The Duffel Bag Dilemma

Krishna was the first to catch his breath. “Finally, what should we do with the money?” he asked.

Megha dropped the heavy duffel bag and shot him a glance. She adjusted her Zara jacket, scuffed by rough straps. She unzipped the bag and ran her hands over the stacks.

“Take it to the police, what else?” said Shubham.

He walked over to the road’s edge overlooking the pitch-dark rainforest, took a last swig, and discarded the bottle.

He heard a rustling in the trees. Just a monkey. No one’s followed us so far, he thought.

“You’re kidding, right, Shubham? It’s a frikkin’ fortune, and we lucked into it!” said Megha, thinly veiling her frustration. They had already been over it twice on their way down from the campsite.

“Pass me the whiskey,” said Krishna.

“It’s finished, Krishna,” said Megha, “make yourself useful for once. Help me convince this idiot!”

“My uncle’s got a gun…” said Krishna.

“Not helping, you jerk.” said Shubham.

“Think about what we could do, Shubham. I’d never need to ask my dad for another credit card. I’ll have the LV bags I want! You could get all your stupid sports bikes,” Megha pleaded, “and this fool could get all his nerdy gadgets.”

“That sweet Vision Pro,” said Krishna.

“Don’t you understand? This could ruin us!” said Shubham, turning around and walking toward them.

“What if someone had seen us? I don’t want to spend my life in…”

“It was dark. Couldn’t even make out if the body was that of a man…” said Krishna.

“What body?” cried the other two in unison.

They discussed their options and started their way back up the slushy trail with only a few hours of battery left.

It started drizzling.

A politician under investigation for corruption

The ride to the airport was about 25 minutes, a good 55 shorter than the usual.

How the city changes when those speed breakers are gone! But I can’t have those yearly vacations in the Swiss Alps if they are gone forever. My wife will not let me live!

Sleep lingers as my gaze caresses the motorway mottled by the shadows cast by the flanking seven-star hotels.

The driver was clearly breaking speed limits. Because he could. Because I was in the back-seat. Because there were police cars clearing the way ahead.

Good thing there are none following. Like how it has been for the past few weeks.

A former movie star who still thinks she’s famous

All seats were occupied in the parlor. I was late and sweaty.

I look around. Among the usual ratty ones, I see a couple of the young ones—wonder how they can take time off.

I settle myself on a waiting chair, reaching out for the magazines. Under the interiors and design ones, I find something palatable.

Last month’s Silverscreen. The cover has the beauty-pageant winner with her newly-wed husband.

“Excuse me, are you…”

“Yes, you got a pen?”

“Pardon me?!”

I notice the uniform first and then the face. Someone new.

“Ma’am, you have an appointment?”

Dumbfounded, I squeal, “Don’t you know who I am?”

An unsuccessful artist

I heat my coffee a second time to delay the inevitable, and now it tastes even worse. Nice, just like this month.

I move the cursor, bringing the screen to life. The picture password image is the watercolor I had done three years back—my dream home in the hills.

I click thrice on the tip of the tree branch that drifts toward the canvas center.

“Password incorrect; try again.”

“The damn mouse!”, I mutter, and add #14 on my to-buy list. Maybe I can knock off the first three early next month.

I try once more, pressing the button harder, and I get through.

My empty inbox stares at me.

A Disillusioned social activist

The boy casually discarded the candy-bar wrapper and walked along.

How dare he! There are trash bins everywhere! Three more were installed in the park just last month, and the ones for non-recyclable trash are painted red.

I wish I could chase him and give him a beating; if only I were younger, lighter, and less creaky. Maybe I should walk more and sit less.

As I get up and turn into the walkway segment skirting the new 18-story tower, I notice a young couple sneaking into the bushes.

Wonder if my daughter does this. Not even sure if she has a boyfriend. Or if she likes boys at all.

Feedback Dilemma

I have been trained to provide feedback. I have trained people to provide feedback. Some of this is specialized to music and giving and getting feedback. Most people aren’t.

