Cliche

Cliché.
In our quest to carve our niche, we try to quell out the clichés. But clichés nowadays are not over used ideas,something done over and over that it fails to generate that buzz around it. In fact it is a rare commodity.The knight in shining armor for example. It is as rare as a black swan. Yet it is tossed around like such a common occurrence that it loses its grandeur.
A ridiculed metaphor.

How about “And they lived happily ever after”. We frown at the ending. Cliché. But if you stop to think, who lives happily ever after, after all? If I am not mistaken, it is the toughest art to master. To remain happy what so ever. Hence we try to urge people to think positively and in constant hope, says a mediocre Bollywood film director.

But on a different note, what happens when scenarios, actual cold blooded ones turn into clichés?
When you scan through the news paper and are bombarded with the usual (read cliché) events – you know rape, abuse, trafficking and of late, terror. People don’t want that anymore. Its common place, its boring. They want show biz. Not even show biz. They want scandal. Controversy. Dirty public laundry.

It makes me wonder how our brain works. It is actually a biological process after all. Conditioning. But is it a reflex to the information overload or is it a defence mechanism. Or is it our state of being so pre-occupied that we cannot let go of our world for a second and step into someone else’s devastated one?

Or is it plain boredom.

Pavlov’s dogs responded to the lab coats because they reminded them of food. So do men get turned on in a lingerie shop? I am hoping not. But humans have definitely evolved to mankind’s disadvantage and their advantage. They can zone in or out, whatever you want to call it. They can turn a deaf year to a yelp of a bitch, they can watch a video of a turkey being battered and relish it the next instant, they can become immune to almost anything as long as it does not directly tie into theirs. If there was a moral holocaust, we would out run or squish out the roaches any day!

We have such a precarious control over our mind, yet we have that weapon – control. I thrive on the bling bling of air headed beauties , I thrive on my f5 button to be up to date with my ever growing base of face book contacts. But I don’t flinch when I read of a murder anymore. Which is why the media needs to make it a story. You know, add a twist – an affair, adultery and some get more creative – now I have got all the reporters nodding.

So it brings me to a conclusion. It is boredom. We are bored too easily. Some of us, even before we got interested. That my friend, is our Achilles heel. Cliché again. In the words of Orwell, a dead metaphor. Something that starts out so grand (or heinous) and becomes so blatant (common place and global) that we stare right through it and forget it.

Which is why I think the media can play a much more powerful role. All that fuss about neuro marketing is not hum drum. They can get inside your head. But can they alter your thoughts. Can they for a second sell to you the rare commodity called empathy?

Can you imagine the terror of lying under your bed whispering to your husband the last good bye before they drag you out to shoot you (Cliché?) (Sabina Sehgal R.I.P) Can you see the glazed eye of a rape victim and know that tiny ember of life in those eyes have been stamped into the ground? (A million women across the globe) Can you for a second imagine the home invasion at Cheshire where Dr Petit heard his family being tortured and razed to the ground? (pray for their souls)

If you could, you would avoid it. You would fight for them so that they would fight for you. So can the media scare you to ACT? Can it force you to think by sticking up a tooth pick in between your eye lid and show you footages because you have forgotten what words mean?

Or because you are reading so fast, while all along waiting to Like the article and Share it with the rest of the world?

Scene at Domlur flyover

I hopped off the bus; jostled by the alighting herd. The art of mid-air spring-boarding and counter scurry being honed each day.The contact with tarmac triggers the mechanical glance of the wrist. Missing watch? Shoot!
Approaching wheels greeted with nonchalance; 'Talk to the hand' while the other sets the play-list for the day. Lucy in the sky with diamonds.
Two strides to the other side. Breathe. A minute or two left before an action replay.

I watch the bustle of vehicles, awaiting a crowd to leap right in front of the unsuspecting ones, preferably and generally a woman.No one stops until you make them.
A bus halts by the fly over. A young lady hops out and before I could scramble behind her she sprints to the other side.Sigh.
My knees feel hot and damp. My palms grazed yet again.Never follow these young ones.
The wild, wet tendrils only suggest a spillover of shower over grooming time.
She turns around with an impatient look panning the horizon for the next one; she meets my eye halfway.

I see her snap; her eyes widen and well up with sympathy. Its been a while since I saw that. I lose her now; it is clouded and glazed. To her thoughts; she is pondering over my life..What would it be to be me? A Shudder. I have seen that quite often.
I inch closer, waiting...

