Free Writing 109 – Suburban Mumbai – 9.38 AM – Part 3

Another conversation

He walked around the two long aisles, trying to decide what he would have with coffee. He had decided on making scrambled eggs, so only the bread was a matter in question.

“Those buns are fresh out of the oven.” He was caught by surprise because he hadn’t realized that he was being observed.

“Oh, nice,” he said. “Which ones are the best, you think?”

“You don’t want to be asked to pick your best child, do you?”

“Well, in my case, it’s clear. It’s the boy.”

“How many girls, then?”

“Just the one. The older one, actually.”

“What does she like?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, what kind of buns does she like.”

He wasn’t prepared for that. “Um, actually I don’t know. She doesn’t live with… I don’t live with them anymore, actually. They are up north.”

“Oh, I’m not sure if you prefer this arrangement.”

“What arrangement?” He was piqued.

“Having the mornings all for yourself. Getting to choose what to eat. When you are living with others, you can never make these decisions so freely. You can even choose the type of bun you want to have. Without worries. It’s just you.”

“Do you choose for everyone too?”

“I don’t have everyone to choose for, actually.”

He was not sure how to respond to that. “I’m not sure I understand.”

“My father is a bit of a tough guy. Doesn’t like talking too much. There’s no one else at home.”

“So where’s he today?”

“Oh, he’s gone for fishing. He does that on Friday mornings.”

“What’s special on Friday mornings?”

“The buns. Like on every morning.”

“Okay, okay. So if you were to choose buns for yourself, and assume that you haven’t baked them, what would you choose.”

“You’re back to the same question. The one that I responded with a question to you.”

“Yes, and I said I preferred my boy. Actually, he’s more of a man now. But anyway, I had an answer. What about you?”

“Do you like your coffee black?”

“Ummm, no. A bit of sugar and cream.”

“Hot, I presume.”

“Yes.”

“Go with the cinnamon ones or the chocolate. If you like black, the plain ones are the best. With a dollop of butter.”

“Makes sense.”

“I always do.”

He liked her confidence. Like her father, but more approachable. He went around and picked up coffee and some other grocery items. As she was scanning them, he noticed that the book. There was a bookmark toward its end.

“So how’s it?”

She looked at him. She saw his gaze and looked down.

“Oh, not too bad, actually.”

“What’s it?”

“It’s an old one. Obscure.”

“I like obscure books.” He looked for a response, but since she wasn’t giving any, he continued. “Who’s it by”?

“Bradbury. Ray Bradbury.”

“I haven’t read too many of his works. Didn’t he have a TV show?”

“I have no idea, but this is a book that could technically be converted to a screenplay for a show, I guess.”

“What’s the book called?”

She had finished scanning the item. She turned the little LCD display and pointed me toward to the card machine. As he fumbled with his wallet, she picked up the book, turned it around, and showed him the cover.

It was called Quicker Than The Eye. The front had a poor illustration, a painting perhaps, of a stream with plants and rocks, but the back had a fat, old man sitting at his desk. He had worn his curly brown hair down to his shoulders. He had a smile. He reminded me of his father.

“Thanks, I’ll check it out.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, I meant I’ll buy a copy.”

“You don’t have to. Come around tomorrow and I’ll give this to you. And there will be buns, fresh ones.”

He smiled. Her eyes had a hint of brown and blue. He tried to remember the color of her father’s eyes. He saw a photograph of them, when she was maybe 8 years old, behind the printer. It was a black and white one. The father had not smiled for the photograph. She had.

Free Writing 109 – Suburban Mumbai – 9.38 AM – Part 2

The Morning After

The morning after was even brighter. He loved such mornings. He wished it would rain on him all night inside his body. Inside his brain. He wanted to feel nice and shiny in the mornings. He used to feel like that once. Back when he was young. Maybe in his early twenties. His career path had been decided, and he was still awaiting admission in a prestigious institution. He had to move for his post-graduation, and he couldn’t wait for the semester to start.

So during those months awaiting his eventual moving out, he had that smugness of knowing that his parents couldn’t do a thing to make him change his course. He could ease out his responsibilities, one burden at a time. They had to learn to take care of things in his absence after all.