So when I ask for feedback for some of my creative outputs, I have very low expectations. The baseline that I have is a response. When people don’t, that’s a red flag. But there are other shades on the color palette. Let’s talk orange. Are orange flags even a thing?

What about a “thumbs up” reaction to the message? What about a “thumbs up” reaction to a song? What about, “Hey, thanks for sharing.” I wish I could train these people. Give them examples of what part a creative person’s soul has been shared with them, and how they could probably spare a few seconds more and share something a bit more substantial.

What about humor in short responses?

Presently, I’m particularly conflicted about concise, funny wordplay responses. Basically, the entirety of the response is a coined fictitious band name that is a parody of an existing one. Let’s say, something like Nine-inch Screws in response to a song that is inspired by Trent Reznor’s more aggressive rendering.

On one hand, there is a huge compliment that this sounds sort of like this famous artist (who may or may not have inspired the people in the conversation), but on the other one is never sure of the percentage of sarcasm involved.

Now ought one have a conversation with these people too?

The Day After – Disparate Parts

A rainy morning, the first real one of the season. The world seems full of possibilities. The night before last and the day following have left behind ample amounts of hope, resolve, and ambition. The sleep in between seems like an imposition because it is hard to hold on to such feelings. They are hardly ever there. The world has been too cruel and fragile, and it is unlikely to change.

But can one change this? Can one change, via the rigor of routine and discipline, change the physical world around them the psychological world that their thoughts swim in? It’s a work in progress—aargh, I hate using these corporate-sounding words when I have a choice to avoid them. I’m a work in progress, and maybe progress is relative. Does the corporate-ness of my workalike slowly chip away at the more wholesome artist in me?

---

A rainy morning, the first real one of the season. The other half—literally fairer because of a lineage that sailed over to India through the Persian Gulf—is happier than usual. He likes having me around. He likes touching and being touched. In fact, his clan seems to prefer touch as an expression way more than someone brought up in the tip of the Indian subcontinent can deal with.

But it gets warm after the first of the shower. We are left to our coffees, thoughts, and devices in and our own preferred corners of the always-being-renovated apartment. It is only interrupted by the occasional trespassing to exchange ideas. It’s mostly one way. My excitement needs an outlet, and all the excitations need an inlet.

The only common thread that seems to bind us is a book. Actually, two versions of it. I am being enchanted by the original Malayalam version of the book Khasakinte Ithihasam by O. V. Vijayan, whereas he is reading the author’s official English translation titled The Legends of Khasak. They might be telling the same story, but they feel like two different books.

---

A rainy morning, the first real one of the season. But now it’s the afternoon, and we have had a hearty brunch. Now I’m on the call, trying to contain my excitement, but also trying to find a new inlet. By talking to someone who has done what I’m planning to do. To seek their advice. To ask for help. To help put together a plan that makes sense.

Imagine the ‘60s. Let’s say you are a singer-songwriter. You happen to have John Lennon’s number, and you reach out to him and ask him, ‘Hey, I’m thinking of publishing some of my work. Could you please allow me some time to pick your brain’? And John says, ‘Sure, why not?’

It is a hyperbole. But it is not one as well, at the same time. I chose it because it was representative, but my correspondence is with someone who has done what I’m about to do, successfully too, on the international stage.

I get advice. Lots of it. There is even an opportunity for me to send them some of my latest work, the one that when my trusted bandmate listened to, and pushed me off into this promising potential path.

So now I’m waiting. Impatiently.

Leopold Bloom has just finished masturbating.

---

It’s the evening and it is pouring. The lesson has ended, and I’m upset with myself for having missed a homework. My discipline routine is not fastidious enough. It let this through and I feel like punishing myself. It comes to me easy.

I’m now finishing all my homework and reading before the evening fizzles into a damp night.

It’s twilight outside, much like how it must have been when Mr. Bloom finished.

Tears

Tears. Four times, maybe five. Once for over five minutes. Adult man crying. No one but his kitty in the vicinity. The man is quiet around these episodes.

