sadman

I am at my best when I'm sad..

One of my friends

I'm one guy who is proud of his friends. And I have a lot of them to be proud of. This story is about one of them (one of the best guys I've ever seen), whom I'll cal S in the story.

A muslim brat - though his religion is inconsequential for the story, the fact that he is a brat is very significant - we became close while we were in standard 6. In my division, all were the studious idiots who never knew what masturbation or sex means, who never wanted to try smoking, never failed to do something which the teacher asked. And the other division, in which he belonged, was full of what the "cultured people" call `hooligans'. And I was one guy who was neither.

So we met, became friends and formed a gang of hooligans, and were proud of our tag. Remember I told you the story about K? He became the leader as he was the eldest and the worst guy around.

Years passed by and we entered college. By that time, S made a very good rapport with my mom and dad, the relationship with the latter was quite surprising. My dad never likes or gives a shit about any one of us. But even he started to like the guy.

S was never one who is interested in academics. The fact that it took 7 attempts to clear his papers during +2 bears witness for this. Thus he failed, while we all went ahead with our studies to reach graduation level. But in life as such, we were always together, as I never had the habit of attending classes (2 per cent attendence in all the three years). And he was there at our college from the morning. In short, there was no difference between him and any one of the students.

Later when I left the place to pursue for my post graduation in philosophy, S stayed back at home, doing odd jobs for my mom and dad and to many others whom he liked. He then joined a private company as their cash collection agent and was doing relatively well, I heard.

One of those days, I got a call from my mom saying she needed 5,000 for a reason that she cannot ask my dad. Now, I'm this guy who is supposed to be resourcefull. And as usual, I told her no problem, I'll take care of the money part. I'm resourceful, but not rich. I can only network. I call him up in the evening, told mom needs money, and the next morning after my dad left for work, he handed over the money to her. I was proud: about him and about me who can get things done.

Later I realised that he had taken the money out of the collection amount to give it to my mom. He is not rich. In fact, he was pretty poor. He couldn't pay it back on time and was dismissed from the company for "swindling money". He could never get a job after that. His dad died in the meanwhile, leaving him and his very old mom all for themselves, struggling to meet the metaphorical ends.

Years later, I'm working here, though not earning much almost never getting it on time, I still have a job which is widely respected by people outside the field.

S? He is in Cyprus, a place he never knew that existed till he was desperate for a job, digging trenches for sewage system there.

The resourceful me is now sitting in front of this computer, in an AC room..

The man whom i respect

When I was a small boy, a school student rather, I used to sing. I dont think it was exceptional though many in my family thought so.

Thus I got a music teacher, a man who was in his early 30s, wearing rudrakshaas, chewing pan and smoking cigearettes and beedis. He used to come once a week (or twice?) to my house at morning 7 a.m. and start teaching me. Like anything you venture into, I found myself eagerly waiting for his arrival. And like anything else, the initial enthusiasm wore out, and my mom had a tough time waking me up as I was pretending that I am deep in sleep.

After getting up, I would sit in front of him with "BORING" written in bold on my face. The ritual went on for quite some time, with the knowledge of my parents. Suddenly, one Thursday, he didnt turn up as usual. After I was completely sure that he wont come, I got out of the bed on my own and was asking around why hasnt he come yet, with a fake tone saying I'm eager to learn. He never came after that, and gradually, him and the music he taught disappeared from my active memory.

Some years later, I went to attend a marriage of my relative. As we all were meeting after a very long time, after finishing the lunch feast, we were just sitting around the venue, a small temple's auditorium in a small town, with the men discussing general affairs, women gossipping, small children playing and some of us, who are caught in the no man's land in terms of age, shuttled between these people.

As it is usual, we have the practise of providing lunch to the destitutes in the round of meals. There, sitting amidst beggers and lifeless ex-prostitutes, I saw him waiting for his one meal a day. He didnt see me.

The man preferred the life of a pauper to teaching someone who was not interested in what is being taught. And I, who lost self-respect and dignity at this place where I'm working right now, continue to work.

Wish I had his resolve..

The last time i wept

It's been a long time since I cried. With this, I'm not talking about the tears that well in your eyes due to simple but unexpected emotions. I not really old, but I had this feeling that my mind is pretty wrinkled. I thought I cannot cry anymore. Lets get to the story.

I had this friend (lets call him K) from home who settled down in the city which I later came to study and now working. After a very long gap, say 5 or 6 years, I met him on the street quite accidentally. K looked terrible. Eyes blood shot and popping out of the socket, skin wrinkled but stretched along his temple. He was only 25 or 26 then. And was a drug addict. Now I'm not taking about a regular doper, which I was, but one who starts his day with marijuana and ends it with brown sugar.

