Nations warred while drones dropped and homes exploded. The world was in turmoil.
Halfway across the world, a rich industrialist smiled.
Opportunity.
Tag: postaday
The Writer’s Day
It’s no big deal, he told himself. He had done it before, he could do it again.
He just had to sit and write.
Remembering an old article about the effects of crouching on your chair, he pulled in a little closer to the table. Now he felt comfortable. He moved a frantic finger across the trackpad, cursing the stupid auto-lock system. He entered his password and into his document.
Blank screen. As he placed his fingers over the keys, he noticed how dirty they were. Last night’s mustard lingered near the speakers where he had put his ear to check if they worked at all. He tried to wipe off the mess with his fingers making it worse. With a deep sigh, he stood and walked over to his cupboard to pick up a wet cloth.
He yanked the wooden door to see a pile of smelly underwear, masking a couple of laundered shirts and jeans that hadn’t seen soap in ages.
Pushing it all aside, he began looking for the cloth. After about ten minutes of rummaging, he decided he’d rather clean his cupboard first.
And so he began.
As he rearranged his clothes, he found the old letters from his once-girlfriend. She had broken his heart so bad that he could neither forget her nor hate her. He had hidden the letters to keep himself from falling into depression again.
He opened them, nevertheless, and sat poring over her words of endearment, smiling at the way she circled the dots of her ‘i’s and curled her ‘l’s. He loved her handwriting.
Before he knew it, tears started streaming down his eyes. How could she have left him? All of a sudden, he realised he hadn’t eaten all day.
Maybe I’ll be fine if I get something to eat, he thought. He walked over to the kitchen and pulled open the refrigerator. There was some bread left over from two days ago, and he grabbed them without grace. Tossing a couple of slices into the toaster, he poured himself a large cup of coffee.
Five minutes later, he was back tapping on his trackpad, cursing the auto-lock feature. He took one look at the blank page. And then at the wall on his right. It flaunted covers of the New York Times Bestseller, with his name flashed in big golden letters.
That was five years ago. He had emptied his soul into that book, and it had paid off. But every day since then had been nothing but a blank page. The day his love stopped loving him, words did too.
Defining Peace
It’s the best place she could be. It’s big, it’s cozy, and it’s guarded round the clock.
“You’ll be happy there.” her mother had said.
She stood in front of the great gates of Markersson High School thinking back the one-sided conversation she had had with her mother a few weeks earlier.
She had come home after a fist fight, giving the rude boy across the street a bloody eye. Her mother had handed her a leaflet of Markesson and marvelled, “It’s as peaceful as a sanctuary, they say. Isn’t it beautiful?”
She looked down at the photo on the cover, and saw barren land, scooped up of its grass, life, and lusciousness. She looked at the caption that read: Our very own football ground.
She flicked the five-page graphic leaflet, pausing at a picture of a classroom. About 50 girls sat in straight rows, facing the teacher who clutched a book too large for her ageing hands. She saw that the girls in the photo wore blue pinafores, black shoes, and had braided their hair. Not a single streak had escaped.
She flicked on and stopped at another photo. There were parakeets, love birds, and even a cockatoo — all in cages. Students were feeding the birds, their faces alight with bright smiles. The caption read: A sanctuary; for birds and children.
The gates opened and a stiff, beefy-looking man walked up to her. His khaki uniform smelled of flowers, and as he picked up her trunk, she realised his hands smelled of disinfectant.
It was her mother’s idea of a sanctuary.
Boating in Cochin
I once visited Cochin during school. It was a hazy three-day trip of which I only recall hot days and cold nights.
Oh, and the boat ride.
Like most tourists in Kerala, we took a boat ride too. And the best part of it is that we had to walk through numerous boats to get to the one we’d ride in. We stepped onto the first boat in the lake, and from there onto another, and another, and then another. After walking through about 6 or 7 boats, our teacher called out saying we had found our boat at last.
It was the largest mass of wood I had seen that floated on water. And on it was a hood-like structure that kept the rain and sun away. As soon as we embarked the boat, it began to rain. We filed into the “hood,” and saw our jaws drop. There were about 50 chairs placed around the interior of the boat, with glass windows to make us feel like an island.
A little adventurous, I stepped out of the hood and onto the dock. There were some wooden poles to hold on to, and the cold monsoon breeze kissed my face. I peered down from the boat, to see clear water in some places, and muddy patches in some other places. Little islands of seaweed flowed here and there, breaking the vast, rippling water.
And as our boat thrust forward, concentrated salt water gushed from the boat’s edges like swimmers racing in opposite directions.
I leaned in with my camera to get a better shot at the flowing water when another, much smaller boat made its way toward us. Two men stood on that boat, one of them handling the sail while the other blew his shrill whistle signalling to our guide.
They seemed to me like challengers daring us to race them. And I was all game before I saw the print on the boat: Coast Guard.
Huh?
We heard it later: According to government rules, every passenger on the boat should have a life jacket, and none of us adhered. We were just a bunch of over-excited school kids being kids. Besides, what’s the point of taking “security measures” when you’re at the mercy of nature?
Another Day
Girls walked in clusters, their red skirts swirling in the soft breeze. He watched them as they went into the opposite building. They seemed flustered, steaks of hair escaping from their braids. They rushed on, late for their classes.
Boys in blue shirts stood under the great big banyan tree. Some of them peered at books, some of them at the girls, while a couple of boys chased after the basketball that had run away from the court.
Everywhere he turned, he saw once-white shoes and energetic children. The pond in the distance rippled as the wind swept yellowing leaves into it.
The sun showered its love for the earth, despite the mid-monsoon week. The catering truck whizzed into view. Just looking at the closed vehicle gave him hunger pangs. He could almost smell the sausages and minced meat burgers within it. His stomach growled as the lorry passed his eyes. There was still a long time left for the lunch break.
Out of nowhere, a stern voice shattered his thoughts. “What the hell are you doing boy?” He turned to see his Math teacher towering over him, her mascara magnified under her spectacles.
“If you can’t concentrate when I’m talking, get out!”
It took her that long to free him.
The Chaos Within 