He doesn’t look like he is upset or happy. But his eyes show a steely readiness, a sense of realization of what he could be. Of what he had dreamed of being, of how what he has been doing is bringing him closer to that elusive goal.

What’s the goal, even he can’t define. He has tried several times. In his head, in writing, in conversations. Each time he tries, he shudders. Because it is immense and can’t be captured so easily. It has fuzzy edges.

Fame, fortune, and fulfillment, the troika, are in under the dampness beneath the edges. But there’s a whole lot more.

A sense of returning to the world something that he has taken from it. A cyclical movement. Entropy. The responsibility as a giver, to those yet knowing they need receiving.

The tears are because somewhere in him he has found something that is a coalescence of many things but is clearly more than its constituents. That thing is monstrous, like a dragon, that could protect or kill.

The tears are because of the collision of worlds, of ideas and imagination, of pride and feeling, of rawness and beauty, and of tenderness and anger.

That thing was discovered after the man put himself through the pace the night before. Using the tools he has, just birthed an egg that could hatch into terrific magnificence.

The fire in the belly is simpler to define. Simply a powerful movement of feeling and thought through minuscule words. And he’s doing just that right now.

But he has to do a lot more than to talk about it. And that’s what he’s going to do.

Introducing realistic discrepancies in your narrative

Let’s say you are listening to someone say, “Do you realize that you’re not on Earth?”

And then, let’s say, you are listening to someone say, “Remember Karen? She turned out to be a cheat.”

The likelihood of you changing your opinion, perception, or worldview regarding the world around you or, in the latter case, Karen, are vastly different.

I’m guessing that in real-life situations, you would be totally dismissive of the first comment, and may even have the urge to distance yourself from the person saying it.

In the second case, it all depends on where you stood with Karen and what you thought about her. Even if you were close friends with Karen, and you were totally sure that she was not cheating, you’d suddenly have a seed of doubt as to whether she is. That you don’t know something about her and it has slipped you by.

But for the former, there is no bloody chance, right? Unless of course, your religio-spiritual leanings make you already believe in a reality that could take in such a bizarre statement.

My question is this: these two statements seem to be new facts (or opinions) that could conflict with what you already know or believe in. So why is the second statement more likely for you to change your belief.

Going a couple of steps deeper, how if you were aware of how our brains store information, could you build realistic sounding discrepancies in your creation, thus delivering a more engaging story?

Stellar

It’s a stellar stain on one of the glass panes on the west-facing wall of my office building. I sit on the eight floor of the 10-story office building beside it to have lunch every workday.

Honestly, I have started loving the fact that it will remain outside the reach of powerful corporate entities that live and breathe inside the building. Its perseverance will only be tested by the window cleaners come around the next time, and that’s probably after the monsoons.

The physical laws that govern our universe generally make sure that bird-shit stains are more common on relatively horizontal surfaces. Like the roofs of buildings or the heads of people.

Because we are talking about one on the eighth floor, there is a chance that someone on the terrace might have thrown something splotchy and the wind might have caught it and brought it to where it is. But that’s unlikely considering the size.

It’s enormous. I would imagine about 6 inches by 3 inches. What bird shits that much at one go? Plus, the size of the birds that inhabit the cityscape, which are also governed by the laws of physics, also necessitate the stains to be of a certain size. At least not beyond a certain size.

It appears as a slanted ellipsoid with two conjugated diameters. Longer vertically, thanks to gravity. But it seems like the window decided to park in the way of it northward descent, which it inherited from its creator.

So the most likely option is this. A humungous northbound bird, flying high enough, defecating at the precise instant to create the largest bird-shit splotch to give me company at lunch. Sounds reasonably deterministic and thus unlikely.

So where did it originate? I have thought several times.The only other option is a potentially nefarious trash situation from a low-lying plane/balloon. I’m not saying that someone shat flying low, but someone could have thrown away semi-solid food that create the stain.

What do you think?