitting response, but the best he could come up with was a counter-question: “Do you feel?”

“You might not have paid attention. But I know when I am too cold, or too hot. My heart feels deep blue in peace, amber in distress, and the color of the forest in joy. I know when I am the elixir, and I know when I am the toxin. I bubble, I swirl, I rise, and I fall; I breathe life, and I am life. I am the wave of the poet’s finest imagination as well as of the sailor’s worst nightmare. I am the…”

“Thanks for giving me a headache,” he interrupted her flow by turning off the faucet of the water purifier. “I will now pour you in a tray, keep it in the deep freezer, and use you this evening to fix my drink. That's what I feel like.”

What a wonderful world

He looked out to the street swelling with pride. Spring was in the air, rains from the day before could still be felt on the skin, and the birds were singing with joy. The streets themselves were covered with foliage: tuscany and crimson and jade and every other color from the palette. The entire creation seemed to celebrate with boundless joy.

“You know what they say? That when you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it,” he satisfactorily made the solemn observation to his neighbor.

“Never heard of that! What does it even mean?” The dinky neighbor half-heartedly responded to the seemingly useless philosophical musing of her counterpart while regurgitating on what appeared to look less like food and more like compost.

“Did you ever imagine this day? Blue skies, clean air, no noise, other than those of the universe itself. When the wind blows, it’s like you can hear the earth turning! I dreamt of this for such a long time!” He seemed to be lost in a form of exhilaration unbeknownst to the entire human species.

“Yeah, whatever. I think this is just a pretty background for the desktop wallpaper.” His neighbor curtly expressed herself, hoping to end this conversation and regurgitate at peace.

“You have no soul, just thorns,” he pronounced in a deep voice, almost sighing at this conclusion.

His neighbor stopped chewing. After a brief pause, as if waiting to choose the right words, she delivered the final blow: “And you are just a bougainvillea. At least us, the roses, will be found in the centerfold of books five years from now and be loved even in our afterlives.”

Mindfulness

While the whole world was silent, there was a whirring noise coming from a nondescript corner of the reticent house. All one could see of the house from outside was the scabrous plaster coming off at places, with the faint yellow paint sticking out like dried leaves holding on to the stems for a few brief moments before getting lost into the oblivion. The noise seemed to disturb the tranquility of the street dogs, already attuned to the silence of the times.

“You know that we are critical in ensuring that the world continues to function with sanity, right?” the voice called out to him.

His mind was absorbed in a maelstrom of thoughts ranging from the stock of vegetables in the refrigerator, the piling dishes, the temperature of the last shower, and the background needed for the upcoming video call. He decided to ignore the voice, after judging it to be someone’s self-righteous proclamation he didn’t want to indulge in.

But the voice persisted: “The first problem with your generation is that you do not appreciate the magical world you live in. Anyone who walked this same planet just half a century ago will be thoroughly nonplussed at your privilege. Just look at us for that matter, we clean all your dirt without as much as a whimper, and you fail to acknowledge even our existence.”

He was far from being flummoxed despite the obvious provocation.

The voice intensified its accusations: “The second problem with your generation is that you are never in the present. Look at us fastidious old timers. We focus on the task at hand and enjoy it all the same, instead of thinking about what’s happening elsewhere or about the past or the future all the time.”

He calmly listened to all this, waited for the customary three beeps, and added with a perfunctory smile: “You can’t even clean lipstick marks from the shirt. You need to be more in the present.” 

He then turned the washing machine off, and the voice went dead.

Wisdom

“You need to take a shower,” she said matter-of-factly.

“I had my shower in the morning, and you don’t need to remind me about tomorrow already. Just sit still for at least the next hour and stop complaining. I am not going to bother you for an entire hour and will go watch my movie instead.” His unwanted belligerence hinted at his annoyance over other matters, perhaps spilling over to her.

She kept her cool and continued nonchalantly: “Anger is a wind which blows out the lamp of the mind. It’s an enemy of correct understanding.”

“All behold the wise one!” he shouted with a derisive laughter, looking up at the invisible sky; “you clearly learnt a lot through second-hand means!”

She mused in her characteristic sonorous tone: “Learning is a journey: from facts to knowledge, on to understanding and eventually wisdom. You might have read books and learnt facts, but that’s not the entire journey. And at the same time, vidyā dadāti vinayam, vinayād yāti pātratām – Knowledge makes one humble, and humility begets worthiness. Try being worthy of me.”

“Sometimes I wish I had an electric chair instead.” He kicked the rocking chair which he used for reading, and walked angrily to his room. The chair rocked for a few minutes and slowly went back to her deep thought and stillness.

