Thinkin' on your stomach.

I changed the name of the blog today. The title is inspired by the fantabulous drama enacted by the Footsbarn Travelling Theatre while they toured India. They'd toured India before (and twice they performed in Trivandrum) ; yours truly turned up on both occasions. Fact is, I'm totally enamoured by the concept of a travelling theatre. N when you see a troupe perform as brilliantly as Footsbarn did, as they breathed life and soul into their script (which was, incidentally, a conglomerate of many shakespearean dramas and consequently many facets of emotions)...the blend was indeed commendable and had the audience laughing their hearts out at one stage and deeply contemplating at another.."Perchance to Dream" happened in early 2005; i have no idea why im writing this now. Perhaps I should change my blog description as well: "Chronicle of my anachronistic reflections!!" ;)

I came up with a story of a man who rediscovers himself when he follows his heart..Please read it when you have time to spare....the byproduct of joblessness,the rantings of egocentricity..call it what you like..but please try to mail me your feedback once you're done reading. 

A walk in the park

                                                - Arun Mohan

The doorbell rang. Sidharth shoved off his covers and sat up. He sat there for a whole minute, the quintessential thinker, contemplating his existence, which at this juncture did not seem to be of the minutest significance. However, it was more likely that he was thinking where he had left his toothbrush.

The first question of the day was answered as he moved towards the door and saw Puck chewing his bright blue toothbrush. All that came out of Sid’s mouth was a sigh of exasperation. Now in our hero’s sprightly days, a lot of swear words would have preceded the sigh. But then, Sid was at the fag end of his life at 26. “At least the dog’s having a good time”, he thought as he opened the door. Waiting for him outside was a man in blue, pink and yellow (ugh!) who screamed out in a faraway voice, “Pizza delivery!!.” This time a lot of swear words did come out. After all, you don’t expect to be bugged by the pizza guy this early. So Sid asked in his politest tone, “What the heck are you doing out here in the morning?!? I haven’t even ordered pizzas!” The chirpy, “colourful” man with dazzling white teeth replied, “Its 2 hours past noon sir; I am supposed to deliver this to #136.” It took some time for the other end to absorb the fact. Amidst his moment of enlightenment, Sid was able to convey to the now-positively-scorning chap that #136 was on the next floor. As he dragged himself back in, he realized that another day had been virtually ‘spent’…..Big deal, there’s always tomorrow…to waste….

As he walked along the river that ran through the park, Sid couldn’t help but reminisce about his life. It had been, through and through, a waste. If there was one good quality that Sid had, it was viewing from all angles to an issue. He kept asking whether he was being too harsh to himself…but no, it was true; life had been a scrapbook of sorry pictures.

He had a good job; good being an understatement as he received a monthly pay check of nearly 30,000 bucks. And no, this is not the story of a guy who has everything and yet, finds his life spiritually and philosophically hollow. Sidharth did not have a lot of things. He did not have good friends, people to whom he could confide in. Puck was his best friend. He did not have anything special in life; no special memories, events; no, nothing. Indeed, his best moment had come in a school football match when he as a midfielder outsmarted two burly looking defenders, scoring a goal and consequentially winning the match for the home team. “Football had always been special,” he thought as he walked past the bronze statue of the Fallen Angel. Perhaps it was his loneliness that made him love football; it was a team game and he craved to be part of the “group”. Perhaps it was the very same feeling that made him despise his job, where you sat in front of the computer all day in a cubicle that made anyone claustrophobic.

Sid found women boring and to a certain extent, irritating; well, at least the women he had met in his school, college and workplace. He was tired of convincing everyone that he was not gay and he was tired of fending off the neo-feminists at his workplace accusing him of chauvinism. “Heck, its not my problem that I haven’t met a single good gal!!”

The sun was going down in a blaze of glory….The park was always full of people; families, lovers, senile citizens, all having a blissful time in the huge premises. The stone benches were more often than not, occupied. Sid never exactly knew why he walked alone in the park; given his phobia of loneliness, he should have avoided seeing scenes of companionship and mirth. He was in no mood to answer these questions today. He never was. Sid knew; the more he contemplated, the sorrier he felt.

As he was about to sit down on a stone bench at the far end of the park, Sid noticed a blue tissue lying in the bench. He was about to throw it away when he noticed something written on the flipside:

Follow me, as the sun sinks,

Through the lanes of curved confusion

Into the lake of fire

Where the light shall set you free.

Right. Decent piece of work, considering the fact that it was probably written by someone who had nothing else to do and finally decided to pour his/her creative juices into the blue tissue. For reasons mysterious and strange, and most essential to the sustenance of this story, Sid pocketed it.

Sunday was in a hurry to leave; Monday came thick and fast. Sid had a perfectly normal day at the office; some new character had called him gay, the old hag in the neighbouring cubicle was making passes at him (he had nearly choked on his burger when he saw her staring at him during lunch time) and the boss had found new reasons to stuff in more work. At 6, when he left work, Sid was completely flustered. He needed days to waste, not days to lose your head over…

It was only when he passed The Sinking Sun, a pub that opens at dusk, that he remembered the tissue he’d pocketed yesterday. On introspection, it seemed amusingly coincidental, he thought, as he entered the pub. He loved this place. It was his kind of hangout. Everyone here was invariably sitting alone. No, it wasn’t a place full of losers and desperados, but it was replete with those people who, after a hard day at the office, liked to sit down in peace and mull about nothing over a beer (when you go for something stronger than a beer, you can’t exactly “mull about nothing”).

