Cards

 A sequel to Temples.

“A joint during the night,

Slaps the Devil, tight.

A joint during the day,

I make the cards you play.”

‘Dad, dad’, panted the little fisher-boy with an eye full of conundrums which were vexed into a distorted queue so that chipping their heads off could be sequential. The other eye was eaten by some fish when he was younger. ‘What?’, asked the dad with little amusement. ‘Have you heard of the lamb who rode the bicycle?, the boy slipped in quickly. ‘No, but I have heard of the cow who ate grass and the cat who ate fish’, the dad burst off like a chocolate bomb. ‘Really? Did the cow fly, was the cat high?’, sprinted the boy. ‘I am going to the joint,’ to eat cherry flavoured vices on double chocolate sins’, the dad took cover. ‘No Dad, you shan’t trade your soul, you mustn’t’, bloomed the boy like a speck of sunshine on a sunflower. ‘They are soles, not soles, my son. Off you go, to the Devil’shell’, the dad rode off on his bicycle. ‘The lamb who rode the bicycle’, the boy winked with his only eye. Only he knew the difference between ‘winked’ and ‘blinked’.

‘Why do they call you the Devil?’, the boy looked at the empty, mobile stand of snacks. The stand was mysterious – sky blue body with gray wheels and glassy eyes. Eyes that shone in the order of bright red and conveyed very bad grammar. ‘Because, you ate the egg?’, breathed the boy on the snail he had picked up from the open dry drain on his way. The red bodied snail flared his horns with diabolical pride.

The day is a bad bad time. ‘Dad, dad, is that you?’ the boy saw the joint walking into his dad through the rusty rib cage that served as a wicket. Wickets are better, they are less private than the doors. The doors only open to the bosses. The doors are big. The day never goes away; the day is like a disease the night has caught. It never goes away. It never does.

Cards. The fisher-boy was a fisher-boy by choice – his dad was an astronaut who sold bird-catchers to birds. The cards were laid on the roof of the monolith. The joint occupied a small place on the roof at the edge. They knew, the world was flat. ‘Do you dream, boy?’, hailed the stranger with a missing tooth, whom the boy talked to everyday. ‘No, sir, I fail the tests’, pissed the boy. ‘There isn’t any test’, burped the stranger. Play your card, birdie – the crocodile charmer nudged. Throwing the card in the air the father of the fisher boy shot at it and yelled ‘It’s birdie, motherfucker.’ ‘I have the pen where they held me till I could walk’, raced the boy, ‘I keep the fishes there’, he finished - he came first.’ ‘The fishes are beautiful – they have fins; but we humans, we are better, we have bins. Lots and lots of them; yet they don’t suffice’, the nose of the stranger dropped as if derelict of bones as the boy left with a rather fishy mien.

‘Is this your idea of a card game? - back home we had a board game, we had monopoly’, puked Sean. ‘What a waste of time. What did the yak say, again?’, cleaned up Sean.

“A joint during the night,

Slaps the Devil, tight.

A joint during the day,

I make the cards you play.”

Rapture-Love-Rupture

Like a detached variegated feather of a possibly mythical, mystical bird that floats, dances in the air- a little exploited, a little caressed by nature, not stagnant, not firm, maybe fickle, almost always in turbulence yet in absolute peace; and then it comes to complete rest when it gets caught, entrapped by someone or something, depleted of alacrity, replete with insensitive senses, a sense of kinship, belonging, acceptance, of being overpowered, held, caged; Neil’s sight, the sight of a coherent, dull, fastidious, gullible, transparent, convoluted, sane, lunatic romantic walked, sprinted, peregrinated from one place to another, not waiting, not stopping, with unflagging spirit adulterated with mirthless vigour; and then it got stupefied, it froze, subtly, suitably, enchanted by some oblivious spell executed through a seductive, exquisite tool by a sorceress.  Neil’s sight remained bound, albeit loosely, like a ribbon tied carelessly to a little girl’s hair by herself, in a desperate effort to prove her mettle and failing miserably; but that outrageous freedom urged his sight to cling, hang on to the hypnotization. The freedom coaxed him, teased him, mocked him; it was as if a challenge, a casual one, thrown at him, telling him that he would not lose if he quit, he would not be humiliated, humbled if he refused, and just by saying that it also said that it would be his greatest defeat if he did surrender. His sight remained fixed.

She was an embodiment of the sun.

It hurt his eyes to keep looking at her.

What she had, she held, what she had begun-

He was helpless before that, he had to defer.

