a bubble

It was a perfect bubble. Not quite round, taut with hints of translucence. It did not threaten to burst or grow out of proportion, implode or disappear. It quite simply hung around. A nice insipid bubble with a slight hint of indeterminate color. He decided to like it.

There are many colors that we all see. Some we own, others come and go with the seasons. Some are artificially created, like the naturally prepared orange juice with preservative Y and chemical X that he liked to drink. Others appear almost on whim, like the colors of his dreams and fears. Then there are red blue green and yellow. And black with or without white. In the course of his experiments he created many bubbles using all the colors. There were red bubbles and bluegreenyellow bubbles. The white bubbles were a tad difficult to create and the black ones seemed to pop out in between so that jotting down his results was becoming difficult. Others like magenta, lilac and amber were not technically colors. They were shades. He gave up creating shade bubbles after the first year since they tended to float up and merge with the other shades all around his room. By the time he was eight he decided that the only proper shape a bubble could ever take was round. After that he concentrated on trying to make exclusively round bubbles. There was the round square, the round line and the round round. In his ninth year he chanced upon the almost round. By the time he was ten he had despaired of ever making the perfect bubble. Then two months into post bubble retirement it popped out in a freak accident. The perfect bubble.

Though it was hard to tear his eyes away from his greatest achievement, he realized that he must chronicle this moment. Taking out his log he opened it to a blank page where he wrote the date. Today. Neatly dividing the page into two on one side he put down the technical detail. On the other he described in completeness all the various attributes of his perfect bubble. Job done, he tucked the log book away into his side drawer and pulled a sheet over his head. How long he took to drift into sleep is not known. What we do know is that the bubble continued to float. That was its purpose.

Many years after today when bubbles have escaped our collective consciousness there will be an academic convention. All the great minds of that time will attend. They will bring their ideas and be identified by their arguments. Afterward they will adjourn for lunch. He will also be called upon to attend. He will nod politely when congratulated and particularly enjoy the rare steak. By that time the world would have advanced beyond our belief. He will be feted for his contributions toward bringing about a complete society. Ideals of peace, harmony and prosperity will have been achieved through his dedicated work. He will receive a purple sash and an inscribed coin. Later, out in the parking lot he will look at the world around him. He will stare it for some length. Almost round it will be, not threatening to burst or grow out of proportion, implode or disappear. A nice uniform world without the slightest hint of color. Perfect.

Memoirs 1

“Dear Watson
I have reached the end of the roads. There is nobody here.. It is a world without crime, my old friend because there is no one to commit crime against. My many detractors would try to disprove me by saying that there is always the self. They would construct trivial examples of me hitting myself needlessly over the head with a stone. “That is crime” they would say. But were it to be a crime, who could convict me? Is it not against the very grain of jurisprudence that a person who is guilty is made to condemn himself?

There are no robbers who hurl their devious plots at my sharpened wit, no murderers who look to purport heinous sin unless it be the wind which gives me no quarter. The ground beneath my feet is hard and it rises and falls in uneven furrows and ridges. The soil is never distinctive and my feet cannot leave their mark on it. There is no exoticism; no sense of awe, no adventure dwells here at the end of all roads. I have no witnesses bar the soul less sky and yet I feel the land is sinister. I can see shapes that close in on me, some ferocious like the shadows of snarling hounds, yet others whose very breath gives shape to the wind and faces that I have seen pass away into another world.

As I write to you I cringe to think that the end of all activity is upon me. You have seen patients like these, who cannot live a life that is already spent. They are but a shadow of themselves and in shadow they belong.. Life my constant friend is at an end.”

Note(Watson): Holmes spent a further two days in his room until he finally came out complaining of stale air. It is clear that its effect (the drug) wanes exponentially.

