The God of Small Things

Eshtapappychachen Kuttapen Peter Mon

The name has been ricocheting off the walls of my head since yesterday, each time with a different first name.

Rajupappychachen Kuttapen Peter Mon

Channapappychachen Kuttapen Peter Mon

Its funny, how well it goes with the names it meets off the walls of my head.

I dont want them to end. Estha, Rahel, Ammu, Chacko. Every morning, amidst all the chaos, i sneak into their world. And come out only when my folks very conscientiously pull me out and kick me off to work. I dont think i've felt this way about a book in a while. And inappropriate though it is, almost every page reminds me of To Kill a Mockingbird. I get the same wistful feeling i did when i read that one. Of wanting to go back to my childhood, as an invisible, adult, observer, as the omnipresent narrator of my story.

She warns you, oh she warns you on every page that its all going to end badly. And yet, even that cannot stop life, and the love for it, from seeping though. Small victories of small people need not fade away in the face of war, she shows. They can be scooped up and scattered in a book about war, such that they become bigger than the war.

P.S. At some point, it occurred to me that i could do this as a book review. And a much later point, it occurred to me that i havent actually finished the book.

Flashback

In case anyone is wondering what brought about this sudden spate in posts.
Flashback to what i started to write a few weeks ago

Its not that i dont have things to write about. I have about 300 posts in various stages, some swimming in my head, some on paper, some as saved drafts. (okay, 7 or 8 of them, if you want me to be precise). But this immense cloud of laziness seems to have enveloped my world and all it allows me to do is work, eat and sleep. Time seems to pass without too much effort on my part. Its only that stupid voice in my head that wont shutup and still makes up lists of things i should be doing. No, scratch that, even the voice in my head isnt the list making kind. It just randomly throws at me things that i could/should/must/ABSOLUTELY MUST be doing, none of which i catch, all of which fall on the floor, making a big mess, in the middle of which, i calmly exist and continue to do nothing.

I need to bootstrap myself out of this state. And so, with you as witness, O mighty Internet, i solemnly swear to

And i left it at that. Because, life in the past months has tried its best to teach me that there is a time and place for everything, even for the truth. So i decided to postpone the swearing until i was reasonably sure i was out of the slump. And whatdoyouknow, even stuff that you scribble on Notepad and leave lying around in some forgotten corner of you PC, can do magic.

World wide web?

Sometimes, people you meet out of sheer chance (or as Wodehouse would say, concatenation of circumstances) come back later to save you life. Same with some seemingly insignificant thing you overhear. Almost makes you believe someone up there is connecting the dots!*
It is beautiful, yeah. But for me this glass is half empty. Something like this always leaves me wondering about the ones that go unconnected and the big pattern i am missing out on as a result.

*No, i'm not trying to say everything happens for a reason. Yuck, no.

Too many cooks, and you can forget about the broth

Enough is enough, Shyam thought. A king you may be, but there is, or at least should be, a limit on the arbitrariness you are allowed. Someone had to do something. But that was such a general sentiment, more often than not degenerating into no one doing anything. He would be that someone, he decided. He would put an end to it.

By he of course, he meant they. But Ratan was so much a part of his life, it was the same thing really. The two friends discussed opportunity, discussed strategy, discussed execution. As a plan began to take shape, they felt the excitement grow. Oh, this is going to be good, they thought. If things went according to plan, what they were going to start could well turn into a revolution! They would be the leaders, the liberators, they would be hope.

Their plan, they realized after a few days, would have a much better chance of success if Sundar was a part of it. Sundar supported them in principle, but was afraid for his skin. He told them he'd feel much better about the whole thing if Parth was also involved. Parth thought there was a part of the plan that only Karan could handle. Karan thought roping in Bali was a good idea. Bali refused to come unless his wife was there to see him off. His wife was at her mother's, comforting her sister whose favourite cow was having calving troubles.

So their glorious revolution waited, waited for the cow to feel better.

Moral of the story: Sometimes, screw it, lets do it is the way to go.

Notes to self: Listen to yourself. Sometimes, you talk sense.

Donts and dos

I don't want to grow up.
I don't want to be all responsible.
I don't want to be the fixer.
I don't want to be the safety net.
I don't want to be the goto person.
I don't want to inspire.
I don't want to hold your hand when you learn to walk.
I don't want to pick you up when you stumble and fall.
I don't want to look at you with pride when you learn to run and then to fly.
I don't want you to look up to me as i look up to the ones before me.

Only, i so do.

Beach bum

5 stolen minutes out of a hectic, one day trip to Goa. She sits on the beach, looking out at the sea. Wondering, as always, why she loves it so. She knows it is not a remanent of childhood love, when being on the beach meant playing in water and collecting shells. It has withstood the test of time. It is no longer what she does at the beach, it is what the beach does to her. It heightens her sense of loneliness, but in a way that makes her feel complete, like that was how it was meant to be. The world fades away, its just her and the roar of the waves. And peace.
The constant questioning, this search for motive, she realizes as she leaves to catch a bus back home, makes not one bit of difference to the way the beach makes her feel. In spite of all the unanswered questions, she leaves satisfied.

NetWorking

Dad is back early from his walk He rushes straight in, slightly breathless, and asks - Aa gaya? No, i shake my head. Mom pretends indifference, but every now and then peeks out of the kitchen to check. Brother refuses to come home at all, which is just as well. Who wants to watch a fish out of water? They all look to me, with a glance part hopeful, part accusing, . What use is her education, they ask themselves, if she cant even get the Internet to work?

O mighty powers at BSNL, kindly snap your fingers and get the Net working. This is not just about me justifying the space i occupy on this planet, it is about our connection to the rest of the world, and maybe, even to each other.

P.S. If you know the preferred DNS of you ISP by heart, it is probably time you changed your ISP.