Apocrypha, Part I

NOTE::

The characters or the theme bear absolutely no resemblance to my friends/family/acquaintances. The following story is entirely a part of my imagination. Please excuse the profanity.
Thanks.


The changing colors of the television screen reflected off the polished metal-and-glass display case and caught her eye more often than the television screen itself. Her eyes defocused often behind her glasses as she drifted in and out of the reality in her apartment on the 9th floor. The glazed look the defocusing lent her face often made her friends and family suspect she was on drugs and they often secretly discussed how to get her off them. She was slightly surprised when her brother hinted strongly about the inadvisability of drugs at such a vulnerable age, and assumed he was soliloquizing. She suggested a good rehab center and advised him not to tell their parents he was on drugs. He’d stared at her blankly. Too far gone to be helped, she’d shrugged, and had walked away leaving him confused and scratching his head.


A woman in a pink salwar-kameez was shrieking about the current cold wave killing hundreds in North India and she focused on the television screen, giving credence to the fact that the woman may actually know what she was talking about. Most people around her didn’t know what they were talking about, or doing. It seemed to be the latest fad, doing things blindly on impulse, without thinking, leaving the brain in cold storage to be used by generations to come. Maybe they were compensating the children of the future for the gas deficiency by leaving them their unused brains. She really couldn’t account for the fact that most of the people she came in contact with had had lobotomies with magnificently concealed stitches, otherwise. The woman in pink, for example- she looked like a normal person, quite warm, with a pink Cashmere sweater and silk scarf to match- without severe cerebral paralysis or some other such obscure mental disorder, and yet she continued forming words with no meaning while the cameraman zoomed into a shot of a shivering, waist-upwards naked pre-teen boy who had probably been dragged out of the comparative warmth of his hut to stand in the biting cold winds to provide the real-time TV effect for the millions of viewers huddled up in blankets with warm coffee.


Suddenly the woman in pink metamorphosed into an impossibly round, fat-bottomed, tragic little politician who was made fatter if such a thing were possible by the multiple sweaters and shawls that looked expensively warm, who spoke in a high, pathetic little whine about how his hands were tied and how much he was trying to do for the people who were suffering from the cold. She nodded firmly. His hands were tied inexorably to the woolen gloves that held a steaming cup of coffee. The phone rang somewhere in the vicinity and she reached out to pick it up.

“Yes.”
“Hello? We’re stuck in the rain. We’ll be an hour late. I just called to tell you so you wouldn’t get worried.” Her mother said.
“Thank you.”
“What? Oh. Yes, Yes, I suppose. We’ll bring dinner.” her mom said, a little disconcerted.
“Thank you.” She hung up.


‘She gets stranger day by day.’ her mother would be telling her father who had stopped listening to anything his family said about fifteen years ago. Not because nothing they said had any intellectual relevance any more, but because he had more or less lost the ability to comprehend anything beyond his opinion. Her brother was the universally accepted angel in the family, the boy wonder who had a smile and a kind word for everyone… everyone that mattered. He had been born with the unnatural capacity to identify people and things that were of consequence to him and his material future. She, closer to his age and able to see things her parents turned a blind eye to, knew that ‘universally accepted angel’ was a misnomer and ‘unacknowledged ass’ would be a better description.


And herself? The Strange. Always sarcastic, critical, smart-ass, uncaring, selfish. She smiled to herself when she realized how hollow the words sounded in her head. They often had no meaning any more- sentences were rarely much more than words strung together, and words had never been too much more than letters combined to sound good. Of course, there were exceptions. Just as the words fuck off sounded so perfectly rhythmic, in resonance with the emotion that the word generated, poodle was such a silly-sounding word, and she felt, even had a derogatory connotation to the dog in question. Of course, she’d come to lose any feelings generated with describing herself that way. It was just how others described her, and given the amount of intelligence she credited others with, it was probably pointless to take their description. Until a while ago, she rather felt happy about being categorized cynical, critical and uncaring. It rather distinguished her from the other positive, encouraging and altruistic personalities that her immediate social circle seemed to be made up of.
But again, once she realized they had no idea what they were talking about, she realized she probably wasn’t critical or cynical at all. After all, they were just tossing words around probably because substituting ‘effing bitch’ in place of all the adjectives above would be politically incorrect. She didn’t like being called selfish, though. Even though it seemed to others to fit well in with her character, she thought selfishness characteristic of a degenerate organism. Parasitic behavior was inexcusable in a higher evolved body like man, and every action that was selfish was one step closer to unmasking oneself to reveal the unicellular organism within the human exterior. Of course, that was debatable. Man was taking definitive steps towards de-evolving back into an animal.


She reflected with a grin that the docile sheep was the preferred morph. And not all men were becoming simple sheep, but often wolves in sheep’s clothing. Ha. At least the sheep had the guts to be its brainless fluffy self. Was intelligence and being one thought quicker than the next person the most critical thing in the world? Couldn’t simple redneck values or emotions exist that weren’t classified by supercilious neo-Freudians into belonging to the id, ego and superego?