- From” Holmes on cocaine”- Chapter xvii,
A detective’s story- John Hamish Watson

1.1

To exist is not to live nor life to just believe
But rather do than let just be
Come and stay than see and leave
Many the days that were just night
But shined with stolen hue
Make them full and make them light
For it is not your fate that is just told
But a choice of when or how
Take the future and forge it anew not old.
So when it is time to go away you will
But with a live fully spent
To shining lights o’er shining hill

sofa musings

I have a sofa in my living room which I sit on.
When I was a wee mite, growing up in Mumbai, sofas were not comfort objects to be sat upon. Kings of the living room, they were used sparingly. The family that owned the sofa, never quite got around to subordinating it for personal use. Indeed, it was quite exclusively only for “guest purposes.” Usually a three piece set with the big triple seater sofa and the more exclusive twin pairs, they were anointed with sofa cover and adorned with cushion, then made to wait like a fairy tale sleeping beauty for her fair prince.

Indian Middle class mentalities, which for all I know may have long since drifted away on modern day currents but the “don’t touch couch” was an essential part of my quirky childhood. Every time I lift my feet up, on any couch anywhere in the world, I do so with trepidation for I half expect my mother to come billowing in, unseat me with withering eye and proceed to smooth down the minute folds on the sofa cover which only the truly blessed can see.

It is not surprising then, that whenever I sit upon upon a sofa, creativity courses through my veins and the world seems not round, but a long straight road, the end of which I can almost see. For the “ sofa” is a relic, the all seeing stone forged in the depths of time which gently lulls you into deep slumber where it reveals all- the past, the present and the T.V guide, distant musings, instant solutions and many other myriad objects including the pizza slice that was lost, only to be found again between the sacred spaces and inbetweens of “the sofa.”

Today’s sofa session has brought me new insight. Many musings have I had about the nature of ‘identity.’ About tags both implicit and implicating. For Religion, Nationality, Caste, Creed, Sex and Moral Sensibility are our personal definitions of the world around us. A world that then ceases to exist as an entity but remains only as mismatched fragments which will never complete the grand puzzle.

God save the queen

In Boston there is a red line which runs through many a crowded street. Legend has it that only the true of heart might follow this line. A person who reaches its very end would overcome all human desire and attain the ultimate nirvana. And so the line gets its name..."the freedom trail"..
To be perfectly fair the line ends up in the water.
Though mystically coherent the above lines about the red line are not true.
The line, and this part is supposedly historically verifiable( which may not prove too much of a problem if you have a history which is contemporary literature compared with my family tree..)
was actually the trail that the revered Paul Revere galloped down with his famous rhetoric of the "English are coming."
He did this more than once of course, finally getting it right when it was too late to do anything about the bloody blighters anyways.
Which further goes to validate my opinion that the American people are a trusting race.
And that Georgie Porgie sincerely cares about Iraq.
More than a couple of centuries later and Reverend Paul is at peace in alarmist heaven along with the shepherd boy who was eaten by a wolf and the town bell.
"The English are coming." "The English are coming"
Nanny Beth, also known as Lizzy the second is in the land of the free, and Bush with the aide of his comrades and half of Motown is laying down the Red carpet.
Last i heard, Laura was supervising the onerous task of whitewashing the White House.
The occasion of course is the Royal mummy of state dinners which is to be held this weekend. It is an exclusive enough event for Bush Sr. not to be invited ,(No pa! You've had your dayng fun with Lizzie, its my turn to be on top..) and we finally get to see George eating with cutlery!
The dinner is what is called a"white tie occasion." For the bourgeoisie amongst us that is not a "black tie" do held in the white house. Indeed, white tie dinners can be held anywhere in the world and Martha Stewart has one every morning. The event has a strict dress code- dress shirts and coattails with or without the coat. For those who are lucky enough to have got an invitation, the night promises to be one of elegance, grace and the one time in their lives they will be able to keep a straight face while talking about fox hunting. For the uninitiated majority, it will be an evening do' jour , the only time they well and truly see their nation-makers running around with their tails behind their backs.(sex scandals and political gaffes notwithstanding. Not that the Bush admin. has had any..)
The G-man has been getting tips on how to interact with the queen. Some of the better ones are:
1. Shake Queenie's hand only when she proffers her hand to be shaken. The rest of the time try keeping your naughty appendages in your pocket. If they get bored which will most likely hapen play pocket ping pong with them.
2. Don't fart, choke or laugh. Dont squiggle your nose or do your favorite Osama imitation.
3. Try and remember that England is not your pet dog or the name of a place where you get good lobster. It is another country.
3. Drink from a glass and eat from your plate. If you feel the urge to go to the bathroom don't make pee pee jokes about John. Rather try to excuse yourself elegantly. If you have your mouth stuffed with chilli and cannot excuse yourself let Laura do it for you.
4. On second thought always let Laura do it for you.
5. Just because you cannot understand the Queen's accent does not give you the right to start talking texas.
6. Even better don't talk. Condi and Dick can handle it better.
7. Once the queen stops eating, everyone has to stop eating. Do not try to remedy the situation by stuffing your pocket with food. You will be discovered.
8. If you get uncomfortable because of all the uppity snobs around you don't squirm in your seat or dig your nose. Instead, try kicking Bill Clinton under the table. He might know what to. Don't kick the queen by mistake.
9. Okay. Kick the queen. But don't kick Hillary. Never kick Hillary.
10. Cancel the state dinner.