वो

“आज ही है। शाम को सात बजे। जाकर तमन्ना पूरी कर लेना।”

“तुम्हें कैसे पता बे?”

“अमा यार, कहते हैं तो सुना करो। गर्ल्स हौस्टल की गतिविधियों का थोड़ा-बहुत ज्ञान हम भी रखते हैं।”

“हाँ तुम बहुत्ते तीरंदाज़ हो, इसीलिए आज तक यूनिवर्सिटी में अकेले घूमते हो। भईया ई शहर है बम्बई। यहाँ हर आदमी कुछ न कुछ पा जाता है। और तुम साले ज्ञान के अलावा और कुछ न पा पाए!”

“बेटा थोड़ा संभाल के। जिसका डाँस देखने के लिए तीन दिन से आँख में गुलाबजल डाले पड़े हो वो 24 में से 28 घण्टे लाईब्रेरी में ही होती है। तुम्हारे जैसे चौपाटी पर ले जाकर प्रपोज करने वाले दिलफेंक लौण्डे उसकी लीग में नहीं हैं।”

“हाँ हाँ भईया तुम बटोरो भरपूर ज्ञान, और करो उसकी लीग की सोलो-स्वान मौडलिंग। एक्स्ट्रा मिर्च डाल कर चौपाटी की पाव-भाजी लड़कियों को कितना भाती है ये तुम नहीं समझोगे।”

“हाँ यूनिवर्सिटी से निकल कर तुम चौपाटी पर ही पाव-भाजी बेच लेना। हम अभी निकलते हैं।”

“कहाँ निकलते हैं भईया? पौने सात बजे एण्ट्री कौन कराएगा? पढ़े-लिक्खे लौण्डे ही तो काम आते हैं एण्ट्री पे!”

“नहा-वहाकर, सेंट लगाकर आना शाम को। देखते हैं।”


आज घड़ी जैसे चलने की बजाय रेंग रही थी। वह नहा चुका था, इस्त्री किए कपड़े पहने थे, और किसी सस्ती विदेशी इत्र की बोतल को कपड़ों पर उड़ेल चुका था। बालों में जैल, आँखों में गुलाबजल, और कैन्वस जूते। उसे मालूम था कि महज़ किसी तरह अन्य दर्शकों की भीड़ का हिस्सा बन जाना प्यार जतलाने के करीब भी नहीं है। पर उसे ये भी ग़ुमान था कि प्यार करने का मकसद बस प्यार जतला देना नहीं है, और शायद दूर-दूर से चाहने का लुत्फ़, पा लेने से ज़्यादा सुकूनगर है।  इस तरह बड़ी-बड़ी शायराना बातें सोचकर दिल के अंदर मचती जिस्मानी हलचल को भी कबूलने से बचा जा सकता था, वरना अपना ही प्यार छोटा लगने लग जाए। कुल मिलाकर आज उसके लिए पूरा कलीना कैम्पस हसीन था, मिज़ाज रंगीन, और ज़िन्दगी गुलज़ार। बस थोड़ा इंतज़ार बचा था, जिसकी शायराना अंदाज़ में नुमाईश कुछ बेपरवाह लिखने वाले लोग शायद कर ही डालें। पर आज रहने दीजिए साहब, क़िस्सा अभी बाकी है।

कौलेजों में पढ़ने के बाद भी अगर महिला छात्रावासों के बारे में आपकी जानकारी मुख़्तसर हो, तो समझ लें जनाब कि आपने ज़िंदगी थोड़ी-बहुत जी तो ली, पर बड़े नहीं हो पाए। ये जानना बेहद ज़रूरी है कि इस तरह की इमारतों में आपको यहाँ-वहाँ लोहे की जालियाँ ज़्यादा दिखेंगी, वैसे कपड़े सूखते देखेंगे जो आपने सिर्फ़ फ़िल्मों में देखे हों, और खुशबू के नाम पर कोई गुलबदन हसीना की महक नहीं, बू-ए-डिटर्जेण्ट ही मिलेगी। आज की महफ़िल नीचे के कौमन रूम में जमनी थी। चारों ओर गेंदा के फूलों की माला से वातावरण को मोहक बनाने की साज़िश की गई थी, शायद इसलिए कि मुल्क के हर कौलेज की तरह यहाँ भी ‘मय’ और ‘साक़ी’ सरीखे सजेस्टिव लफ़्ज़ों पर पाबंदी थी। कमसकम फूल लगा देने भर से कोई लफंगा महफ़िल से रुख़्सत होने के बाद फ़ैज़ साहब वाली डींगे नहीं हाँक पाता, कि – “न गुल खिले हैं न उन से मिले न मय पी है, अजीब रंग में अब के बहार गुज़री है!” कमरे को सजाने वाले ने अक्ल खूब लगाई होगी: गुलों को पिरो कर चारों ओर लगा ही दिया गया है, “उनको” दूर से देख लेना जब टाईम आए तब, और मय वापस घर जाकर पी लेना। शायरी हाँकने का कोई मौका नहीं! कमरे में थोड़े गुब्बारे भी थे, जिनका मकसद शायद खुदा जानता हो, या शायद वो लोग जिनके पिछ्ली पार्टी के गुब्बारे फोड़े नहीं गए थे और यहीं खम्बों पर चिपके रह गए थे।