She turned the television off and headed directly to the terrace. It was dark and wet as expected, and was extremely windy. She blew air out steadily and watched the raindrops distort her white, cold breath. The feeling of standing eighteen floors elevated above the road traffic and watching her breath-dissolved drops fall down into eternity below was exhilarating. She leaned back slightly into the open sky and watched the dark rain clouds as the drops hit her face and hair heavily and streamed down her body, drenching her slowly but to the bone. The wind was strong and blew her wet hair away from her face and body, fanning her cold breath out into a mist above. She blew out again and stood submissively against the wind, her arms at her sides, her knees slightly bent, her face tilted back to feel the cold rain sting her, drench her body completely so wet that she could no longer feel her clothes on her skin. Her lips formed the golden words up to the sky above.

Fuck You.

what, every arbit post has to have a title?

Bah.

What a lame thing this title is. I mean, I'm here to bitch. And be philosophical. and you want me to title my bitchings? I mean, yeah, up yours.

Things i did today.
1. visited Patti (good thing)
2. stepped in dog shit. (bad thing.)
3. listened to drops of jupiter 11 times. (.. thing.)

I'm back to college in 3 days man. I can't believe this!! It hardly feels like I got here today morning. And I know you're saying, ah with a been there done that but GO AWAY! I don't care!

It's not fair them asking me to come back. I know I'm wanted back at college but surely the poor dipshits can do without my presence until maybe, ah, next semester?

That's how long a soul vacation I want.

Breathe.

mood: antagonized.

that's enough!!

How continuously thoughts run through the mind....

Like you're standing inside a room and you're continuously being pelted by these small elf-like things with balloons filled with coloured water and each time one hits you you're suffused with a different hue and sometimes multiple ballons strike you simultaneously and if you're lucky the colour's good but sometimes you land up looking like a moron... absolutely confused... stop, halt.. goddamn you, STOP throwing those balloons at me I have enough to deal with here you! I said stop it! Dammit... you thing, you... you, stop throwing thoughts at me! I don't want to THINK!!!!

The Accent Effect

I remember this conversation as of three years ago. And it still makes me grin.

My 14 year old cousin had come down from the States fully equipped with halter tops and a strong East coast accent which was often difficult for even her family to interpret. For us lower mortals, it was virtually a lost case. For quite a while, I got by with sign language after which I began to recognize the sounds.(the words were still tough.) My grandmother had given up on talking to her and used my aunt as translator. Gotta admire my cousin's determination though. Not once through the whole month did we understand a sentence at the first trial.

My grandmother's house, where my relatives were staying, is in the same apartment complex as mine. And we had a parallel line telephone system between Patti's house. That was when BSNL lines took four months to turn into anything more concrete than an empty promise. Patti didn't get too many phone calls (didnt. Now she networks much better than I do. But I digress.) so we drew an extra line from one of the two landlines at home and connected it to a phone there. So what often happened was phone calls for me/sister/father at that number used to get picked up at Patti's and had to be transferred back here- or if we picked it up here as well, the line had to kept down there, blah blah. Following is an excerpt of one such instance.

Note: The following conversation is to be read with appropriate tamil and East coast accents.

Three rings. I leave the sofa to get it, before which the rings stop- indicating the line was picked up at Patti's. I pick up.

Cousin: Hel-ll-oh.
Innocent caller: Yallo? Yallo?
Cousin: Hell-ooh?
I.C: Yallo? Yallo? Yallo?
Cousin: Hey, who IS this? Hell-oh!!?
Prabha: *muffled laughter*
I.C: Yallo? Ramakrishnan aiyya veeda? Yallo?
Cousin: Who's that? Who's Ayya? Mo-oom, do you know any Rama Ayya? * Rama Ayya- rahma ah-yah
I.C: Yallo ma? Enna ma neenga? Naan plumber peysaren! Yallo! Yallo! Ramakrishnan sir irukkangala?
Cousin: No, mo-om, some guy got the wrong number, he's asking for a Rama Ayya. Hey, you got the wrong number.
Plumber: Enna wrong number aa? Enna ma solligara? (Woman, what the hell are you saying?) Yallo medam eez Ramakrishnan saar?
Cousin: Hell-ooh?
Plumber: Yallo? Yello? Yallo-yello?
Prabha: Hello? Hello? (I couldn't resist gatecrashing the Hello party.)
Cousin: Hell-ooh?
Prabha: Hello? Hello?
Plumber: Yallo? Yullo?

And on that lovely note the plumber slammed the phone down.

The only one in the family who wasn't too happy about the relation of the tale was Papa. :-( He lost a good plumber.
And yes, we disconnected the parallel line system and got Patti a separate line. Which is now always busy, I must add.

a little too ironic

Its like rain on your wedding day
Like a free ride when you've already paid
The good advice you just didnt take...
Who would have thought... it figures....

Isn't it ironic... don't you think...

Oh, I do think.