That’s when he had learned the joy of catching up with all the things he had somehow missed during his childhood and formative years. He read a lot. He watched a lot. He went back to the hobbies he liked the most. He even had a routine. He could stick to that without worrying about the consequences.

To immerse oneself in pure creative pursuit. That was what had made those mornings neat and shiny. He would wake up without an alarm, to birds and the sounds of the kitchen, and he would spend that extra few minutes in bed, taking in his sensations and the experiences from the last day. He would then saunter out, make himself a coffee, and get back to whatever he had stopped doing the last night. This would go on until the time he had to have his meals, and because his mother would cook, he didn’t have to care about it much. Of course, there would be an odd errand that he would have to run, but now he was running them with the knowledge of not needing to run these in a mere few weeks. Errands became fun again.

In the evenings, he would go out and meet his friends. He would go drinking occasionally, but what he loved doing with his friends was to eat the street food. His family was averse to the good stuff, because of religious reasons. Another reason why he hated religion. On his way back, usually, he would stop by the rental store and pick up the movies that he had missed. He’d come home, slip a new DVD in, and simply start watching. His father might occasionally come around to his room, asking him if he had plans to go to bed, and he would simply let him know that he didn’t know.

He wished his days would be like that now. Only the city and the air were clean. His mind was ragged. He had a headache despite the water and the two aspirins that he had taken soon after waking up. He was a mess. And he didn’t have anyone to cook for him. His coffee tin was nearly empty. So he dressed, wore a coat to just be prepared for another shower, and walked to out the door.

On the way to the convenience store, he noticed bright faces. Couples holding hands, groups of children heading to school. He thought of his children. He then thought of their mother, his ex-wife.

He thought of the weekend mornings when he’d make scrambled eggs with the right consistency for everyone. Dry for his daughter, medium for his done, extremely runny for his wife, and just the right state for himself. He would break all the eggs into the pan, add the seasoning, and would serve out the eggs in that order, with his daughter’s being the last. He would then get the toasts from the oven and would prod all of them out of bed.

By the time had finished his eggs in his vision, he was near the convenience store. He walked in, noticing the little bell at the door for the first time. The man at the counter was replaced by someone much younger. And it was a she.

Free Writing 109 – Suburban Mumbai – 9.38 AM – Part 1

At the bar

He was obsessed with things. He was obsessive to begin with, but it had gotten worse since when she left her. He blamed himself, which was another obsessive trait. It was easy for him to blame himself. After all, he was always there to take the blame. And he did not need an accomplice to fix him. He could do this all by himself.

Yet, once in a while, when he would meet up with his friends, maybe a couple of drinks down, he would ask them a question, “It’s all me, isn’t it?” Some of his friends, when caught unaware of the patterns would ask him, “What? What is all you?” He would start explaining and they would catch up in the first minute and would wait for him to finish for the next ten minutes or so. They wanted to be kind to him. They didn’t want them to be the ones who told him to stop.

“Stop.” Such a powerful word. In such a tight little package. Not too hard from an oropharyngeal gymnastics point of view, yet it could change the world. It would change the world because it would apply to every individual who was involved in the world being the world as it is. Stopping all the self-immolatory behavior, at the individual, societal, national, and planetary levels, would change everything, wouldn’t it.

His friends were not all intellectuals, but the ones that he preferred having drinks with were. They had pretty lives and ugly lives. They had problems and troubles like anyone else. But they still would understand and relate to some of the things that he was interested in. The obscure books that he loved to read, some by conscription and some by pure joyous volition. The latter was less frequent and more difficult for someone like him.

The things that he was obsessed with changed, but the one thing that remained more or less certain was the thirst to know. Know more of everything. Experience everything. Experiential drugs were the next item on his list, but he had said no to them so far. He thought he was a pussy for doing that, but there had to be a line. Even if there wasn’t, he’d make one. In this case, he had help. He had his friends (the intellectual ones) and his therapist guiding him to make one. He made one and then continued to maintain them.

It was on a rainy Thursday evening that he had looked at this line. From all angles. From above, through a lens, and flying far over the building he was having a drink with. And he had decided that maybe the line had to go. His friend had already been tired of him asking for help for pile on more of the blame. So when he asked her the question, she was quite startled.

“Do you have something on you?”