महफ़िल में शिरकत करने वाले कद्रदान दिल थामे एक-एक करके ऐसा चेहरा बनाए अंदर आ रहे थे जैसे एक-चालीस की विक्रोली वाली लास्ट लोकल पकड़ने आए हों; छूट गई तो बाद में किसी को मुँह न दिखा पाएँगे। अंदर आने वालों में ज़्यादातन इसी छात्रावास की छात्राएँ थीं, और कुछेक लुच्चे-लफाड़े लड़के, जिनकी पढ़ने लिखने-टाईप वालों से एण्ट्री करवाने भर के लिए जिगरी दोस्ती थी। दो हसीनाएँ (या फिर उसे लगा कि हसीनाएँ) माईक पकड़े, टखनों तक लम्बी स्कर्ट पहने (या फिर उसे लगा कि ये स्कर्ट ही है) खड़ी थीं। माहौल बन चुका था – दर्शक-दीर्घा की छात्राओं ने तशरीफ़ें चारों ओर सीढ़ियों पर टिका लीं थीं, और छात्र पीछे की तरफ़ दीवारों से सटकर खड़े हो लिए थे, शायद इसलिए कि कभी भी अगर ऐसा लगे कि “व्यू” ठीक नहीं है, तो तपाक से जगह बदलने की फ़्लेक्सिबिलिटी बनी रहे।

एक हवा सी चली। बयार-ए-नसीम। चारों ओर ऐसा सन्नाटा जैसे परवरदिगार ने हल्के से इशारा कर दिया हो कि सारी क़ायनात दो पल के लिए थम जाए और चमन हो जाए। आँखों के आगे ऐसा मंज़र कि उसे लगा बस इन दो पलों को अपने नसीब में पाकर वो खुद शाहकार-ए-खुदा हो गया हो! सामने था वो कमाल-ए-हुस्न कि पूरी महफ़िल में अगर कुछ सुनाई दे जाए तो सिर्फ़ धड़कनें। रंग-ओ-बू का वो सैलाब कि गेंदे की उन तमाम लड़ियों में पिरोया एक-एक फूल शर्मसार हो जाए। काले ख़ुशनुमा लिबास पर पीली चुन्नी ओढ़े आई थी वो। पैरों में घुंघरू जैसे नायाब सुख़न-वर, चाल जैसे किसी कू-ए-गुलिस्ताँ से इठलाता आया हो एक मोर। आँखों में सूरमा, कानों में सोने की चमकती बालियाँ, नागिन सी लहराती काली घनी ज़ुल्फ़ें। वक़्त कब का थम चुका था, और उसे लगा कि बस अब दिल का थमना बाकी है। ऐसी ख़ुशगवार बातें उसके ज़ेहन में उफ़ान ले रही थीं, तभी किसी ने पीछे से सीटी बजाई। पूरी महफ़िल तालियों से थर्रा उठी, और उसे लगा कि अब ख़्वाब से बाहर आ जाना अच्छा रहेगा; ये मंज़र एक्स्क्लूसिव बिल्कुल नहीं है, और इंसान को अपनी औकात नहीं भूलनी चाहिए।

आगे जो हुआ उसे वो बस ठिठककर देखता रह गया। लबों से छिटकती तबस्सुम की सरकशी, आँखों के इशारों की ख़लिश, और वो बेहतरीन अंदाज़-ए-बयाँ कि मोम बिन आग ही पानी हो जाए। इधर वो लहरों की तरह बहकती, उधर भीड़ बेताब हो मचलती। उसे लगा कि इस समंदर तक वो आ तो गया, पर अब डूब जाएगा। इन मदहोश हवाओं में उड़ पाने का ज़र्फ़ जिन परिंदों में है उनके नाम शायद लाईब्रेरी की उन किताबों की जिल्द पर लिखे होते हैं जिनकी सूरत इसने तो कभी नहीं देखी। इसी उधेड़बुन में था कि आवाज़ आई – “हैलो!” हसीनाएँ सभी से हैलो बोलती हैं ये तो उसने सुना था, पर उससे वो हैलो बोलेगी ये नहीं सुना था।


“और हीरो! हम तो तुम्हारी एण्ट्री करवा के निकल गए थे, पर सुना है बड़ा हाय-हैलो कर आए हो आज?”

