Kafka on the Fore(brain)

The whole of my second day of the year was spent in a small train compartment among cold struck old men, young men intensely watching arbitrary dramatic movies on their phones, teenagers playing cheesy party songs on Bluetooth speakers, and two very touchy men sharing a side berth, who also happened to be small scale thieves. The teen was too careless with his phone though.

I had a good amount of food packed for lunch and dinner, courtesy of my lovely hosts at Kanpur. Hence, I was well set to spend my whole journey confined to an area not more than 20 square feet. (Le physics nerd, don't calculate the strip of land I covered due to the motion of the train.) Then, one thing struck me. Boredom. Reading up on Renaissance Art didn't help. So I did what every exciting young college kid does, I opened a novella.

Franz Kafka's The Metamorphosis is a short read packed with the absurdity that gave the world the word "kafkaesque." There is no thriller climax expectation or an impending cliffhanger, but he does place the bomb under the table with the very first page. It's a pageturner. The plot essentially starts with the protagonist, Gregor Samsa, morphing into an insect, but I understood the true metamorphosis to be that of his family afterward.

The protagonist turning into an insect is absurd, exactly what Kafka is known for. His mind is still human, but incomprehensible for the rest. After the initial scare, they start seeing him as a part of the family and try to take care of him yet not having the stomach to see his body, but soon he is just seen to be a burden. The transformation in Gregor's sister is particularly remarkable. She goes from crying for her brother's wellbeing, feeding him, and cleaning up on him to blaming him for the misfortunes befalling her family and thinking his death as the sole solution. I'd call her transformation the metamorphosis.

Kafka hit me on another level though. How long does it really take for a person to morph into a pest? How long will someone take care of me with no explicit gratitude? How long with no expectations? Suspicion creeps up soon. Regret follows. Eventually, pest control.

If only I could run off to obscurity and find answers for myself.

Some Stereotypes Are Justified

Ever heard of the old Chuck Norris-esqe joke about Rajnikanth painting the Red Fort red with his spit? Well, travel to Kanpur and you'll realise that's​ quite possible.

The start was indicative enough. I took a train from Mumbai to Kanpur, and every 10 minutes there'd be someone screaming brands of pan masala, hawking tobacco. Every 10 minutes. It was hard enough for this damned memory device to not remember all the names. I'm not gonna recite them here though.

As it turned out, I was on the banks of river Ganga on the first day of the year, and not only did it confirm that tobacco is commonplace here, considering that there were red spit marks on the bank's wet silt as well, but also that the Ganga is really filthy. _Kanpur teri Ganga maili_. But that didn't stop that guy from nearly skinny dipping into thigh high waters. Or from common people buying containers and filling up. I guess rotting food, flowers, and paper are just the norm.

Some visibility still persists in this dense fog. My Kanpuriya host tells me frequent visits by the Chief Minister, Yogi Adityanath, has improved the roads a lot; also persistent are the people's erratic error-prone driving habits. Also, courtesy of the Yogi, was a renewed and beautiful Nana Sahib's fort and an uprising of 1857 memorial. I might as well thrown in the numismatic and philately museum it, depicting the history of Kanpur, and the evolution of currency and stamps of India and the world.

But the most amusing thing was this sign we found in the premises of the fort.

Respecc. Always. Courtesy, Respect Women AC Restaurant

Cawnpore might have evolved to Kanpur, but the town and the inhabitants still remains the same. The old town feels are strong with this one.

Cringe Post 1 : New Year's Resolutions

This past year has been a fine upward facing parabolic morale curve with the bottom appearing depressive and slow, but the end ramped up just right. As every other simple minded Bitcoin speculator believes, "It only goes up from here."

Let's get right down to the purpose of this humongously purposeful post, my resolutions.

There are a few things that I absolutely have to get done, like do a research intern in the summer, lead my team to a Gold at the iGEM Jamboree, keep posting to this blog everyday.

