The warriors of Verstand

It happened a fortnight ago. Another apparently normal day. 10 a.m. Coffee break. I rethought my schedule. Fetch the phone from the repair shop. Buy coffee. No puffs. No butter bun (To compensate for one tenth of the phone expense). I am riding my scooty. There's always a little traffic as the bus always stops a little ahead of the bus stop. And people would run to catch the bus. That day, the bus is patiently standing in the bus stop with me right behind. Few honks here. Few honks there. Wait people, I'm riding a scooty here, not a bat mobile. I can't just take off on top of the bus. A car comes behind me. The car guy tries to overtake and cross the wrong lane. Another bus comes in the opposite direction. Chaos. The car guy tries to do something. I feel a sudden wave of vibration passing through my spine, across my shoulders, down to my arms, hands and fingers. The next moment I'm standing, with two buses on either side of me and the car behind. Remember peninsu...

His fingers brush against mine, progressing to my wrist and grabbing it tight. An unknown hand holding on to mine, dragging me behind, my wedding ring intact. Blood rushes in my veins as thoughts rush back to the owner of the ring. He hasn't picked up the phone, six times in a row. Maybe he is still on call, his shoulders far away, not for me to lean on. I sometimes envy the stars, all three of them resting comfortably on his shoulders and shining a little less brighter than him. I sometimes envy them, especially at times as these. My head spins just like the earth beneath my feet, preoccupied with thoughts of his smile, his jokes, his tender looks, his silly fights, his promises and mostly just him. I drift off a thousand miles towards him, my feet not moving an inch.  Suddenly this strange hand slaps my cheek. "Hold on," the voice commands. I can't. I don't want to. I don't know whether it is the deafening gunshots, the dark misty sky, the bloodied faces, t...

2008, the year when the echoes of Oscar reverberates in the neighbourhood. A.R.Rahman, the man who spills his songs everywhere from tv sets to tea stall radios. Slumdog millionaire, the movie that suddenly everyone wants to watch. I am no exception. The local movie theatre refuses to display a movie that needs subtitles to be understood. I am the most unfortunate person in the world. The rent store refuses to lend a CD to someone who doesn't have a VCD player. I am the most unfortunate person in the world. I do have a VCD player that has refused to work since third grade. I am the most unfortunate person in the world. Dad refuses to mend the VCD player unless he mends the leaky roof first. I am the most unfortunate person in the world. The roof refuses to stand firm as the monsoon continues to poke through it. I am the most unfortunate person in the world. The rain refuses to stop, making it hard for me to swim to school. I am the most unfortunate person in the world. The school r...

If you're intrigued by the title, I'm sorry, this is going to be a disappointment. You may ask why. Man always demands reasons. Man wants to know why. There is always a question- why? Why should I write? Why shouldn't I write? There are times when a writer invades your brain, shuffles your neurons and rewrites your thoughts. There are times when the same writer keeps knocking your skull all along but your mind wouldn't just open the door to let him in. Why? There is this unwritten love story between the pen and the paper. Whenever the pen kisses the paper, it is an explosion of highly compressed thought-lets. The catastrophe that follows thereafter leaves behind sombered debris of imagination and experience, smeared all over the paper. The moment a reader sets eyes on the paper, the ashes resurrect, like a phoenix emanating out of fire. Thus every man is a writer who tames a dead phoenix. What difference does it make whether or not I choose to write? I want to bring my...