Eight forty, just about enough to make it in time. Wish I had a car. Which one..? Maybe that Santro...A used one would do. No, maybe that one, with the dent! That's more like me.
And then I see him.Crawling.
With deformed spindly legs that couldn't have supported him ever. With tattered clothes. I felt my hands fumble in my purse, waiting for it to jingle.
He saw me, maybe he would come to me for alms. I would be glad. But would it really matter?
Would that buy him a wheelchair? Couldn't people with disability live respectfully? I shuddered.

Just then a man walked past me. Towards him. He stood in front of the busy lane with defiance. Raised his hand and didn't budge. No. Not the traffic police.
The grateful cripple paced across skilfully.

My ears burned. He didn't approach me either. I didn't take the bus either. That man with a beautiful mind did. I walked behind the willowy man on stumps. I lost him to the crowd.

My heart went out to him but my head didn't. Why wasn't it programmed to reach out? Blurred by sympathy and helplessness. Anger surges. I pace up. I feel eyes on me. I see his smile. As he propels the makeshift wheel barrow of sorts. Among a fresh bundle of newspaper. I smile back.

The watchman

I walk in at mid night, the lane is deserted
the gate is bolted.
The rusted iron creaks and groans, I tread lightly
The elevator is on its way, and I see him watch me

I walk in at mid night, the lane is deserted. Two men walking toward stop mid way
I hurry toward the gate, the gate slides open
I walk in toward the elevator..I stop and think, what if they decide to follow?
I turn to see the gate has been bolted
He is red eyed and watching me
I nod at him, glad

I walk to the elevator I see a journal by his chair
What could he be doing with an intellectual's daily bread?
Swatting mosquitoes I decide and pick it up nonchalantly and walk right in.

The watchman returns to his chair. The book is gone. He smiles.
Well it helped him stay awake till she came.
Tomorrow he will have to buy another from the 'Raddhi waala'
And await her safety while he can

To whomsoever it may concern

The shuffling steps,turn into rustling leaves..
They rise up in her flurry
Whispering
Suzie what's the hurry?

Hocus pocus focus is bogus
Slipping through your fingers
The sands of time return to dust
Suzie...won't you stop and notice us

Close your eyes; smell the fragrance in the air
Feel the sun shining on you;touch your rain drenched matted hair...
For the flowers will bloom,the maple leaves will fall
As seasons fly by and life begins to crawl

And When time stands still and you turn around,
You see us but don't want to be found
For we are young and brimming with life
Suzie;how can we put you out of your strife

Suzie won't you sail away with us
To a place where you shall forever be
Suzie won't you fly away with us
across floating skies over green seas

Suzie will you forget the times that have never been
Suzie will you wake up from your aching distant dream?

Oh lord that elusive feeling of a life well spent, Instead of this malignant discontent….

How it is to be stuck in a moment for once
And to keep floating in the abyss of time the next instance

I am living in a world that is trapped in a crystal ball
With a seer who asks us to wait for miracles to befall

We wait for the first crystal flake
But alas like snow each one shows us the next road to take

We chart our different paths, to reach the end
We have raced against time and now, cannot make amends

We look up at the sky and there is no silver lining
We look down at the earth and see that it is shining

Life is not what it will be, but what it has always been
So what we have now is far worth what it could have been ( So what Do I have now )

Yet I live for tomorrow and I forget today
I breathe but I am not breathing… I am just existing

And the perplexing question seals my lips
And engulfs my mind
To live, is a reason I must find

Until then I shall be consumed
By the monotony, the pointlessness of it all, the utter futility
of my pathetic gloom

The state of conflict

I am Indian. I am South Indian. I am from Kerala. I am from the North of Kerala, Cochin to be more precise. I am Nair. I am a Pillai. My mom is a Menon though.
I was born in Bahrain, spent three years of primary schooling in Mumbai and then the rest of my life in Sharjah and Dubai till I came down to Rajasthan, Pilani to be more precise.

Did you or I forget what I said the first..oh yeah, I am Indian. Thank you for reminding me. (Jeez what a clichéd modus operandi but nevertheless)
That’s what we are today. We are a highly biased set of people who associate the strongest, with the minutest segregation of individuality than the rope that binds us all.
When Shashi Tharoor was a UN general, we felt proud to be represented as an Indian. When he is a member of the parliament in our country, he somehow seems less significant and people of Kerala find it easier to associate to him ( not really owing to his knack of attracting the wrong publicity,so lets say the Tweeters. Lol )

Who am I then? Where do I belong. I can’t speak my mother tongue to save my life, neither can I converse without stuttering in my national language. I am linguistically dysfunctional but I still relate on more grounds than one to another human being than most of my peers or elders.

