Motherese

Despite his constant reminder that God ain’t a Mangalorean, his mother always insisted on praying in Tulu. Regardless, she continued doing her thing. He thought, perhaps, language isn’t a barrier when it comes to talking to oneself. It was only late in life he realized God created mothers so she can instill the belief in kids that God do exist.

[This short story is in the company of some really better ones here.]

It's never too late to post crap

It's never too late to facepalm. It's never too late to be kind. It's never too late to get our priorities wrong. It's never too late to catch up with who we really are. It's never too late to commit a mistake or two. It's never too late to wake up and feel hapless. It's never too late to give a damn. It's never too late to create a fool out of yourself. It's never too late to die. On the clouded side, it's never too early to rain.

Confessions of a pathological liar

I’ve got an authentic shit to share today. Na, not poem, property or food. Just some semi-random thoughts on a consistent behavior. The thing is I lie a lot. It’s something I’m not very proud of; nor is it one of things I can erase with a delete button. Excuse me for being poetic here: Every morning, when the mirror peeks into me, self-pity engulfs my throat for stammering while I’m shamelessly hiding behind the phalanx of a fake vocabulary. On one hand, I die during such reckless instances. On the other hand, I can live with it. Nobody expects truth anyway, specifically when you’re being cheeky with words. No one’s interested in knowing who you really are or where you come from or where you want to go or what you want. All they wish for is laughter and entertainment. They don’t know anything unless you thoroughly care to share. And when you do so, you give a piece of you away. As if your existence had a price to pay to time. But if you’re smart enough and understand the preciousness of a word, you’ll ensure a better bargain. In simpler terms, you’ll lie. Lying is an art form, they say. Well, trust me, they are lying. In reality, it’s far from that. Lies are cute but the problem is they don’t survive long. That’s how it is. They are blessed with a very low life expectancy and a very high infant mortality. Having stated that, they do make you feel powerful. At least for some fleeting moments. For example, imagine yourself spouting garbage out of your mouth and your tongue wagging like a dog’s tail—producing infinite sound and thus, music of its own—and people grasping stuff which amounts to cipher. But who can help them? Or you?

By the way, I’m just lying.

The Great Wall of Money

I’m a poor man's poor man. That’s how broke I am. And going by the recent Zoroastrian ramifications in the city, I'm too poor to be a poor Parsi, either. It’s also one of the reasons I don’t have superrich friends. I’d love to call myself a poor writer as well but that would be farcical due to my commitments towards amphigory. But to your credit, there is no such thing called a poor man's Chetan Bhagat. He’s just another former rotund banker who is molesting his thin luck. To that measure, even in the world of literature, the ugly gap between rich and poor is not only widening but also dividening.

Ask yourself: Isn’t it a remarkable coincidence that almost all the famous writers come from an affluent background? And all these moneyed snobs carry the divine right to comment on our miserable underbelly?

Having trolled them, I can assure myself we are only as wretched as our hindsight. But that doesn’t make the world balanced. Everything depends on how we choose to look at things. In that sense, not all beggars are poor nor all poor, beggars. Giving is something and asking is something else. For example, the underprivilged ones keep dreaming of orchestrating a real revolution while the rich are quite content with trending topics on Twitter.

Anyway, there's something terribly wrong with a world where the rich insure their butt while the poor get theirs kicked. But in the middle lies the middle class (MC)—the poor who can afford to spend. And this class tends to believe that those battling poverty and geezerhood are having a lot of time on their hand (and finger) as they queue out there under the scorning sun just to cast their vote. To sum it up, their life is a lame political trick gone funny. 

Politics makes its presence felt when a grimy nation like India test-fires missiles and related phallic inanities hoping she wouldn’t be as poor as she already is. A similar trend is visible during those time of the year when budget is announced. The media automatically drifts towards MC. What the clowns in Parliament fail to understand is the fact that the poor don't need a budget. For that, all they've got to do is insert their hands into their pockets. They need clothes with pockets, in most cases, to be blunt.

Similarly, health is wealth when it comes to those who never heard anybody share the secret of an apple’s ability to scare away doctors. These lot die in huge numbers. Every single day. Without a sound. While doing so, they prove the rich man's disease a myth. After all, it’s just that the poor couldn’t afford to diagnose what they actually died from.

There’s nothing wrong with being poor. But if you aren’t rich, at least try to be happy. Also, those who are poor thanks to their rich principles are indeed rich.