In one of her hands she held a small paper packet, the usual ones made out of sold off or discarded old newspapers. It contained a delectable mixture of puffed rice, spices, pieces of vegetables and snacks. Neil’s eyes chased the movement of her hand holding the paper packet. She raised her hand, tilted her head a little backwards, then poured some of the food in her mouth. He could separate, see, each element of the food that got lost in her mouth. A sole soul, a diminutive speck of puffed rice, a stranded, estranged entity, nonentity got marooned, prisoned in the island of her moist red lower lip; but she was generous enough to liberate it with a swift movement of her tongue.  Neil closed his eyes.  He was defeated. No. Not yet. He resumed looking at her, after that sudden pause of stare. Her mouth shut, her jaws moved, she crushed the food with her teeth, and then the sublime paste slipped down to her stomach, grazing her throat, leaving marks inside her with incoherent ecstasy. Neil’s eyelids batted in a synchronized fashion with the movement of her mouth, lips. He listened to the gentle sound of bliss, the unchained pleasure.

How he wished he was the…

The bus started moving. Neil had forgotten that he was sitting in a bus which was about to leave the bus-stand in a few minutes. He was startled, but he was relieved. He was on the verge of defeat; he was succumbing to the colossal coercion, the fatal force. Escape, could he? Did he?

Neil knew that he had fallen prey-

to that primitive propensity,

the delicate desire,

the daunting, haunting urge,

that he could not successfully purge,

the feeling, the reeling, the peeling of the soul,

the object, yes object,

which he had ruthlessly ruptured,

mercilessly murdered,

then carried it’s carcass himself,

in his arms,

and unceremoniously cremated it,

the thing called ‘love’.

Apparently, it had come back to life. Suddenly he felt an emptiness, a void in his stomach.

The ticket collector of the bus asked for the fare. Neil handed the few coins that he fished out of his pocket to the ticket collector and declared the name of the bus stop he was to get down at. The ticket collector asked for 50p. The bus fare was Rs. 8.50. Neil had only Rs. 8 with him. He produced his college ID and got a student-concession of Rs. 2, which reduced the fare to Rs. 6.50. The ticket collector sighed, frowned, returned the balance and left. So Neil had Rs. 1.50 left with him now. He didn’t know what was he going to do, from whom was he going to lend money; he was drowning in debts already. He rejected those naïve notions and closed his eyes. Of course he had better things to muse.

Neil went back to his own world, again. He wondered about ‘love’. It had been a conscious choice of his, semi-completely consequential to his circumstances, to sacrifice love. Then why did he feel love again? Why?

But he just couldn’t deny his love. He loved FOOD. He loved to eat, but he was broke, he couldn’t afford food, let alone good food. He could starve for days and weeks and months, now.

How he wished he was the one holding that paper packet and having the food.

---x---

Food is a necessity, a biological need. So is love, may be, or may not be. Some ascetics conquer hunger and also desires. If love is a desire, they conquer that too. Neil was not an ascetic. But he thought that he had conquered love, perhaps; hunger, of course not.

He still had food,
when he could afford to,

but he didn’t feel,

the same zeal;

love, was not there,

it didn’t matter though;
he didn’t care,

and then comes love again,

to heal,

or perhaps, to kill.

Neil was not hungry. Neil was in love, with food.

Injury

I got injured while playing a football match.

My ankle got twisted, and it got twisted so bad,

that I wasn't being able to stand up;

so I was carried out of the field.

The injury was bad.

I informed a friend about my injury. 

She was laughing.

I replied : 

Please, don't laugh. 

It's terrible. 

When the pressure is intense,

and I ought to run to the toilet, 

my condition becomes pathetic. 

I limp and crawl to the toilet,

restricting a volcanic eruption of bowels,

which by the time has built up so bad,

that I don't even get the time to lock the door,

lest it floods my pants with all yellowness.

I feel like a soldier,
 a leg of whose has been blown off by a bomb;

 who is dragging his ass up to an already deceased medic,

 who lay,

 on the earth covered with his own blood and used up and unused bullets;

 with the faint hope that he might get something which could make him live,

 while blood oozes out from his torn out leg.
His agony rocketing sky high,
with every inch he moves.

S.I.N. (Shit In News)

A recent U.N. survey shows that there are more cellphones in India than toilets.

So let's reflect on it.

The Government  Of  India will ban the following sentences. People will be fined Rs. 200 if heard saying these in public( ah,the smoking in public places ban)  :

1. Dude,are you shitting me?
2. Oh,you're pissing me off.
3. Holy shit! (blasphemy too)
4. I'll beat the crap out of you.
5. Even a child saying to his mother, "Mom, I need to go to potty".
so on, any sentence that involves a synonym of human excreta in whichever language.
et cetera.
People will have to start inventing new words so that they don't get caught. This will encourage creativity, but soon Government will term them illegal and there will be large scale probes. People signing up for foreign language courses will see a rise. (C'mon swearing with especially shit and its likes have become inseparable from the so called modern peoples' lives, we need  some alternatives at least) Translators, high profile detectives will be hired so that no one can say 'shit' or 'piss' even in any remotely possible language.
Population problem will take a back seat. We have to achieve the targets set by the U.N. and show the world that we answer nature's call in our own toilets. (Grow up, more the people more the shit, and more the need of toilets. So population will never cease to be a problem.)