“हाहा! हाँ! अच्छा ख़ैर, आज ओल्ड मौंक से काम नहीं चल पाएगा। कुछ अँग्रेज़ी पीओगे? एक-आध पैग लगा लेना मेरे साथ फिर चले जाना अपने लेनिन और कार्ल-मार्क्स को पढ़ने।”

“हाँ पी लेंगे। क्या कमाल करके आए हो वैसे डाँस प्रोग्राम से?”

“यार हैलो वगैरह हुआ और क्या। किसी बौयफ़्रेण्ड के साथ थी, कुछ अंग्रेज़ी में नाम था। इण्ट्रौड्यूस करवाया था; अब टेढ़ा नाम था याद नहीं आ रहा।”

“अच्छा कहाँ पीओगे?”

“वहीं। लाईब्रेरी के बाहर ऐज यूज़ुअल!”

The murderer

“Don’t you like me?” asked the voice.

He paused, heaved a deep sigh, and attempted to hide the pensiveness in his look. This wasn’t a question he had been asked before, or at least he didn’t remember the last time things had come to this.

“That’s not the point,” he replied.

“Then why would you do this?” the voice persisted.

By now, his furtive glances could not be hidden anymore. He knew if he raised his head and saw himself in the mirror, it would be hard to meet his own reflection. It was he who always wanted time to come to a standstill, and it seemed like the universe had finally bent itself to his wishes. Or perhaps, he was too proud to believe so. Until now, when the question from the voice was somberly hanging in the air. It only meant that life had continued to move on despite his delusions.

“Look I might sound ridiculous. But heck, even your previous girlfriend liked me. Why would you just uproot everything now?” retorted the voice, sensing his heart’s inner battles amidst his body’s stoic silence.

This recrimination defeated him. The universe was playing games, and he felt like a dejected soldier standing on the Grand Design’s abstruse chessboard. 

In a final act of defiance, he gathered everything he held inside of him, picked up the razor, and slid it across his own face, almost lacerating it in one swift stroke. The voice of the hair, now uprooted and stashed away in the silence of razor’s blades, awaited being washed off under the washbasin tap.

And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light

“Do you see how I spread light in your life?” she said gleefully. “Tamaso mā jyotirgamaya or whatever, taking you from the darkness to light! I know you understand this much Sanskrit.”

He stopped short of picking up his book from the bookshelf, flashed a tiny smile at the corners of his mouth, and said playfully: “That’s not what it means, you silly. Also, such an unabashed display of humility today. What’s the occasion that you are finally being yourself?”

“Yes, mister you-know-it-all. You don’t need to acknowledge how my presence lets you get by, day after day, through your mundane existence,” she pretended to be indignant.

He knew this tense dance of intimate exchanges well, and the tricks to play along. Ribald comments often helped in getting straight to the point, and he tried his luck: “Well, you might be the one spreading the light. But we don’t need the lights all the time now, do we?”

“Is that so mister? Let us hear something else first. What’s the one word that comes to your mind if you had to describe me?” she teased him.

“Electricity,” he said looking straight into her eyes and proceeded to touch her.

She, the switch of the living room’s tubelight, was flipped and there was darkness all over.

The “matter”

“Why do you treat me like this?” she said irritatingly.

“Like what?” he replied with an irreverent shrug, as he continued setting up the timer on the microwave.

She shot back: “Like what?! Are you really asking me that? You use me as a refuge for everything that’s unwanted in your life. You kick me, corner me at every opportunity, and I just feel so empty waking up each morning! You make me feel like putrid trash.”

“I think you are overreacting,” he continued with his nonchalance.

“Oh yeah right. I am overreacting. Care to explain?” she muttered in an apoplectic rage, almost frothing at the corners of her mouth. If it were upto her, she would have burst into flames right here, engulfing his entire being into a conflagration of organic and inorganic matter, leaving behind only embers to tell the story of this eerie exchange.