She took a moment to realize what he was referring to.

“No, darling. We have talked about it. It’s not a good idea for you. Your therapist, remember?”

“Screw my therapist,” he said after draining the remainder of the stout that was left in his glass. The noises from the streets were dulled by the lashing in the windows, which seemed cleaner. He could see people scurrying to get under shelter. He beckoned the bartender and poured him another before she could get a hand on his sleeve.

He pushed the hand away. “Look at how I am. Am I any less worse than I used to be? And I’ve been sticking to whatever she tells me. For years. Hell, I even have a meditation routine. And yet, am I happy? Tell me, would it be any worse if I tried.”

His friend got up from her chair and moved toward him. Her bag, hooked onto the backrest, fell. She picked it up, looked around, and came over to his side.

“Listen. I don’t have anything with me. I had given up all that long ago. In fact, before my marriage. It seemed childish to me that I once had. I don’t need to think. I pretty damned sure you don’t.”

“And how can you tell?” as he darkened. He raised his voice, “In fact, why should you be the one to tell?”

The bartender had his drink ready. She went over and picked it up. A nervous hint of a smile seemed to allay the bartender. At least for the moment.

“Why don’t I pay up? Let’s get you back home. You finish it. I’ll get the bill.”

He didn’t have an answer to that. As they walked back, under a large umbrella, with his left shoulder and her right one getting wet, the lights of the city seemed cleaner and brighter.

Free-Writing 108 – Suburban Mumbai, 8:54 PM – Part 3 – Home is only one when it is yours

“So how was it?”

“What?” she asked, honestly confused.

“Your trip. The vacation. Did you cast your vote?”

“Of course, I did.” She looked at her hands but didn’t show the evidence.

He had made a list of points to go over with. His help had returned after about two weeks. He noticed a genuine smile in her eyes. It’s been a long time. It must be such a relief to not have to worry about others’ problems for a while. Others’ problems and mending them. She would have probably had a lot of time simply being herself, with her friends and family.

He went over the list. She listened to patiently. He enjoyed giving her the responsibility of maintaining his household. He would often ask her, “What would you do if you had to do this at home?” He wondered if that made sense to her, or to anyone else for that matter. It never is your home unless it is yours.

His dog liked her more than he did him. Probably because she came home regularly and fed him, even when he was away on vacation. Vacations were becoming less frequent, but travel trips were becoming more.

He made it a point to visit his children at least once every quarter, and despite the short plane ride, it felt tiresome. Things had me so much easier when they were home. When he was home. When the whole family was together. But things had changed unexpectedly over the course of a mere few months, and he had become estranged from his then-wife.

Honestly, he hadn’t thought about the consequences when he could have, and he had let things play out. He didn’t even question why his wife wanted separation. He had carelessly assumed that it was because of what she thought he lacked, which was an easier conclusion to arrive at than otherwise. Eventually, he found out that she had fallen in love, truly for the first time, with another man. The relocation of the children was a difficult decision, but they went with her, with her new husband to the nearby city.

At least the dog stayed with him. That gave a sense of home remaining what it was. It was with some difficulty that he found a house-help that would come in every day and fulfill the role that his wife once did—take care of the household.

During the time the help was away, he had rediscovered the joy of running the house all by himself, and he had so many things to share. Tips on how to dust and how to manage the kitchen counter clutter. His help was fascinated by his alacrity in such matters and would listen to him patiently even though the things he said were things that she knew from her childhood.

He went back to his office. The frame was slightly off its usual place. He made it just right. Four smiles, all seemed genuine. One set of eyes had a tinge of darkness, and it was his.

Free-Writing 108 – Suburban Mumbai, 8:54 PM – Part 2 – Best of All Worlds

Sometime later in the day, he came back to the thought of the necessity of consumption of art for its creation. The ironic thing was that he was literally consuming something that he had brought of lunch. He thought of why he liked making what he made.

He took pride in making his specialties every once in a while, and when he did, he liked sharing. He liked people to tell him what they liked, like anyone else would, and he was generally confident that those who he shared his cooking with would like them.