He sat at the far end (yup, he was a far-end maniac) near the orange lights and took the tissue from his bag. “This is definitely the handiwork of a classified Jobless Creature’, he thought. Lake of fire?? Light setting you free? Sheesh, what crap…

The waiter came up and asked; “the usual, sir?” “No John, I think I’ll have something new today; pass me the menu, will ya?”….. Sid was in a mood to gulp in liquid that would take him to upper echelons of imagination…a little later he decided not to get high; after all, home was quite far off and there was a fair bit to drive. So, he browsed through the list of cocktails. They come up with innovative names, these guys……

And there it was... Right at the centre of the list. A new addition to the cocktail collection: Curved Confusion. Whoa, this was getting all too weird…He found himself asking, “John, do you have another drink called Lake of Fire?” Seeing a raised eyebrow, he stopped…then it struck him; of course! He showed the blue tissue to John and said,” This is a promo ad for the pub, isn’t it? Have you been distributing these throughout town??” “You’re mistaken sir, we haven’t issued anything of this sort, at least to my knowledge”……..

Now the devil’s workshop, or to the less proverbial, the idle mind, has been famous since time immemorial for construing things in outrageous and spectacular fashion. ’twas no different in Sid’s case. Finally, there was something exciting happening in his life…weird theories began simmering in our protagonist’s brain. What could this be?

As he drove back to his house, Sid could sense his feeling of exhilaration…He hadn’t taken his foot off the pedal. The surge of adrenalin was simply overpowering. As he sped by a movie-poster of a suspense thriller, he shot a glance at what the caption screamed: Someone was trying to tell someone something.

The man who normally gave Sleeping Beauty a complex did not bat an eyelid that night. At certain junctures, Sid’s logical intellect questioned him: Why are you losing sleep over something as silly and vague as that piece of tissue? The answer, Sid knew, was not too far to seek. His life had been as boring as a ride through the Sahara. This was one moment of curiosity which he longed to pursue, whether petulant or not.

Follow me, as the sun sinks,

Through the lanes of curved confusion

These were the only two lines that passed Sid’s thoughts the next day. He completed his work absent-mindedly, and at the end of the day he had framed a lot of questions to which he had no answer: Who was ‘me’? What were the first two lines about? Was there a literal interpretation? Would it lead me to something interesting? Will I come across the “Lake of Fire” and the “light” that shall set me free in similar fashion? Or will I have to work out these lines and find clues?

For the past two days, Sid had been writing chunks and chunks in his daily journal. He was very fond of writing; back in college, he’d regularly got his articles published in reputed newspapers and magazines. He was even involved in the run-up to a local award for creative works, though he lost out narrowly. Recently, he had, most unwillingly, given up his literary pursuits for inexplicable reasons. This new incident gave him incentive to write: he pondered over all the questions and thoughts that he had written down in his diary. However, he couldn’t make heads or tails out of it.

At the same time, Sidharth, not surprisingly, was finding new light in his life through his writing. He realized that he’d been foolish to quit writing when he entered his job. Writing would have made his mundane life interesting. Life would have been crystal clear if he’d compiled his thoughts and transferred it to paper. He would have felt more ‘accomplished’ and ‘satisfied’ if he’d done something he liked……….

Sid was on the verge of another sleepless night. But today, it was for totally different reasons: as he lay squirming in bed, he thought… thought about the future and not the dead past like he always did. He analyzed his life in tandem with the content in the blue tissue he’d pocketed two days back. And suddenly, everything began to fit in………….Then he dozed off.

By the time the alarm clock had managed to shout its lungs out, Sid was already up. He had a refreshingly cold shower which washed away the Ghost of His Past. Sidharth Mehta had prepared a wonderful breakfast which he joyfully savoured along with Puck. With an hour to spare, he left home and started for the office.

The boss was shocked when he was handed a resignation letter by one of his favorite employees. “But why Mr. Mehta?” he asked, flabbergasted, “why?? Do you want a rise in pay?”

This time, Sid had an answer. “Its funny how things work out when you finally discover yourself, sir. This job doesn’t suit me. I can’t follow my heart sitting in that cubicle and typing in stuff that is of no interest to me. I want to pursue what I like to do. I quit, sir. Good day to you.” As he walked out of the office, with an air of triumph around him, Sid could almost perceive a tear in the old hag’s eye.

Date: November 24, 2005

Thursday

“Today I quit my job. I think it was one of the best decisions I made in life. Oh, and I figured out what the four lines meant. I interpreted them in my own terms…. The sun sinking was indicative of the virtual death of my life; it showed that the past was too heavy a burden on me and that it was killing life’s essence. “Curved confusion” was a complimentary term: I needed to find my way out of the disinterested and indifferent jungle that I was in. The “lake of fire” was my destination: to do the work I craved to do. “Me” in the first line represented my heart. All I should have done was to follow my heart. As I write this journal today, I find that, true to its word, my heart has led me where I want to be. I want to be a writer; and I’m going to be one. And this realization shall indeed set me free.”

Yup, its been long...its been so long that the owners of the 'dot.tk' domain service have decided to cancel my www.stuffandnonsense.tk domain....

Well, that really doesn't matter as long as my loyal readers never fail to visit the site in the original URL ;).(Barring whoever's actually reading this, most of the 'loyal readers' are imaginary beings). But hey, i was pleasantly surprised by the fact that the site had 52 visitors even in November. Usually it takes some amount of lobbying to get ppl around this place...

So, how have you been?  I'm writing this in the comfort of my home, returning from the college after the 1st semester. Law School's been a very 'new' and enjoyable experience : sticking to the name of this blog, I wont be chronicling or reporting anything related to the happenings of the last four months. Frankly, there's been too much happening to squeeze everything in one go. Come next semester, I'll attempt once more to squeeze some time in for the blog. I've got a laptop now and the campus has been wified. Hopefully, things will work out...

Meanwhile, I'll be writing from home..writing about incidents, posting my short stories and a lot of other things in general. I'll be looking forward to some human presence in this site..

Always
arun.