A Room

I did nothing interesting yesterday or today, unless you consider getting into a crowded fast local with an overloaded backpack an event to write about. Okay, one can. I won't. So, today I've taken up the task to imagine and describe a room and see where it takes me.

Darkness shrouds the room. It is past sundown. The phosphorescent stars on the ceiling had grown old and glimmered only faintly to showcase the lax attempt to form accurate constellations. Tiny weak beams of orange from the street lights try to battle through the translucent blue curtains guarding the narrow ceiling-to-floor glass windows, creating a glow that was neither orange nor blue but a hue in between. The colour of the walls was indiscernible, indistinguishable among pale white, yellow or a shade of pink. 

The clock's ticking grows louder as more light shining off of it reaches me. It is seven o clock. Slowly my eyes adjust to the darkness. I soak in more as I get up off my bed. On the far wall is the almirah, by far the oldest thing in the room, still as sleek as it was a decade ago when I those drawings of cartoons on it. Faded and weird in retrospect, the cheetos stickers on the almirah mirror are peeling off. The rest of the wall is full of framed pictures of me arranged chronologically in a stairway fashion going upward to the right. The pictures are fuzzy, the sort that was common until point and shoot digital cameras became more common. To my left was the balcony with the blue curtains. The small gap in the fixture had begun to make more noise as the wind blew inward. The room was on the second floor. The wind unavoidable. In the right side of the room is a 90s style ornate dressing table mimicking a Victorian era one, but with all the modern functionality, a 5 foot high mirror etched in the corners with flowery designs, and half a dozen drawers and cabinets. This was perfectly in sync with the aura created by the wooden queen sized bed showcasing early Indian school workmanship, that took up nearly half the room.

Right beside me was the most incompatible thing in the room, my study desk. The lamp on it stooped over just as I always eventually do as I work. The stack of books on it rose a mighty 2 feet. Torts, Penal Code, Personal law, Criminology, a lot of subjects were to be read. The clear workspace was an aberration though; my backpack had been neatly placed beside the desk. On the table was a ceramic dish covered by a plate, and a small note. It was my mother's handwriting. 

"There's khichidi in the bowl. Finish it. I've gone to get bread."

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.