He had been inspired by the things he consumed. Like the savories his mother made, the spaghetti and meatballs that one of his exes made, and the mushroom soup that his wife made. Sometimes he would get inspired to create what he ate, and he would then start the process of making the recipe his own. A very few of such dishes would then become what he made regularly, and once they reached a certain maturity stage, he would make them for others.

Last weekend he had made a batch of those savories that his mother had inspired him about. He brought some to work and shared it with the three friends he tended to have lunch with, and they had told him in such vastly different ways how they liked his dish. He was pretty sure that they weren’t lying, even though the one who reviewed the food like she was a food connoisseur did make him suspicious if she was faking it. He imagined her in bed, under him, and wondered if she would sound any different.

Back to the art. He painted every now and then. His inspirations were primarily from the Renaissance era, but he painted in a modern style. He thought about whether if his choice of style was dependent solely on him consuming art. The museum visits, often alone but sometimes with his wife, would trigger something deep inside him. He would then go to the attic and pick up his art supplies and paint for a few days, often coming out with nothing worthwhile to show.

He wanted to be able to honestly state shit like, “the joy is the journey of creation not the output,” but he couldn’t. For him, an output was equally important. In fact, he often wished if he could somehow find a shortcut to the output, to the stage where he would create something worth sharing, instead of having to go through the process of creating it. To think it, is to start doing it, he remembered. The real apogee would be to just have what you thought—what you wished for—materialize in front of you, purely because you thought. You alone thought it, and the miracle that created the final output would give him the whole of its ownership.

Gods had an easy life. Also, the lack of any responsibility for their creations. That’s the best of all worlds.

Free-Writing 108 – Suburban Mumbai, 8:54 PM – Part 1 – If wishes were horses

Thinking about doing something is the start of doing it. Sure, that sounds plausible. But what if you don’t end up doing it at all? Did you do it then, simply having thought about it?

These were the types of thoughts that he woke up with. There were dreams and nightmares and regular worries, but when there weren’t any, such thoughts would prevail, much like thoughts regarding loved ones, goals, and successes would for others. He often wondered if it was the books he read, the radio he listened to, or the stuff he watched. Everything worthwhile thinking has already been thought. A thousand times. He is now the one-thousand-and-one-th time. That must be some achievement, he was sure.

An image of a lighthouse floated in from an unspecified location inside his memories. Surely not from a novel for kids that he had read. Fantastic Four? But why was it relevant. His interaction with his brother’s son had taken a turn for the better over the past month or so. He had bought some books and stationery for him and he had to go through a list of fiction. That’s when his past came to him. The times he had in simply picking up books without having the obligation to do anything with it. No pressure to finish them. Just the joy of reading them. The joy of discovery.

Where has all that gone? Does it leave when adulthood rears its ugly head? Is it the burden of responsibility, ambition, and self-sustenance that chips away at the joys of simple acts as reading? He did enjoy reading, listening, and watching, but there was a certain element of pressure for needing to process the thought he was consuming. It has to make sense in the grand context of things. It has to lead to something. It can’t be just for the sake of doing.

His mind circled back to the lighthouse. There was a movie that he was unable to remember the name of. And another book, something he had re-read recently. He remembered both the scenes more vividly than his childhood experiences. As he worked his way to the present time, things seemed to crystallize. If only it were that simple with the traumatic memories. If only, and he would not need to spend so much on the sessions of therapy. Hell, he would even be able to live a life like how everyone expects him to do, how everyone expects themselves to do, and, to a large extent, how everyone does.

If wishes were horses, he would be a unicorn.

Free-Writing 107 – Suburban Mumbai, 3:55 PM – Part 2 – The Convenience Store

There is always something that one feels a pang of regret about. It is there to fill a void so as to lessen the pain of something that is so hurtful that you don’t even realize it exists. He felt that. His regret was for not having said what he should have said. He wondered if it was the most common type of regret that one had. It is common because speaking is probably the most accessible act of communication that one has. It is so effortless, at most times at least. He marveled at the power that it holds, in terms of what it can do and what it can’t, in terms of what it can build and what it can destroy, and in terms of what it can say without saying it.

He had said something stupid. But what was hurting was what he had not. He went over the conversation for what seemed like the thousandth time.