Then there are qualitative things that cannot be done on its own but need me to regularly and constructively work toward, say for example learn French enough to hold a conversation, place top 3 in a quiz (I'm going to Nihilant this year. So yayyyy!!), learn to play a harmonica.

Then there are tinier things that might just make a difference, like travelling (hopefully there'll be more posts about new places here), trekking (not very high hopes here), basketball and generally staying fit (don't judge me, everyone resolves to do this too), some lucid dreaming, some scriptwriting, and lastly, an ability to say NO.

Ending on a frequent yet inspiring quote by the Vijs' dog, Krishi, "Woof!"

(Wow! That is a long resolution.)

My First Sonnet !!

My father never tells me what he thinks,

always keeps me in a shadow of doubt.

Clashes with him have put in some kinks,

but, I shall never forget that dividing bout.

I was worn out, I wanted to exit the cage.

Dumb, I didn't realize my action was so bold;

I had sparked the fire, Hades' rage,

resulting in indifference, so bare, so cold.

Neither condonance nor fury was in our genes,

But two things were, snub and mime;

Even after the cooldown, none spilled the beans;

Our bond had lost the prime time.

I know, though he is not all sugar and honey,

It is he who ensures my account has money.

 

 

 

PS

This is a work of Fiction.

For more about Sonnets, click here.

To Commute and Not To Commute

For the past few days, pull in even the last semester, I was missing something; something that helped me realize and define who I was. Neither am I so inquisitive, nor as much unoccupied, to go on some random journey to rediscover myself. In the meantime, I was also out of shape, so I started going cycling in campus post dinner. That is when I found out what I was missing.

For ten of the past twelve years, I've spent a minimum of one-and-a-half to two hours a day commuting to and from school. I always thought I was wasting a lot of time. But, now I see, the alone-time I spent commuting was the time that I cherish now. Although I may not remember exactly what all I've done on those rides back home, but I certainly got a lot of time to think about random things, and things that were not random at all.

I used to stand right by the door, with the wind blowing into my hair; and on rainy days, mud spraying onto my white pair of pants, making an awesome design and tough stains. (Now that I wash my own clothes, I realize how troublesome that was.) Nevertheless, my school bus rides were awesome. I've sit up front, beside the driver, and put up annoying songs on the player at loud volumes. I've sit out back, waiting for the driver to speed through a speed breaker so that my head touches the roof. I've been bullied there (that was one stray incident), I've stood up for others, I've cracked stupid jokes, and had serious conversations. As much as I have grown up in school, I've matured on my rides there.

Yesternight, the dark asphalt and the more than fifty shades of green and brown around me were augmented by the light drizzle, making it a lot more memorable. I could feel the droplets land on my head and flow down my face. (I can still feel it as I sit under the AC, sneezing!) The best thing, though, was the solitude, my thoughts talking to me. Cycling my way through the campus is a way I choose not to lose anymore.

Popcorn

It tastes different today,

the small plentiful;

No one beside me

to take a handful.

A wannabe recliner

in a theater afar

pushed me back

to me popcorn jar.

The popcorn is bitter,

and my friends too;

salted with sorrow

and my sobbing through.

Sun, Shade, and Skedaddle

"Am I chasing him or is he chasing me?"

"Both, I think", I say, interrupting her. She doesn't respond; typical Rama, just lost in her thoughts.

The setting Sun was glistening in her amber eyes and the rays through the canopy of palm leaves danced on her tanned skin. Sands to the right. Sands to the left. Frothy waters at our feet and hush all over. We're reclining in the sands of Baina beach of Vasco da Gama, Goa, her right hand in my left and her mesmerizing beauty in my eyes. Her face still bore that worried look, nose twitching, lips tightening, and her hand running across her hollow right cheek. We came here an hour ago in search of a quantum of solace, ice candy sticks in hand. Our eyes met often. There was a lot to talk about, words tried hard to form sentences, but it was futile. The ice had melted away. The last rays of the Sun sparkled in her eyes, her amber eyes, eyes that weren't amber a few months ago, a time when I recognized this personality by a different face.