Two people are 'shitting' sitting side by side in the open(yes Indian style obviously,although there's no fixed boundary for dropping the shit. What did you expect,a commode?). They have recently watched LSD(Love Sex aur Dhokha) and they found it amusing, they have turned techno geeks and well, being Bengalis they never miss a chance to discuss state politics.
Person 1 : Hey,wassup?
Person 2 : Nothing up. Just dropping down some shit.
Person 1 : LOL. Have you watched the movie L.S.D. I watched it recently.
Person 2 : Yes, I have. The name attracted me. Story of my life. Never mind, I shouldn't divulge my personal life to you.
Person 1 : I see. Bunk it. Oh the camerawork of the movie was great.
Person 2 : Seconded. Have to give credit to the director for taking such realistic and raw shots.
Person 1 : Yes,true. Err,what was the name of the director? Can't remember his name.
Person 2 : Oh,me too. Some Banerjee. Lemme check it out on my cell.
Person 1 : Yeah right. That'll be good.
Person 2 : Damn! Poor reception. God knows when 3G will replace GSM in India.
Person 1 : Ohh. What's your service provider?
Person 2 : Vodafone.
Person 1 : Ok,lemme try. Mine's Airtel. Ah,here it is. It's Dibakar Banerjee.
(Suddenly, realising something, they look at each other with frozen expressions)
Person 2 : What if, we're being shot right now?
Person 1 : You're right. I've never given it much thought. But now that you say it, I am scared.
Person 2 : I don't want my butt cheeks surrounded with mosquitoes being shown to people. That reminds me, the good knight mosquito repelling cream is good.
Person 1 : Don't worry. On other thoughts, I think it's okay. What's the harm in being famous and getting a little publicity for doing what we do everyday, 'shit'.
(The face of the other person lightens up)
Person 2 : What do you think will be the name of the movie?
Person 1 : S.F.I. (Shit Full India) which will be followed by a sequel of the same initials S.F.I. (Shit Free India). But the sequel will have to wait. There's a bleak chance that our grandchildren, when they become grandfathers might get to watch the second one, which shall be directed by the grandchild of the present S.F.I. director.
Person 2 : No. I don't like the name. It's so Leftist. S.F.I.
Person 1 : What do you suggest? C.P. (Crapping People). Okay, let's leave that to the time of the release. If it's pre 2011 it'll be S.F.I. and if it's post 2011 it'll be C.P. Happy! God,I'm apolitical.
[S.F.I. - Students' Federation Of India(Left), C.P.- Chatra Parishad(Trinamul Congress)]
Person 2 : By the way, I was thing of changing my service provider to Idea.
Person 1 : Why?
Person 2 : I liked their new advertisement. The one that says save trees, use your cell phone. If there are no trees left, how can we feel this bliss when we 'shit' amidst nature.
Person 1: I would like to think otherwise. I wish we could shit with our cell phones. They show in the advertisement that almost everything can be done through our cell phones.  I don't know if it'll ever become a reality. But let's be optimistic about it.
Person 2 : Maybe. I like to do my thing in nature. Anyway, I am finished. See you tomorrow.
Person 1 : Ciao!

Folks, let's look at the brighter side of things. In today's world, where people are becoming more and more lonely, it's 'shit'(yes shit,not facebook) that brings two random strangers together to have real conversations. (How,pathetic!)

New headlines for newspapers. :
->All charges against Lalit Modi dropped, as he has promised the government that he'll organise a 'Sanitation Fundraiser'. (Really, 'what an idea sirjee'. Hopefully crappy corruption will not stand in the way of 'shit' at least. Let's not be too skeptical and observant. We know our country. Apparently, 'Ignorance Is Bliss') 'The IPL is the proof that he's a good businessman. Now let him put those skills to work foo some common good.' as said by a cabinet minister.
->Shashi Tharoor, a learned man he is, comes to the limelight again, with his new satirical explanations of the present 'sanitation scenario' of India.
->Shahrukh Khan expresses his grief on twitter for the large scale constipation in Bengal due to KKR's losses. (the government expresses BIG sighs of relief. Thank God! less shit) The Knight Rider song changed to "Korbo Lorbo Ha*** re" (please guess the incomplete word. If you aren't a Bengali, ask a Bengali friend of yours. (S)he 'll surely know it.)
->ISRO puts it's heart and soul in correcting their faults in the indigenous cryogenic engine for their satellite, so that they can send the satellite loaded with shit to dispense it in the space ASAP. Yay! We'll have a big mass of shit orbiting our Earth. Oh, the shit satellite.

Okay. Enough of shitting around. Need to control my bowel movements now. I'll add to this post if anything else crosses my mind; err,my colon,later.
 But, I request people to at least spare a thought over this issue. It's a serious one.

p.s. - All proper nouns used in this post are solely for the purpose of humour. Didn't mean them to be derogatory and I hope people won't comprehend them otherwise. Please ignore, petty mis-informations(there are some). I am an ignorant ill-informed Indian, you see.(wow! a long alliteration)