He looked around. He saw a rat gnawing at something that was alive a few days ago. He briefly made eye contact with him and the rat scurried away. Too bad, fellow. I kept you from your dinner. The rustle of leaves in the smoke. Bats and crickets seemed to go on about their lives. People were buying ice-creams after dinners. The milkmen were cleaning their utensils before taking them to the stables. The odd whistle of a pressure cooker. The hooting of a train somewhere far away.

The fallen leaves sparsely lining the street gently parted to let a fast-moving moped through. It was going the opposite way, away from home. At that thought, he felt refreshed.

He checked his bearings again and he thought he spotted a shop that looked familiar. He walked toward it. It was those kinds of shops that sold everything that one could possibly want at this time of the day. Or the night. A woman was walking out from the store clutching something under her arm. It looked bulky, but not heavy. She took a look at him, didn’t like what she saw, and walked briskly away.

He swung the door open and stepped it. He leafed through the items on the shelves toward the right while keeping an eye out for the shopkeeper, who seemed to have gone to the back. The little bell on the curtain chimed.

“Hello there,” he said. “Do you keep copies of photography magazines?”

“Nope. It doesn’t sell. Pulp sells. And I can only afford to keep what does.”

“Anything interesting?”

“Ha, nice one.”

He was confused. “I’m not joking. Is there something nice that I can pick up.”

“If you are asking me if I have a recommendation among the pulp that I sell, I say you buy them all.” He stopped and looked at me. He took a puff and continued, “That way I get to live and you get to read. Trash or not, it is still something to read.”

“Sounds like you don’t read too much.”

“What makes you think that?” he asked, throwing his cigarette on the floor and crushing it. He was wearing a nice pair of boots.

“No, nothing. I didn’t mean to be rude.”

“No, I don’t take offense. Wanted to know how you arrived at the conclusion?”

“Oh, nothing really. I’m sorry. I should be going.”

“Please. But pick up something on the way out. Pick up anything, really. I don’t care what you read, but I do care that I run this business.”

He thought about that for a second. Interestingly, he did care for what the shopkeeper read. He wasn’t sure why.

The first thing that caught his hand was something titled Fall of the Titans – a ravishing tale of the wealthy engaging their vices. He didn’t have the time to choose again. He paid for it, thanked the shopkeeper, and walked out.

The night was young.

Free-Writing 107 – Suburban Mumbai, 3:55 PM – Part 1 – Quality

A few years ago… scratch that. Maybe a few months ago… scratch that too. It’s somewhere in between. It’s actually 2 years and a few months.

Twenty-seven months ago, he had engaged with a book that was a thesis on the concept of quality. Quality of things, art, workmanship, relationships, and so forth. At that time, he had felt alienated because he hadn’t come across such an analysis, despite him being in the business of quality assurance. He felt like a failure, as always. The fact that his own boundless thoughts on the nature of quality were not documented was enough for him to want to bury himself in a hole. But someone else had done it better. That too, several years ago. Someone else had been better and sharper than him. That someone, despite their meek, self-aware nature as portrayed through the text in the book, had simply beaten him. They had made a mockery of him in the eyes of the world. In his own eyes. But they didn’t know it.

He wondered if the author lived on. For a brief moment, he considered writing to the author to explain what he thought of the book and what additional discourse he would have added. Maybe in doing so, he would make better arguments. Maybe he would write a higher-quality book.

He often had these thoughts. He believed that everyone had them, but he knew about only his own thoughts. He thought about that for a minute. Maybe I should go out more and socialize. Engage in conversation with people. Friends, family, and strangers. Maybe have a cognitive duel. Not every exchange will be hurtful, he thought. He could stand on his own without hurting himself or others. But that hadn’t happened. At least, consistently. So he had given up on the idea of socialization.

He had thought about quality because he was considering how things that everyone should be able to do are only done by a very select few people. And among those, only the vast minority became successful at sustaining themselves with the things. He would listen to an artist on the radio and think, maybe I can sing or talk like them. He could, like anyone could, and not too bad at that either. But he was not on the radio. He was just another person, walking the streets, searching for something that he was not sure he wanted to find. He was a failure. That’s a fact that had a certain amount of certainty to it.