Shanti’s friend’s getting married. Oh, where’s she from? asks a relative of mine whose anonymity represents a vast majority of Indian relatives.
Mallu
Oh, what’s her name?
Again I would like to protect the anonymity of the friend in question, whose name was thoroughly dissected to study her caste, which in some closed minds sum up everything the individual stands for.
Oh, Izhava?
Oh what?
She is Izhava?
I don’t know, what is that?

Praise my parents who conveniently either forgot or respectfully withheld such trivial and unnecessary information during my upbringing.

How does it matter?!
Well it did, it did to most. The herd, the clan, the fraternity. The cast, the creed, the lack and abundance of opportunity.

Interestingly and amusingly, the Malayalam language sees variation every few hundred kilometers you head south (or north, now I am not taking credit for the birthplace of this language. So whichever direction the Cheras approached our land).
A preposition used or a choice of verb can indicate the caste and the area from which you hail from. Interesting revelations to a market researcher.

North Indians hate south Indians or vice versa. Negative feelings are always mutual.
Eastern people are called chinks, and viewed with an altogether different pair of spectacles. Kashmiris ? Oh yea the people who are living in turbulent conditions..yeah, them, what about them.
Do you think they should be given a different state?
NO…why…because then we will have to split into 29 different states…no way.
That’s all the substance we have in our argument? What about the people who had to leave everything their ancestors had built and disperse like sand falls from our hands to various parts of the country and the world?

We have equated every group to an attribute and the person in question loses his individuality and becomes an object of either ridicule or distrust.

That my friend, is why we are filled with so much apathy today. Because we cannot relate to anyone other than someone who is one of us to the n’th decimal point or someone who lived next door or we interacted with.
Someone who has a beating heart or someone who sees the stars just like you and me. Why can’t we all just lie down on a huge play ground and look up at the sky.

My daddy strongest!

Yesterday:
Scene: At Vaayu lounge, two absolut shots and a beer mug down.
“Hey molu, what are you doing?”
“Hi Acha, just came to a restaurant.”
“At 6?, why so early or late?”
“Having a late lunch”
“Why didn’t you have lunch, why don’t you have any thing on time..?”
“achaa…just had a late breakfast”
“What are you eating?”
“Err…(peanut masala?) just ordered a sandwich ( thank god for baristas)
“Who are you with?”
“I am with a person I met at that StartingBloc dinner I had told you about?”
"Person?"
"YES!"
“Alone?”
“Yes acha…”
“Hmm..(read hmph)…bye take care”
Acha is worried now…6 pm, at a restaurant with a stranger. He is sure I am not filling my stomach, he is worried for my liver and heart.

Lets rewind: 6 months back. Just landed in Bangalore, with a new meager paying job.
“Hi molu, how are you?”
“I am fine acha..”
“You sound very low or tired..what is it?”
“I am just tired…”
“Did you have dinner?”
“Yeah had a kathi roll at the food court?”
“Did you have chyavan praash?”
“yes.”
“Yes? Don’t lie..”
“Have bananas, they are loaded in potassium”
“Acha why do you have to call and only give instructions?”
“What do you mean?”
“Like why cant we keep instructions to 3 days and the remaining 4 days why cant we just talk”
“Because you don’t listen to anything and you don’t take care of yourself!”
“But can we try this?”
“Hmm..do you go to the gym?”
“I try to…
“I told you then itself do yoga at home, you wont go.”
“Acha…!!”
“Did you buy fruits, do you drink milk often?”
I am just wondering why I even brought up the point of limiting instructions to MWF and have a conversational TThS!
The monologue went on for 20 mins that day.

The chyavanpraash is not over yet!

Rewind: First year at college.
“Acha, I just tried alcohol”
“How many times will you Try it?”
“I like it.”
“WHAT?”
There is a drowning out of the Mumbai traffic..suddenly all I can hear is him.
“I don’t get addicted so don’t worry, but I like it.”
“Promise me you wont touch it again”
“I am 21…why would I do that?”
He is livid. Mom jumps in to keep the rickshaw from toppling..
“let it be…just calm down”
“Did you hear what she said?”

A spat ensued..I didn’t want to make false promises. My dad just wanted me to be a presentable Indian daughter and his angel.

Further rewind 6 years back

“Who are you chatting with?
“Many people…
“Why did you minimize the screen then?”
“there were too many anyway”
“But you minimized just one, don’t lie to me”
“Acha (I cant even ask him to read my chats because that would mean being grounded after he saw the sweet nothings to my first love)
“why do you always close your door?”
“Because I like it…!”
“What is this a PG?”
“AChaaaa..!!!”
He storms off….
What is with his timing…how does he just know when HE logged in!