He had a pinion rider who looked equally terrible. We promised to meet the week after that, which, as usual, I couldn't make.

About 10 days after the meeting, my brother called me up and told me K was killed in an accident along with another guy. Despite him being my best friend while he was in my home town, during the passage of the long years, K was no longer part of my day to day life, and vice versa. And also, my brother (who was K's friend once) had a problem, a misunderstanding rather, with K, leading to a lukewarm relationship between we brothers and him. So I was not shattered by the news that he is no more.

But still he was my friend and the best one in the past. So I went to the mortuary along with a friend who also happens to be from my town and also a member of our gang which K led.

We found the mortuary, and went in. The attender, an eerie looking man with long beard and hair, both unruly, unkept and dark and pepper, opened the door of the mortuary and showed us inside. There, on a stretcher, was a body of a youth with no visible marks of injury on him except for a big wound on one of his knees. But as stopped bleeding long ago, even that wound was not as bad as it would seem. We confirmed it was him. But then a suspicion arose in our mind if it was actually him. After checking the corpse for a long time we told the scary man we were not sure.

He opened the compartments of the big body freezer saying that the body belonged to the second guy who was killed in the same accident. There lie a body - we could see only the face - which seemed as if it was squeezed before soul left the poor body. The face resembled the famous painting Scream by Edvard Munch. It was badly damaged; as bad as it can get when you get ran over by a bus - that is how K died.

I came out. The smell of death inside the room was suffocating. I lit a cigarette, and my dad called me after knowing about K's death.

I, who was normal till then (I was even humming some tone in my mind) suddenly started crying. All the emotions which I never realised that I had in me liquidified into a salty-sour water and ran out through my eyes and nose. The intensity of my emotions, which manifested as tears, made me realised how much I liked him.

Like many things in my life, I learnt that only after it was a touch too late..

people i dont know

There are some people whom I have met in the course of time quite randomly. Due to the meeting happened or the personalities involved, I will never forget them ever.

some years back, I was on the way home as my college closed for vacation. I was, as I put it, a pirated version of a hippie. Long hair, long beard, and stoned. I went near the door to smoke a cigarette, where there was already a small crowd puffing on to lit ones. I joined them and, in my opium dream, was thinking about something which doesn't make any sense.

Then this man, middle-aged, wearing a dhothi and a carrying a big umbrella came there. It seems that he was just taking a walk from one end of the train to the other. Seeing us he stopped and started a conversation with a general statement about climate or something like that. He was able to create a rapport with the fellow passengers in no time.

I didn't take part in the conversation, but instead, started looking at him with interest. While listening to him, I was actually trying to do this stupidity which I call `psychoanalysis'. Suddenly he turned to me and asked, ``aren't you mr X's son?'' Yes I was. Now that freaked me out. I dont look like either my dad or mom, in fact, during that period due to excessive intake of marijuana, I didnt look like even a normal human being. Even then he knows me and my dad.

As soon as I said yes, a ticket examiner along with couple of uniformed policemen came there. We all threw away the fags dutifully and showed him our ticket one by one. But when this man's turn came, he said he didnt have one. No emotions, no body movements, nothing. It was as if pointing at a train and saying ``train''. The officials weren't impressed. In a few minutes, the next station came and the man was asked to get out of the train, which he did without any arguement. Not even a word.

Once he got down, I went near the window and saw him walking away. Suddenly I felt the rush of regret for not talking to the officials to accommodate him with me by paying extra. I felt all the more sad when I realised that I'll never be able to see him again in my life..

read the blogs of painkillersays, randombeasts and http://phoenixflicks.blogspot.com/.

they are worth spending your time, which you value precious though you do nothing other than farting..

i quit weed after 5 long years. it began out of curiosity and grew to be a necessity. and finaly i was able to quit. now i dot know why..

quit

do you know what macondo is and who is the man from macondo? have you read the hundred years of solitude?

i'm surrounded by some girls whom i affectionately call bitches. others, whom i call by their name, are the bitches if you are talking about their character..

there was this study on the worst jobs ever. out of the hundred top ones, the job where the worker has to stand for 8 hours at a stretch finding peas with black eyes topped the list. the next was the job of a maggotfarmer. that is where i got my mail id from. incidentally, journalists - who are supposed to represent the free spirit - are also in the list, along with software programmers and bureaucrats.

there are these two angels - the ones from miracle plays of the medieval times - hovering around my head. one says i should quit the company i'm working for. the other says dont do that till i get a better option. i dont know who got a halo and who got horns. may be i should just quit..

after half n hr's effort to find how to start my blog account, i finally hit it right. i can post it now, thtz wt the message displayed said.

but now, like every big occassions, i lack words to do so..

sigh...