Come back home after four months.. (I know I came back twice in the middle, but for inconsequential periods of time)... eight days gone past.. and the only thing I can say I've done worth its while is is visit the doctor...

How come it happens this way each time... you plan and plan and fervently hope your plan works out next week, or next month... time crawls by unendurably...then somehow, bam! you're in the next month, and... excuse me, isn't something missing...?? Your plan? Shot to pieces!

Male 1(18) and I had big plans of hanging out in December, watching movies, shopping, walking the streets, eating out, spending hours at Besant Nagar beach, catching up on four months... M1(18) catches a flu, and now won't return any phone calls. A flu one week ago and the guy can't return frickin' phone calls?

Female 1(18) and yours truly have been planning sleepovers in December since what seems like eternity. So much information (Read gossip) to exchange. Especially since this particular woman is the person I've been relating practically everything going on in my life to since... seventh grade?? F1(18) is still at college... and after a brief stopover of three days at home where she will have multiple things to do, she departs to some obscure bullshit place for a family vacation. *teeth grinding* Have fun.

Male 2(17) and I kept in amazing touch while at college. Quite surprising, considering the circumstances and level of communication between us before leaving to college. I think we both naturally assumed we'd talk a lot more once back in town. And meet often. And yet, this strange constraint of a self-built wall. Aah.. yeah.. lunch... sometime next week... umm... I guess...

~
Meet the man of your dreams
then meet his beautiful wife...
~

A little too ironic, I think.

Automatic Dislike.

Ever met someone you couldn't stand the sight of- the instant you saw them? For some inexplicable reason you take a dislike to them... the way he/she moves, talks, looks, smiles... everything the guy/girl does is criminal in your eyes.

Automatic Dislike.

I've been trying to find out from people where these sudden hate springs up from. One explanation could be: Like fingerprints, people radiate these waves that are unique to you. It's possible. Some people could be low frequency, high frequency, etc. [Let's not go into the unlikely nature of a non-dynamic-electromagnetic-field-producing body producing these waves.] And of course, we can go back to interference etc...

Can't say I agree. I'd be disliking a lot of people then. Again, I do, but not many people know that. Aw shush. We're not talking about me here. A lot of people who are generally amiable can't stand this particular chap they meet- or just see in the bus waiting at the signal to go in the opposite direction at a four-cross... You just know that if he/she actually met you, you'd want to sock them. That colour of the dress, that lousy perfume or the odoriferous lack of it, the garish shoe that went of vogue about forty years ago, that snobbish look on that spotty face, and oh! the goddamn worst of it all... appidiye Chicago la porandhu London la valandhu oru pitchakara accent la peysuvaangale... just hearing them on their cellular phones can send my blood temperature up into the high forties...

Forgive my becoming bilingual but I think that couldn't have been expressed as well in English.
I have my own theory. I think everyone is simply evil. It's just latent, waiting to spring out. And when you meet someone that brings that out in you... well... that's just your evil pardner, mon, you an' this guy, you destined for each otha', mon.

On Siestas and related stuff.

If it's non-nocturnal there are two other categories dreaming can fall into, IMHO. Day-dreaming and during a siesta. The former's possibly my favourite. I feel no need to relenquish my hold upon the surreal to keep a foot in the mundane. Though of course, I am accused of failing to do so (keep myself grounded) often enough- but fantasy is really too fantastic to give up. Isn't it often the case?
But I digress. I wanted to talk about the dreams that often torment you during that much-needed siesta. Chennai, my good woman, (yes, yes, or man) is a freaking hot place. The thermometer's usually right up there in the forties or almost always in the late thirties. The humidity factor is high enough to be right-down oppressive. All this, coupled with the fact that like most people reading this, I'm human and am extremely susceptible to those post-luncheon yawns... throw in the extra factor that my exams got over recently and what MORE do you want?

Oh, yeah, i advocate afternoon naps all right. I love 'em. Just hate the after-effects that go with them. You wake up with a start feeling hot, nauseated and with that feeling in the mouth, y'know, remembering that last dream you had and oh... it just refuses to go away like a decent morning dream. You stagger out of bed (my "naps" extend for three hours from two-ish to five-ish) and the rest of the day is one long zombie-like episode. I am unable to shake that feeling of heaviness in my eyelids, that lazy creak that threatens to be heard each time I move a limb, that over-all feeling of having slept just a goddamn bit too much when you have the whole goddamn evening ahead of you (and it's so fine too) and absolutely zilch enthusiasm to get on with the day and out of the house.

And the dreams. Ugh. About a week ago I dreamt my Grandmom, Dad and I were trapped in the house along with a teenage murderess who had killed before and wouldn't hesitate to kill again.( Yuck. It pains me to think that my subconscious is prone to such cheap thrills). Well, eventually, it turned out during the dream that my perfectly innocuous father was a Detective and was going to save the day. Not too well, though, I got stabbed in the tum by this female and of course, woke with that horrible start. It left a sour aftertaste.

I don't do much siesta-ing now. Nah. The after-effects are too much for me to handle.