Untitled, Scene 1.

(Round table in the middle. Left, seated is Harish, right, seated is Raj Kumar. Both formally dressed. A deck of cards on the table. Raj Kumar shuffling. Scotch glasses with both of them.)

Harish : So who is this guy you've called over?
Raj Kumar : Nishant Chauhan. Haven't you heard of him?
Harish : (Irritated.) Well, apparently not. So what about him?
Raj Kumar : He's the biggest name in the industry today, Harish! Reportedly has the biggest winery in India. Rolls in millions. (Harish irritated.) But he's one of his kind. No personal interviews, no background. Anyway, he earns more than either one of us. And I've been unusually lucky. So I thought, well, why shouldn't I loot the two of you for my bread and butter, or should I say, wine and whiskey. (Laughs.)
Harish : (Disturbed.) A winery? Then how in hell have I not heard of him?
Raj Kumar : That's because you don't read, Harish. You do know how to, right? (A distasteful look by Harish.)
Raj Kumar : All right, all right. No jokes with you!Anyway, he's on the cover of every magazine I read. Wait a second .. (Takes a copy from side table, hands to him.) See for yourself.
Harish : (Reads a bit. Almost looking for something negative.) Hmm. He imports his grapes .. From Spain. Huh. Winery in Goa .. Already has business tie-ups in South America, South-East Asia and West Europe .. I just don't ..
Raj Kumar : Oh, off with it! What difference does it make to you. You make whiskey. No competition, right. Except on the poker table. (Both smile.) And cheers to that!
Harish : (Not entirely satisfied.) Cheers. Correct, but .. Something doesn't feel ..

(Enter Nishant Chauhan. Harish stops immediately. Both observe. Dark overcoat and stick in hand. Ramesh follows, with gun strap visible. Raj Kumar gets up, offers his hand, they shake. Ramesh removes Chauhan's coat, pulls seat, seats him in the middle of scene, then backs off.)

Raj Kumar : Welcome, Mr. Chauhan. What shall I get for you?

(Chauhan gestures to Ramesh.)

Ramesh : Please don't bother, Sir. Mr. Chauhan is extremely particular about his concoctions. I'll take care of that.
Raj Kumar : (Surprised.) Very well, then. (Gesturing.) The bar is to your left. Oh, and Mr. Chauhan, let me introduce to you, Mr. Harish Sharma, Chairman of Findler Whiskey.

(Chauhan looks, shakes hand. Harish apprehensive.)

Harish : Pleased to meet you. I'm surprised we haven't met before. Certainly would like to know you better. There are ways we could help each other? (Wry, yet confident smile.)

(Chauhan smiles back. Gestures to play on.)

Raj Kumar : Well, certainly, you must be sparing valuable time. Let's get on with it. (Chauhan raises glass to approve of idea.) Harish, your deal.

(Lights off.)

(Lights on.)

Raj Kumar : Three games in a row, Mr. Chauhan. Seems you have all the aces up your sleeve, eh? (Grin.)

(Chauhan grins back confidently. Gestures Harish to deal the next. Harish is disturbed. Gulps down his drink. And orders Raj Kumar to get another. He obliges.)

(Lights off. Slightly long pause.)

(Lights on. Ramesh on the phone. Then goes to Chauhan and whispers something. Chauhan nods.)

Harish : (Seemingly drunk.) And I raise you another ten thousand!
Raj Kumar : I'm down, Harish. Can't take this beating anymore. Anyone for another drink? (Tries to address Chauhan. Then realizes.) Umm .. Ramesh, would you fix Mr. Chauhan with a refill?
Ramesh : I don't think that would be possible, Sir. Mr. Chauhan really must leave for urgent business.
Harish : Very well, then. This would be the last hand. So why not, eh, Raj? For old time's sake, I raise you my Rolex! And this time you won't beat me with your tricks. (Laughs devilishly.)
Raj Kumar : (Disturbed.) Oh, no you don't! You've had one too many now! Relax! Your son gave that to you as a birthday present, remember?
Harish : Very well do. And the watch stays. (Laughs.)