“Why do you make such a face when you see Arjun?”
“I don’t…
“Acha you act so strange and scary when he is around, he is terrified of you!!!”
“What is this about?
“Why cant you just like my friends!!! This is so embarrassing…amma , you should see acha talk to arjun…what is this..why don’t you like him? (LIKE DUH…my daughters first boyfriend…why, I would love to adopt him!)
“Pinky don’t raise your voice!”
“I am not…but why cant you just be nice to him!”

A major spat ensued…I knew why he was so 'De Niro'-ish..but I was embarrassed..my then-boyfriend was terrified and too scared to come anywhere within a 5 km radius of my fortress…my dad transformed into a gruff looking monosyllabic person who just looked the trembling guy up and down.
I took my basketball and dribbled for 3 hours till he called me back and kissed me on my forehead. He still never broke the unapproachable keep away from my daughter exterior when he met arjun again.

Arjun is gone. Heart break. My dad,I guess never wanted that to ever happen. Health is non existent with work timings…Liver is not in the best of conditions.Safety is a concern with the happenings that occur daily in metros and the outsourcing business.

It must be so difficult to be a dad, and so much more to be mine. But he tries his level best to make sure I am doing alright,in his own disciplinarian,purely instructional and sometimes defenseless way which melts my heart and makes me choke.

I miss my dad today.

Phone rings.
Daddy Cool calling.
In my contact list, he gets to be the coolest person.
In my life he is my guardian angel with horns of course.

ramble on.

So here I am, 6 months into corporate life and do I like it?
Hell No! I feel as insignificant as ever, like a drop in the ocean, like any other fish in the sea…and I don’t buy into the million drops- make an ocean concept. That’s not how the corporate world works. It’s the many drops of sweat that make the fat salaries of the sharks above. True we will get there some day but I am failing to see the point of getting there, as each day passes by.
Have I become smarter?
I guess so, at least less rusty than what my grey cells were in college. But at times, I can really hear the music in the distant land, I can see a pristine beach with white sand, I can hear the waves in my head…I can blank out during a client call and then come flailing back into reality to see the stares of my manager and colleagues. A long errrrr…..and then my manager fills in the rest of the err-encrypted message. Smart he is!
Be there wherever you are, was something mom always told me…but that’s my toughest challenge…to be there..and it’s not because I have got an attention span of a fruit fly …if they have one…I think they do, have you seen how they rub their sticky palms before they feast on sugar crystals, and how they hover over a crumb till they get swatted down…I hate the sound they make…ZzzZZzzzz….It sends the heebie jeebies down my spine…just cant stand it…but yes, where was I? How can I be there ma ?…when it doesn’t …it doesn’t fascinate me. It does interest me no doubt. I am an analyst and I look into numbers which tell me a story. It tells me about a honcho who’s buying my client’s product and there he suddenly dumped us! Tough luck…but why…and there’s a pattern. A set of these honcho’s have been attending conferences and jazzy stuff paid for by my competitor. That means limos, 5 stars, wine and a lot of media attention. Wouldn’t hurt to shift would it? Will it be a short term or long term effect? Or maybe my client’s product has a flaw he has not shared with us yet. I am an undercover number crunching snoop dawg!

Yes it does interest me…but my ego starts acting up. Hello? What about me? What about us? Does HE, whoever your client is, know you exist..? To that I proudly say, Yes yes, he does! In fact, he was really impressed by an idea I gave in a client call the other…
Oh really? He might be impressed but he expects it, because he’s paying you for it. Who’s idea is it going to be when he rolls it out to his sharks?
Mine!
Lil miss fantasy queen, its going to be your firms. Oh no..it gets better. It is going to be HIS.
What’s your point? What do you want from me…I’ll prove myself and I’ll climb up this bean stalk.
Does it really change lives? (Echo)
I frown. I am upset now.

That’s my point it doesn’t. It doesn’t make a kid tug at my hand and give me the most beautiful grin. That kid is still going to be clearing my dishes as I leave that tiny restaurant to catch my train for a visa interview. It’s not going to let another girl study because she will not have light from 4 in the evening till midnight, after which there will be no other go but to wait for the sunshine. It is not going to make any one smile 

And I try to shhh my conflicts and my existential soliloquy and fall into a troubled lack luster slumber.

violate

I hugged Dushy and KK. I had had a wonderful yet scandalizing time staying at their bachelor pad. Now I am no cleanliness freak myself. I love mess and camping in mess, making space for myself on my bed after a hard day’s night, is pretty adventurous and impromptu and it suits me just fine. But this was not a pad…it was a whole new world. Where one entire bedroom was dedicated to a pigeon and her eggs and the others filled into what was left in the house. The men were on a hair today gone tomorrow mission, which meant religious oiling or “champi” session as you call it…and minutes which in their world was hours, combing their tresses and strewing the hair strands all around.
It took me atleast two days to get used to the balls of crinkled black on the floor!