He lost patience and began his own tirade: “Yes I can explain. What is it that you want from me? Do you have any idea what’s going on in the world? Of course you don’t. Sitting here on your pedestal, gawking at the ceiling the entire day, how could you? You complain at the sumptuous leftovers, when there are millions out there, without anything to feed themselves or their families with. The universe was designed for abundance, but us, the humans, mercilessly carved it up square inch by square inch, waged wars and soaked it with blood, wiped out the startling diversity of its species, disfigured it at every corner, and continue to fight amongst ourselves for a piece of bread. And your problem is that you are feeling empty?”

“Who is overreacting now?” she said in a desperate attempt to win back this argument.

“That’s it. You deserve to be thrown out of this house,” he retorted in a livid voice, took the garbage bag out of the dustbin, and kept it outside his door for collection.

Agency

The forecast on the phone says, “rain throughout the day”. It’s perhaps ten in the morning, maybe eleven; I am happy about not being on a clock. I step out into the balcony. It feels as if I was last here a long time ago. The sky is overcast, and it might rain as the day progresses. I notice my bougainvillea. It’s already winter, but they are blooming. I can’t recall the last time I observed them up close, or any of the other plants in the balcony for that matter; even watering them was delegated to the house cleaner months ago. Many of them have overgrown, and some have weeds as tall as I remember those plants themselves – beautiful weeds nonetheless. I see the open-air gym equipment in the opposite park; I don’t know when these were installed. When life is on a treadmill, one stops paying attention.

Until the universe jolts you back.

When my father was diagnosed with his virulent lung ailment three years ago, he was already in a phase of life where he would be irritated with himself about small things that he couldn’t manage to do: climbing a flight of stairs, going for a long walk, changing car tyres, or eating heartily at a wedding without upsetting his stomach the next day. Most of it, perhaps, is just ageing. Parts of it, maybe, is contributed by his ailments. We grew up hearing stories about him carrying an entire sack of wheat on his back, which would then be washed thoroughly, soaked in the sun, and hand-grinded in a small stone mill by my grandmother. Or about one of his childhood friends I have met several times, who still can’t hear very well with his left ear because my father slapped him hard during an altercation in his younger days. About his travels far and wide across India on shoestring budgets, and his long inter-city office commutes in rickety government buses in the then roadless state of Bihar. By talking about them more often, he seemed to long for his days of strength and vitality. He sold off his old scooter a few years ago and switched to a simpler electric-start two-wheeler because the scooter was too heavy, the engine’s ignition required arduous kicks, and the machine was getting difficult to drive. Now he drives the new two-wheeler slowly, and almost never drives his own car.

Mortality is a difficult subject. It’s not something one would pick as a conversational topic in gatherings. Nor is it something one would think deeply about over evening coffee after returning from work. And yet, it’s cognizance is all-pervasive in culture. There are tomes of eclectic prose on the inevitability of death, and plentiful exquisite poetry on the beauty of it. Somewhere, it’s associated with solemn pride, elsewhere with liberation, and in yet another context with transcendence to another life. “May you live long” is almost a universal blessing. Perhaps this assumption of the primacy of human breath isn’t completely unfounded; everything else, all the thoughts, actions, hopes, despair exist and create a living experience defined by the existence of the breath. 

However, perhaps breathing isn’t sufficient in itself. One doesn’t merely desire to live longer, but – and this is seldom acknowledged – one wants to live with agency. It’s not about how many constraints of flesh and bone can be conquered by biology to prolong health and survival, what ultimately matters is the agency left for the body to observe, think, act, share, and experience. I notice my balcony closely now. I feel my own breath, and the faint fragrance of flowers, leaves, and soil mixed with it. I feel the chill of the air burnishing my skin. It has begun raining, and the fragrances change yet again. What portent can be greater than the grace that manifests in all this abundance? And what fortune is greater than my agency to observe all this?

Seven Times Five

(Photo Courtesy Wikimedia Commons)

A few months before my thirtieth birthday, I was cycling with two strangers at Formentera: a pristine Balearic island accessible by a short ferry from Ibiza. We bought some bread, a few slices of cheese, some cold ham cuts for a cheap makeshift sandwich, and headed straight to the water. The other two men were drunk from the previous night (I wasn’t; the cover charges for nightclubs used to be fifty euros) and jumped in naked. I followed suit. Such shoestring trips used to be about finding the cheapest hostel or a Couchsurfing host, roving for an entire fortnight with nothing more than a 7 Kg backpack that allowed walking long distances and avoiding airline check-in charges, and abstemiously surviving on hotdogs and snack bars. I did odd consulting jobs then, always booked train tickets to home at least three months in advance to ensure getting a berth, watched Bollywood movies in cinema halls on weekday mornings, still used Facebook, began to know a little bit about scotch (and always bought the lowest priced one at duty-free), and thought a lot about women, love, and yachts.

