Spread wide open

There's a myth among fishermen that if they happen to see clouds such as those in this picture clicked yesterday, they are bound to have a great haul. Their reels might even crack open. Not sure what happened in the sea but something unusual took place on the land. Last evening, the sky cracked open for about half an hour. Mumbai as well as Navi Mumbai had temporary relief from inhuman summer and except the hawkers, not many complained. Whoever said all the better things in life are free of cost was either a fisherman or absolutely right.

Bearable being of lightness

I learnt something valuable in the past few months. It begins with you and ends with me—with 'us' happening somewhere in the middle. A wonderful place to be even if you don't have a clue about its exact location. The journey is worth a try though. Why elope when you can take a walk...together? 

Capiche? 

No? 

Good.

Well, neither do i but let's just pretend otherwise. Sometimes all you've got to do is rise in love and let everything else fall in place. And most importantly, don't expect anythin.

Good luck.

After decline

When times change, new faces take over. Somebody is going to replace someone. Nobody can be the sun of a team. Steve Ballmer is moving out. Alex Ferguson has moved out. NR Murthy has moved in. It's all in the family now. Similarly, Kasturis of The Hindu are witnessing upheavals in their setup. On an individual level, all one has to do is look at sports and the ranking system. Nothing is constant there. Messi, by his standards, is suffering a rough patch. There's no doubt left that CR7 and Zlatan are having better days at office than the little genius. Even Aaron Ramsey is making hay of his brilliant form. And so is Arsène Wenger. These are the very guys thanks to whom football-related Internet memes flourished last season. The same is true about Rohit Sharma as far as cricket is concerned. Now they are at the top of their league. As an unbiased fan, you crack silly jokes now and then revere them later. There are exceptions too. You never throw a jibe at a legend like Federer. The Swiss ballerina-turned-tennis-player is currently going through the worst phase of his illustrious career. Even lower-rung players are proving to be massive challenge to this otherwise invincible 32-year-old. However, he can take heart from how his arch-rival from Mallorca resurfaced during this calendar year. Let's hope RF doesn't cave into maudlin and hang up his racquets prematurely. Justin Timberlake plays the lead in a Coen Brothers movie. Who could have thought? It's all about time. Sometimes, you succeed and sometimes, it takes a bit longer. The trick is to never give up. Even Jesus Christ took three days to resurrect himself, right?

A rare specimen

As i'm growing older and seeing my hair grey and teeth decay, i'm understanding how this world really functions. The element of surprise is lost on us. Maybe because we've stopped looking for it. Much against the ongoing trend, i recently bumped into a fellow commuter who exemplified coolness. He wasn't this look-at-me-i-am-so-cool cool. He was far better. Must be in his early 20s, he was standing near the door with his concentration locked on his smartphone. And as the train approached Kurla, the crowd got panicky as nobody wants to land up in Virar or wherever they think the train will take them if they don't behave like they're about to be set free by their masters. Coming back to our guy, he got pushed and as bad luck would have it, he lost grip on his phone. The poor thing flew and crashed on the platform. I couldn't feel the pain of such horror unfolding in front of my eyes but i could relate to his upcoming grief. The only catch here is he wasn't sad. Or anything close to it. He didn't even lose his temper. On top of that, he didn't even bother to look back to see who really pushed him. He calmly got down, collected the scattered chassis of his phone and reassembled it. There was a smile on his face throughout. And off he went shaking his head. Either he thought he was at fault for not being able to take care of his non-living friend or he's about to buy a new model so wouldn't mind any less. Whichever way you look at it, that was a rare sight in a city where people just need a reason to valve off their long-accumulated fury.

Crazy, Stupid, How?

Love is one-quarter deaf, half blind and a quarter mute. I arrived at this conclusion after realizing that i've never really been in love since my vote became acceptable. Nor have i felt deafness, blindness and muteness at a fixed proportion. Though the whole business of propositioning a girl with promises still intrigues me, i haven't asked anyone out yet. I've had moments that lasted a few days here and there but i never felt the urge to envision a life with someone. That's what folks in love do, right? Apparently, it requires courage and a level of selflessness that i stunningly lack. Not a single night has passed by when i couldn't sleep because i was thinking of someone. Nor a day has greeted me to shake me off my daydreaming spree. Maybe i'm too idealistic for my own good. Put in a sentence, my idea of love is simpler because it doesn't prescribe to any condition and is bereft of pretensions. It doesn't require someone to be something. It's either there or not. Almost all my friends turned cosmic-eyed when they confessed they had feelings for someone they never ended up with. That never happened to me. Too much exposure to cinema, poetry and existential thoughts can do so to anyone. In unrelated news, not very long ago, a friend of mine told me that i'll never be happy because i bask in my loneliness. The exact words were "How can you be so consumed by yourself?" before my mind-screen went blank. All i remember from that conversation is a concerned voice. It didn't belong to me. I was three-fourth blind and a quarter mute.

One-eyed wonder

The greatest difference between pigeons and sparrows is that i've never seen the latter fight amongst themselves for food. At least not on my window sill. I feed both of them daily. Separately. In my case, sparrows are the early birds who get the grains instead of worms (for the record, they are pakka vegetarians unlike what most of us assume) while the pigeons arrive later for the same. Given the depleting state of the little birds—along with monsoon frogs—in our city, it's heartening to see them mark their attendance without fail. And like i said earlier, they don't have petty quarrels. They are tiny and cheerful creatures. Pigeons, on the contrary, exhibit a behavior obnoxiously close to what humans call assholes. Plus, they make SHITTY enemies. And they are very delusional. Have you seen them follow an absurd ritual of turning round and round on the spot? They believe it'll create tornado or something. Idiots. Speaking of which, two pigeons got into a tussle for some reason this morning and in the brutal heat of battle, forget their border and tumbled into my kitchen. It was so intense that one of them deftly poked its beak into another's eye. At that very moment, the fight came to an end and both rushed out of the window. Only to return a few minutes later to finish their breakfast. One with two eyes and the other with just one.