I had a good time. A very very good time. I was back in Hyderabad after 6 months, and it was still intact. A mix of two worlds, a foodie’s abode to heaven and yes for people who enjoy controversy, it was teeming with it. The city was “bandh” for two days that I was there due to the Telangana demands and security threats. The movies were as cheap as can be, and I wanted to watch all the bollywood movies before I got back to Bangalore which is synonymous to mooch-me-off-my-meagre-pay city.

I boarded the bus. This seemed neat, and I started chatting up the lady next to me. A fashion designer for Lee. Interesting. After a bit of conversation everyone in the bus shut their eyes and went into REM land. I have had random jacks annoying the crap out of me before with i-will-stare-at-thy-till-some-telekinesis-takes-place-and-I-can-unbutton-thy experiences so in spite of being a heavy (pun intended) snoozer, I am an owl in a bus.

I finally gave into losing my vigilance and drifted off into a snooze. I covered myself with a blanket right up to my head.

4 30 am. Someone actually uncovers me and soon there is a hand on my breast and I wake up in shock. I see a glimpse of the person in the darkness, but the oaf a lady (you will see why I detest her so much) next to me is so wide, that I miss grabbing his hand. I yell out. I scream out. People around me stir. I am reeling in shock. My left breast is burning.
My co passenger says to me, “ oh that’s horrible. What can be done about it now…just forget it and go back to sleep”.
I want to slap her across the face but that’s not going to help either. I have been violated and there is no one ready to even help. I am in shock.

Around me are men, some the age of my dad. One of them looks at me with a lecherous expression and keeps looking till he dozes off again. I must have resembled an angry porcelain statue because I was stupefied.

I wait for a while. The sun is rising. I wake the bison next to me. I walk up to the cabin of the conductor and driver and knock. They open the window. I complain, I tell them what happened to me.
They pretend that I am talking an incomprehensible dialect. Oh god, why do we have so much diversity than I feel like a freak each time I cross a border. Why cant people speak just one god damn language!
I ask two young guys at the front if they could help me translate. I narrate to him exactly what happened.
The scene is exactly like a bollywood court room drama with the heroine being questioned about her unfortunate violation by Danny.
Where, How…and then sorry, due to the lack of evidence, the case closes and a thousand other men decide it’s that easy to molest a lady.
I am choking…I am angry as hell can be. I can’t pin point to one person though I know it is one of those workers in the bus, who distribute water bottles. He was tiny, a half man.
He is right next to the conductor and he’s got the goose bumps.

He tells the conductor it’s the cleaner. The cleaner, a gruff looking man is woken up and brought in front of me. I say this is not the person.

I can understand telugu, and I heard the conductor asking my violator, you did it right?
He turns to me and says, you should have come earlier. The man must have got down the bus by now.
I refuse. I have been up all night watching. No one around me even budged when I screamed. And trust me the man is very much in front of me.

“Sorry madam , but this is the first time this is happening in our travels.”
“How many more times do you want it to happen before you take action.”
My translators add in vehemence, “You want some one to be raped, katha?” Some people are snickering by now.

Meanwhile the entire bus is staring at me wide eyed. I am sure many of them where thinking, ok this is turning out to be melodramatic. People just staring…Not a single stare of empathy, even from the ladies. Was I speaking the right tongue? It is Hindi right?

I am shaking..I am sobbing…I am not even angry with the boob groper anymore. I am disgusted at the lack of sensitivity in the entire bus. I am sick at the bison who sat next to me,who had a younger sister like me…was it so commonplace for a girl to get molested that it loses its spark of controversy also, and its just not worth fighting for anymore.

I was amused at the number of ball-less men in the bus; this could be an interesting case study.

I walk back to me seat. I wanted to say Thank you all. That will be all. My stand up act is over! You were a dead audience by the way.

I walk back in pain. I am shaken. But my breast is not burning anymore. I have at least fought for myself.

I wonder how many women out there go through this and do nothing about it because they are just too embarrassed or scared.. it’s a horrible feeling. Your body cries out in pain.

Enough of this.

Least to say, the man lost his job. One of my friends saw to that, and though I don’t know how he did that…I am not really vindicated. My sympathy to the families of the dead souls in the bus. May their souls RIP.