Five years flew by (I don’t know why that sentence seems so manifestly gravid in prose, and so spectacularly quotidian in reality). I traveled across eight countries (including one business trip) during just the four months before turning thirty-five, shopped for a good pair of knives and an oil container at Ikea (and considered buying a French press), watched vacuous as well as picaresque productions on streaming sites and also some theatre, tried to keep away from much of social media (branding it as a largely apocryphal echo-chamber), learnt making basic cocktails at home, and thought a lot about women, love, and yachts.

I also found a stable job that I ended up loving to the core, began to learn how to do that job well (and learnt that that is supposed to be the logical sequence), and spoke to numerous people who wanted to know how to find a job that they can love because it will come with meaning and purpose (and I raked through their pedantic expectations in the process). I did less of finding good music (and instantly sharing it over WhatsApp), and a little bit more of reading books. Perhaps as I am aging, I am also becoming more ecumenical and accepting of ideas, even of the most egregious ones such as the universe might have an energy and we might all be part of a larger continuum (as a corollary, I am more accepting of Pankaj Tripathi’s “nucleus se aaye hain” and Nawazuddin Siddiqui’s “apun hi bhagwaan hai” – two diverse and profound philosophical constructs – in the same Sacred Games season.) I got a dreamcatcher in my office to which I attribute my tiny store of positive energies, grew some plants, switched to wearing suits at work, and invested in skincare and haircare products (while being doleful about the ignoble consumption patterns of teenagers). And – this is important – I also switched from Mahashian-Di-Hatti to Shan Masalas; and to anyone who questioned my deeply political choices such as this one, I offered a specious argument of both masalas being saffron in colour. Other assertions of my responsible citizenry were demonstrated by my prompt exit from WhatsApp groups consisting of Indian intelligentsia’s prolific analysis of all economic and foreign affairs, and using the mute feature for groups where flowers were exchanged each morning without any being actually shipped to my home address. I did buy some flowers though; I have taken up a liking for white lilies.

Five years also taught me several life lessons (including the one from an uncle at the supermarket checkout counter who told me why buying shimla mirch is better than the expensive red and yellow bell peppers, and the one from the kid who nonchalantly asked me “uncle ball chali gayi hai aapki balcony mein” causing a deleterious cascade of feelings for the kid in question). I have started valuing relationships more, realizing how precarious life could be (Baz Luhrmann’s “get to know your parents; you never know when they'll be gone for good” has only become more poignant over time). I value my own life more and am learning to treat myself (beyond vastly unused gym and swimming pool memberships). I feel less impulsive, have fewer bellicose instincts, and seem to focus more on creating and cherishing memories and experiences (such as by allowing friends and family to cook and feed me home food). My pursuit of happiness, meanwhile, has also witnessed its natural trajectory of bas-mil-jo-jaaye-thoda-paisa early on, to tere-bina-zindagi-se-koi intermittently, to what-a-wonderful-world. Well, almost. 

I think it’s past the halfway mark in life, and it’s fascinating to note how laughing at 'growing-older-and-wiser' as a phrase ends up being a joke on oneself. Someone once told me that there is something immeasurable that you gain just by having a few more years of experience under your belt. Some of it, perhaps, is indeed true. Reflecting on the series of choices and decisions in life, it does feel that I might have outgrown some of them. In retrospect, I think I could have treated people differently (except the assholes, of course), loved more intensely, and been kinder to myself.

Or, perhaps, it's just the alcohol talking.

Istanbul

The cat jumped out with a sputter. Perhaps it was getting stuffy inside the basement. The stolid midnight air on the sidewalk arduously stands at its place, choked within a dazzling confusion of serpentine alleys, windows, and crevices beginning somewhere, but mostly ending nowhere. There is a hint of a waning moon; it’s the month of Ramadan and Eid al-Fitr is only a few nights away. A closer look under the signage “Express Laundry”, whereupon the feline emerged, reveals an array of plastic tubs, strewn fabric, clunky machines, and at least five more cats in the dimly lit enclosure meant to serve human needs if and when it would be the latter’s turn; one can never be sure of the next event in this part of the world. Observing the diversity of color and size of the pack, one safely concludes that these cats don’t form a litter, but somehow, they belong together. The rest of old Istanbul, which they seem to own, displays similar characteristics. An emerald green house intercedes a rich mahogany and an azure one, flint colored cobblestones reflect the soft ochre of incandescent bulbs, and a pewter midnight sky interspersed with festively lit charcoal minarets is somehow all coalesced into this city of exquisite contradictions.