I saw her for the first time in December, the month of raw partying and maniacal after-parties. I am a native of Goa, and a pretty famous one. I built the organized vehicle rental business out of the small unorganized bike shacks on the beaches. I had access to all parties. I felt her presence at one of those. It was Sunburn at Vagator beach. There, our eyes met. Her hazel eyes, chameleon eyes, brown for a moment, green the next. Her eyes were pulling me to her. It was not one sided though. She was checking me out, probably because I was a peg down and she was two. I was in the usual Goan attire - shorts and a loose tee - my gym-built muscles bulging through it. She looked stunning in the short blue jumpsuit, her untanned skin showing through; she hadn't been in Goa a long time. We talked. We danced. We screamed to the music together. I had been to every Sunburn in Goa, but this lady just took the experience a notch higher. We looked wild together, the music wilder, and the night the wildest I had experienced.

The next morning, the blinding Sun was staring into my bedroom through the huge windows, staring at me and the woman in my arms. Rama hadn't woken up yet. I got up, toasted some bread and made a couple of omelettes. She woke up with a bad hangover. I had none. After it eased a bit, she started asking questions. 'Who are you?''What do you do?' and similar mumbo-jumbo. When it was my turn to ask, she had only one answer, "Find it out yourself." She kissed me goodbye and left. I liked her attitude. She challenged me, Shlok Aurora. I had first set my foot in Goa fifteen years ago. But, it seems like I have lived my whole life here. It is my home now. One doesn't build an empire from scratch alone. I started from the bottom. I am nearly at the top. I had so many contacts that I only had to make a couple of calls to keep a track of my enigmatic eve. She was the mystery novel that I couldn't put down.

I waited in the shadows for two days, then, one evening, the last evening of the year, I sat  down across her in a Portuguese coffee shop on the Central Street of Margao. She was pleasantly surprised, yet not completely astonished, as if to say, 'It took you long enough'. She only came to know about my prowess when the coffee shop manager told her about it. She was more than into me. I was more than into her. We spent the last evening of the year together, and hoped this company would last. We spent the next month like a couple of high school kids, spending time together at beaches and markets, and snogging and groping at every chance possible. We saw the Sun set at Baga, Calangute, Valsao, Baina and many other beaches, and shopped in the Saturday Night Market and Holiday Street. There wasn't a beach we had not visited. I was getting habituated to the clandestine rendezvous in the nights.

Our relationship was getting more intimate. We had been to the Pilot Point once when she let me into her mind. The beautiful cliff had caught her eyes and opened her up. She told me that she had run away from her family in Indore, albeit with a lot of money. They were involved in the adulteration of just about everything, and she wanted no part of it. She was looking for a new life. She found me.

Something very strange had happened in the Goa Carnival the following month. We had fun at the parades and the EDM nights, had luscious meals and long nights. Then, one evening, she vanished. She completely disappeared from the radar. I couldn't find her anywhere. No network could catch her. I felt like I had lost her forever.

Three months later, just when I had lost all hope of finding her, she came back. The call came late in the night. Her voice was soothing. She set up a meet for breakfast at the Japanese Garden in Mormugao, little did I know I was in for a shock. I couldn't recognize her even when she was right in front of me. Her face had changed, wholly. She had undergone a plastic surgery and she had to explain why.

On that night in Chorao island when she had disappeared, she had become the victim of an acid attack. Her face was melting off when she was rescued by Reverend Paulo Clement. He admitted her in the emergency wards of Manipal Hospitals in Panjim. Later she moved to the Cosmetic Surgery Institute in Mumbai and had been there for the past three months. The only person who knew where she was was Reverend Clement, and he found no reason to contact me. One thing was still off; why had she not contacted me? But, this was not the time to ask such questions. She had been through a lot of trauma, and I didn't want to cause more of it.