Then he thought of the book that he had just started reading. It was called The Iron Heel. It came as a left-field suggestion from someone and he had not thought too much about it until he started it. But the book took him by surprise. It had quality. It was arguing about arguments. About the duel between metaphysics and science. He had not thought about these things as well as the author had. He felt in awe of the author and bad about himself. He wanted to have thought of this himself.

He had walked so far away from the streets that he was familiar with that he realized that he was lost. He turned out with the hope of finding something that he might be familiar with, but he found nothing. Just the bustle of the city, the cries of children, and the dust and pollution. The never-ending desolation of overcrowding. He decided to walk back and get lost in thought. He should find himself back around the place where he had started getting lost in thought. One type of loss replaces another. Another type cures the other.

Free Writing 106 – Suburban Mumbai, 9.57 PM – Part 2 – Learnings

It was the third “worst” day in a series. Logic would indicate that it could get worse in the coming days. It could mean that he would not survive. It could mean that he would be living the last days of his life. Maybe the last hours. He doesn’t know for sure. No one can be sure. Such had been the news coming in from around the world.

It was still early days. It was the fourth pandemic of the decade, and the twenty-third of the century. His history lessons had informed him about when it had started. Pretty innocuously. At the start of the third decade. A virus that simply overwhelmed the hosts fast enough to simply make the vulnerable die. It had changed the society in many ways, and despite the few years of economic acceleration after the restoration of normalcy after the introduction of vaccines, the virus stayed. In the fifth post-pandemic year (5+P0, as it is called), a new strain was found. After another cycle of ups and downs, the third virus came and so on.

He was born in 42+P0, and since then there were 22 pandemics. Basically, one every other year, with the odd ones every next year. So it wasn’t anything new, but what was worrying him was that, among the few hundred thousand people left, he had one of the best genetic constitutions to fight against the strains.

In fact, he was among the small minority that had been given a near 100% resistance against any potential strains for the next several decades. He was so resistant that he had skipped a few vaccine cycles despite the sheer mortality surrounding him.

It was devastation. Chaos. Relationships didn’t mean much. The only relationships that mattered were genetic lineage ones, because of his lineage’s strength of course, and he had gone soft.

For his generation, invincibility was surviving the third pandemics, and he was god.

He considered his situation. His lifestyle was luxurious purely because of the investment capital that had come to his family, again, thanks to their lineage. He was one of the three heirs, but the other two were much weaker than him in the resistance parameters, thus making him almost the most important individual on the planet.

So, he didn’t want to make it public that he was finally showing the symptoms and the cyclical worsening. On the moralistic side, he didn’t want to let the whole world down. He didn’t want to let himself down either. So he took a chance. He decided to go about it without thinking about it too much. He simply believed in himself. He believed that would wake up the next morning as well. Not only wake up, but feel better.

So he went about his merry ways, learning voice mimicry.

Free Writing 106 – Suburban Mumbai, 9.57 PM – Part 1 – Illness

How many times must a man fall ill before he is ineligible to be ill?

Corny as it sounded, he thought it. He did not mind being unabashedly biased toward referencing from his particular box of inspirations. This reference was relatively obscure for anyone who is younger than thirty-five and those who like folk music. But he didn’t care. It was his own thought. He wasn’t planning to share it with anyone.

He thought about it once more. He didn’t consider his thoughts to be routinely corny, but he wasn’t feeling all that well. The brain slows down with the body. He had heard that everywhere. His granny said that a lot. But he really didn’t need anyone to have told him. He knew it.

It was the third day of the worst. It had started off unceremoniously. Just another flu. The heatwave. Allergies. All sort of causes floated. On the fourth morning, he realized things were getting worse. He actually heard it get worse. He sounded different. He actually sounded better. Better because he sounded different from what he used to and it wasn’t painful. His particular brand of self-loathing had a sprinkling of mother and peers.

He said a few words to himself. The usual stuff. “Good morning”, “Hello”, and “How are you doing?” He then tried a bit more complex stuff. Not too bad either. He looked up recordings of his favorite characters and actors and tried them out. Impressive. He started envisioning a future where he would be popular at parties doing voice mimicry. He had just watched a TV show where an autistic detective had suspected someone as the culprit in a murder case because of their voice mimicry abilities.

After the morning coffee and his routines, he became even more ambitious, with diminishing returns. Eventually, he got tired and he was back to his original thought.