The feline of our interest has taken a good look around, stretched, yawned, and started uphill with a haughty gait. It walks in the middle of the street at this hour; during the day it will occupy crannies by the sidewalk, undersides of restaurant tables and parked cars, and even mosques. It is said that old Istanbul is built on seven hills. But this is as inconsequential as saying that the solar system has nine planets. The appropriate thing to say is that there are hills everywhere in Istanbul, since nothing here comes in numbers or measured installments. There are streets everywhere, merging into each other, overlapping, banding together, waving like the ocean, and many a times showing one a tiny postcard-sized glimpse of the sea neatly framed by rows of wood and glass and cement structures descending into the sea itself. There are tram lines crisscrossing everywhere, riding atop waves of streets, allowing modern and slender tram designs to be pulled by a mesh of overhead wires through swarms of people, bursting from and into them. There is smell everywhere, distinct, and yet blending together, changing every ten yards. Smell of flowers; crocus, jasmine, petunia, pansies, and roses. Smell of spices and dry fruits; saffron, pepper, tea, corn, dates, dried apricots, walnuts. Smell of leather, and paper, and soaps, and foliage, and car and boat exhausts. Meat and grills, shawarmas, and fish and shrimp. Attar and colognes. Fruits; ananas, apples, oranges, berries. And sweets and confectionery; baklavas and Turkish delights and kunefes, şerbet and helva, dondurma, even güllaç in this month of Ramadan. Each distinct, plentiful, and exhaustive. 

And that’s just the physical world. Istanbul is metaphysical at the same time, that rumination of dervishes – mystical and esoteric.

“Bu dünyada gördüğün her şey görünmeyenin gölgeleridir.”

Everything you see in this world is an apparition of the unseen.

– Rumi 

Istanbul smells of purity, devotion and providence when one stands insignificantly in front of the minbar at the Hagia Sophia or the Sultanahmet. It smells of opulence when one observes the vaulted cellars, decorated columns, stone arches, gardens, and the ornate pavilions of Topkapı and Dolmabahçe. It smells of the unparalleled elegance of human enterprise inside the Yerebatan Sarnıcı (the Basilica Cistern), or in the tomb of Sultan Ahmet I with its hand-painted İznik tiles, and window shutters and cabinet doors made of ebony with mother-of-pearl, turtle shell, and ivory. It smells of the sea everywhere, without the salt-laden air reaching the nostrils, because the sea here is not restricted to Bosphorus and Golden Horn, it is everywhere.

It is almost seven in the morning. An entire civilization is waking up. Burly men around Kapalıçarşı (Grand Bazaar) are scurrying from the truck to their shops, smoking, transferring cartons and bottles and papers. Many of them will be fasting through the rest of the day until iftar, but will spend their day calling tourists to feast at restaurants or peddling knick-knacks in street-side shops. Shawarma stands on İstiklal Caddesi and elsewhere are being cleaned up. A vendor is hauling his red-white cart that will sell Kestane Kebabs (roasted chestnuts) well past midnight. A man is still sleeping under a tree at the square besides a cat. Seagulls are flying skillfully in between houses constructed on top of each other and ducks are lazily wandering on the beaches. The sun is well above the horizon; days during this time of the year are long and sultry by Istanbul standards, and the sun is already burning the skin.

By the time sun travels to the other side, a carnival is building up at the squares. Strings of colored lights festoon trees, buildings, and mosques. Iftar tents, ready with pidesi bread, soup, pickled vegetables, olives and other edibles for the faithful are coming to life. Large families arranging their utensils and babies and food on the grass for the feast are visibly joyous with anticipation. The graceful voice of the prayer reverberates across the city from all its minarets, and the bustling life slows down for a few moments. The din is insignificant, so is the human breath, for, this is when humanity bows down to the unknown. And where else could this be any more mystical, if not right here? Rumi must have said something about this too.

Elsewhere in the city, far away from the mosques, a kitten is licking its paws inside a self-service café. There is no sound, except for a coffee machine’s diminishing whirr; someone inside this café, run by an art collective, just brewed a cup. The kitten tries to repeatedly scratch the leg of a chair. After a few attempts, either the purpose of the act, or the results of the effort, or both lose their utility and the kitten moves on to its next crusade. It will chew on a few wires – lose ends of a network cable, phone charger, and numerous other props that must be worked upon by this creature that perhaps comes from the same unknown as the rest of us. It moves around softly, purposefully, but not hurriedly. Life is expected to take its own course, and perhaps the meaning of this elaborate enterprise will emerge only in retrospect, if only one could learn the virtue of patience.