The Surgeons in Mumbai had done a brilliant job on Rama. No one could recognize her by her face now. There was no sign of any acid attack on her face, but the scars were still fresh in her mind. She remembers how she was mugged outside the little Chorao village by a trio of petty thieves and left there to rot with the bruises. Then, she was found by a surreptitious masked man, who drugged her, toyed with her for a while, and then melted her face with acid. She still felt the burn sometimes, uncontrollable, painful, unbearable. However, she has no idea who that man was or what his motive was. She refuses to go to the police, and the only lead we have about this man is his physical description - tall, tanned skin tone, a weird clumsy walk, hoarse voice, and the strong odour of fish. There was another unique thing though, the symbol of a dagger in a lion's back on the mystery man's wrist.

For the past few days, I had tried to ease the tension in her while I continued trying to trace that man in the background. The symbol that she had described belonged to an old biker gang in Benaulim, the Triumphant Triumphs. They were old, brash, and involved in a lot more than just biking. I smelled something bad but I didn't have a lot of information. Rama and I headed there the moment we got to know about it. The Triumphs were not very difficult to find but it was hard to extract information. Little did I know Rama was so resourceful. She managed to seduce a biker and learn about the whereabouts of a young man, who fit the right description. He was known to be vicious. His name was Sahay and he worked in a fisheries processing factory in Candolim. We spent the evening on Baina. She was scared if Sahay was onto us. I assured her that we would nab him the next day.

The chase for the man continued, but I was having excess baggage. As we neared the outskirts of Candolim, I noticed some goons from the biker gang following us, and no, they didn't appear like they were here to help us. Just as we got to the address we had, we were caught by the gang who overpowered us and took us in the abandoned factory we so comfortably had come to. We were handcuffed and thrown in a small room. The room was small, dimly-lit, with a single entry, and smelled of rotting fish. We had no way out. Things started getting more entangled. Rama was laughing like a woman possessed. I began shouting, "What happened Rama?" "Why are you laughing?" "We're doomed."

Rama spoke, suddenly in a very serious tone, "We aren't doomed. You are."

"What? You got us into this?"

"Yes, you swine. Don't you get it. You are a fool who got into our trap. There was no acid attack. It was all Sahay's plan. I was just trying to kill you, but Sahay schemed to extort some money while I was at it. Now, you pay or you die a slow and painful death. Now, you pay to die."

"Kill me? Why..?"

"Why? You don't know the consequences of your acts, do you? While you were building your enterprise, you stepped on a lot of people. One of those unfortunate people was my brother. He was doing well with his bike shack, but you had to kill it. He got bankrupt. He was depressed for months, and he found only one escape: Suicide. While you were partying your ass off, I was mourning the death of my last blood relative. I vowed to avenge his death. My mourning ends with yours."

Sahay was outside the room with his goons, listening to all this chatter. The task was nearly complete. He was in no hurry.

I had heard enough. It was my turn now, "I have two questions for you: Why are your hands still cuffed? And where is Sahay?"

She had no apparent answer for the first question. She vehemently called out for Sahay. She knew he was outside, but why hadn't he unlocked her yet. She couldn't stand the confidence in my voice or my stoic eyes. She sensed something was wrong.

Sahay entered the room in a slow stride, trying to redo that weird walk, however he couldn't hold back. He gave me my deserved salute, unlocked my wrists, and helped me up. All Rama got was a sympathetic smile. She was furious. She started throwing questions, "What is happening here?" "Shlok" "Sahay..!!" "What are you doing?" Her voice was fading, as were her plans to kill me.

"Shocked? Aw..! I expected more from you. You think I didn't know your true intentions? I knew who you were from the first day we met. You could never succeed in your mission. You think Sahay dropped into your path with a plan, on his own? No. I sent him." I turned to him, "Why don't you introduce yourself?"

Sahay spoke, "Rama, eh? Or should I call you Maria Ferrao? I am not Sahay. My name is Yashas Aurora, and Shlok here is my brother."

She tried to say something, but words didn't form. We dropped her off at a lunatic home in Panjim.

Yashas repeated himself, hopefully for the last time, "Another wrong girl."

"Next time, try to find me a girl who loves me, but doesn't want to kill me."