F art

Art for many years meant a painting on the wall. It took me some time to comprehend that the wall behind the painting was also art.
Now that i've finally got around all my confusion by deciding that all things are art, im faced with a rather artsy problem.
A recent worldwide poll has shown (i've always wanted to say that..) that people who were polled are capable of ranking things from one to ten. It alo proved(the poll), through the use of some rather ingenious graphs that a scene from the movie American beauty was the most beautiful scene ever captured in a movie. By itself, this would not be to hard to agree with. A person who has not watched american beauty would most likely conjure up an american beauty, think of bliss and agree with the poll. A person who has watched it, would recognize at once that the only scenes worthy enough to be the best were the ones he or she could not comprehend. He too would then most likely conjure up Mena Suvari, think of bliss and agree with the poll.
The scene in question involves a plastic bag. That is mostly it. Then there is a wind which moves the plastic bag in random pattern. These make up the main cast. There is also a video camera. Actually we see the packet through a video camera which we cannot really see,but we know that it is a video camera we are seeing the packet through because the packet is fuzzy. Like when we actually see a packet,not in a movie but really genuinely see a packet blowing randomly in the wind through a video camera and it appears just as fuzzy. That's neat.
But it is still a problem.
How does one rank art from one to ten?
And even if Bill, Olga, Sanjay and Li can rank art they can only rank art they have seen. What about my stark, spartanesque, heuristically challenging video of bobo the monkey taking a crap?
We might have a new number one...

1

One morning, as Gregor Samsa was waking up from anxious dreams, he discovered that in bed he had been changed into a monstrous verminous bug. This morning as i was waking up from involuntary slumber, i discovered that i had a running nose and a persistent sniffle.
Not as awe inspiring. But the way i look at it,if i were an insect i could have crawled up the wall. Exsistensialist or not,that is surely preferable to sitting pretty with a sniffle. When you have a cold its almost like being in purgatory. Its an in-between thing which isn't nearly necessary. Id rather get a fever, go through a happy daze period and garner sympathy the way a wounded war hero does.
Right now im staring at the roof. Still, it gives me a chance to start writing.

Some time ago,when i was a seven year old actually, i wrote what i still consider to be my best story. Recently, i happened to chance upon it. It was written in an old 'long' notebook. That's the kind you use after you enter high school. In lower grades you are made to use the square notebook, which fits more snugly into a bag. The square notebook will usually be covered in brown paper. In the school i went to,it was compulsary to put on top of the brown paper a 'plastic' cover. As i remember it, stationery manufacturers soon caught on and we had readymade plastic covered brown paper. It was all nice and glossy with the plastic almost a part of the paper. At that time it was one of life's mysteries. How do the brown paper people make the plastic covered brown paper?
You can't quite carry the square notebook in your hands. It just dosen't look right. Most are hard cover and cannot be folded to make a telescope. The ones that can be folded are disproportionate and look most dissapointing. There s no point to carrying a non-verstile notebook. A notebook should fold into spirals,so that when you look at the world through it you are a pirate. It should be thin enough to tuck into your waistband and thick enough to seem important. A long notebook, a hundred unlined pages thick with flowers on the cover and a trivia quiz at the back. Pure gold as far as a seven year old used to the uniformity of square notebooks goes.