The sea is about a quarter of a mile away. A local ferry is gliding on it with the soft sputter of its old, fatigued engine that billows puffs of smoke just where the sky meets the water. At a distance, a school of dolphins is bobbling in the water. A cool breeze blows across the faces of the men, women, and children riding the boat; their faces display a mélange of expressions – anxious, melancholic, loving, tranquil. A man stands on the lower deck with his back facing the hull and plays a saxophone. The open case of his instrument lies in front him as a collection box. A couple, perhaps in their early 50s, gets up and starts to dance. Some people look away in astonishment, some with indifference, and yet a few others look at these two and smile. Our musician nods at them; perhaps recognizing that no amount of money in his collection box will match the fulfillment of witnessing his act transform into this most treasured moment of life, unfolding right here, out of nowhere, on an inconsequential boat between Asia and Europe.

Some cities are too much for a continent.

Desideratum

"Do you realize that this moment, of you and me, in a lustful embrace, is the denouement of a scintillating history of human species and its astonishing accomplishment?", said the silent voice.

She seemed to hear it, but continued to proffer her blasé self. For, she had resolved long ago that she wouldn't allow anything else in the world to dictate her choices and actions. The moment was perfect, and she had no qualms about her selfishness in this moment; her, and only her feelings were allowed to matter in this intricate dance of passion and indulgence.

"It took centuries for humans to get here. The species evolved 200,000 years ago, and another 190,000 years went by before they could even cultivate grains and make some bread!", the silent voice continued.

By now, her yearnings were almost salacious, and her only satiation seemed to lie in devouring it all. But the silent voice rose again – "And it torments me, to behold you and your impatient materialistic ilk. I am repulsed by your incessant desires and wants, by your profanity, and by your skin that reeks of ghastly crimes committed on this now-grotesque planet."

Her craving was bursting at the seams, and she proceeded to discard the silent voice's innocuous, abstract driveling. Why should she bother herself with the historical perspective? After all, every philosopher she knew had vociferously drilled the idea of her life being just an inconsequential speck on the infinite fabric of space and time. How did her actions matter anyway?

The silent voice knew it would lose; after all, this had been a foregone conclusion with everything humans ever touched. It wanted to say something reconciliatory like - "Pause for a second! Slow down and marvel at the complexity of what you are holding! The cooperation of humans around the world to get more than 50 components that constitute me was inconceivable even 100 years ago!"

By now, however, she had already finished half of the sandwich.

The world from above

As it rose from its pedestal with a distinct sound, the world stood up and took notice.

Its expression was almost sombre, and as it rose, its head seemed to tilt from one side to another, minutely scanning the material horizon around it, as if making a rather solemn observation. The entire act, however ephemeral, seemed to be assimilating a deeper reality within its steel-solid conscience.

From its vantage point, the wafting air on the sides seemed to carry the combined successes, failures, and essence of all those souls of the world that, until now, lived under its watch. The distinct individualities of these souls, and their now-perished skins, coalesced under pressure into a larger mass that constituted a reality which did not belong to any of them, yet created a thing of value embodying their collective truths: beautiful and delectable in equal measures.

As it settled back on its pedestal, it reflected on the humility of this experience: how transient is this world, and yet how enduring and stagnant? The sound nonchalantly faded away, and the khichdi in the pressure cooker was now ready.

Freedom

He wanted to set her free. Right now, when the chill in the midnight air and the frigidness of his own heart were stinging him and his soul.

When they had first met, he was infatuated by her effervescence. He would watch her swell and subside in her own bubbly world. He would sit longingly, and notice her colours that seemed to change with the passage of time. She could flow as if possessed in some intricate dance form, and he knew he wasn’t the only one waiting on the sidelines. And the wait was always worth it. This is how he liked her in those days of yore, when the world, perhaps, wasn’t this cruel.

And today, as he watched her squirming within the tea-bag and hung emptily in water, he wished he could turn back time. This was an atrocious way to make tea, and it repulsed him. "What has the world come to?" he silently muttered, and sighed deeply.

Life, served

It felt like hell had frozen over and were falling straight on his head.

It wasn't the first time he had this feeling. On all such occasions in the past, he would try to maneuver himself out of the way, twist himself, work with the only handle he had to change the situation destiny had led him into. However, most of the times either nothing changed, or things changed so drastically that he would start feeling the hot fury of the desert instead. 

He hated this dichotomy in life, of things fitting themselves in just these two states: served cold, or laden piping hot. Through his entire life, he had struggled to get somewhere in between, to make things right, and life more bearable for him. The shower temperature, however, never became perfect.