(Chauhan picks up the watch and keeps it next to Harish's money.)

Harish : (Gets up.) Hey you! Don't you dare touch it unless you win it.

(Chauhan gestures Ramesh to handle him. Ramesh does. A scuffle between the two.)

Raj Kumar : Enough, Harish! Enough! That's it! You want to play, play in your seat. Else, leave!

(Harish does what is told. Points a finger at Chauhan and keeps back the wrist watch.)

Raj Kumar : (In disgust.) Fine. If that's what you want. Go ahead.

(They play. Harish doubles his bet time and again, till he has nothing. Gulps down drink after drink. Sports a wry smile always. Chauhan wins in the end. Always was confident.)

Harish : (Clearly disturbed.)You bastard! You cheat! This is all a trick, Raj. He's robbing us! (Falls while trying to catch hold of him. And does. Chauhan gets up and fights him off.)
Raj Kumar : (Helping him up.) Off with it Harish! That's enough. Get a hold of yourself! I apologize, Mr. Chauhan.

(Chauhan gestures to Ramesh, who gathers the money. Gets up fiercely. Ramesh is just about helping him with his coat, that Harish snaps out a revolver and points it to Chauhan.)

Harish : (With bloodshot eyes, barely on his feet.) Give me back my watch!
Raj Kumar : (Clearly unsettled.) Look, Harish. You must calm down. Hey, listen. I'll buy you another watch. Just let go of the gun. Give it here.
Harish : Shut up, Raj. This man is a cheat. (To Chauhan.) Give it back!
Ramesh : Sir, in the name of sportsmanship, Mr. Chauhan won it fairly!
Harish : Fairly my foot. There's something fishy here. And I want to find out. So what do you do? Some magic trick? Or are you a freak? A psychic? Give me back my watch, you freak!

(Chauhan is extremely angry. Throws off his coat, approaches Harish who can barely hold the gun, snaps it off him points it at him and shoots him. Raj Kumar is in shock. Ramesh quickly gathers things.)

(Lights off.)

The Navel Speculates

And thus to the mirror, spake the navel,
Speculating in her safe haven...

Mirror, mirror, on the wall,
Who's the happiest of 'em all?
The one who lied,
Or the one who cried,
Or does pretending beget a fall?

With half the heart, all body, no soul,
She strained her way through strife.
With all the heart, sealing the hole,
She embraced the beauty of life.

Cluster-o-phobia!

Cluster-o-phobia* : The fear of, well, clusters. Clusters of people. Mainly people with some mischief, vengeance or hate in mind, body or soul. Quite correctly, the permutations and combinations are clearly way beyond finger-counting. So in all probability, let it be at clusters of people, a general assumption at that.

In every national daily, every day in a week of frenzy and constant development of this story, sits pretty the same report. Gujjars v/s Meenas.

Today, a young man was driving his mother along the busy by-lanes of a local shopping street. Too lazy to accompany her, he parked nearby and asked her to finish off her routine window-shopping wander in haste, the heat being extremely subduing. The radio on, his mind carelessly wandering, he noticed from the corner of his eye a group of six-to-ten men, unarmed, yet seemingly dangerous. He immediately missed a call, gave a missed-call rather to his mother, who was hardly aware of the ghastly happenings only a few feet away. He told her to expedite. "I don't know why, but even though they looked like an ordinary sub-set of the Indian male sample space, a part of me was involuntarily fearful, quite contrary to the Gaussian distribution of the probability of invoking fear in a person on witnessing a group of men, which states that a minimum of a rowdy mob is required for the purpose." The young man had clearly had either too much to drink, or spent too much free-time on wikipedia, or his mind was window-shop-wandering at the most horrible of places. Needless to say, he needed to get a life. Yet, he acted true to his instinct. Whether it was worth it or not, he escaped the heat, which was a much more of a relief than the stay of the OBC quota bill, in his own words. Little did he know, however, that it was a Gujjar get-together, publicly voicing their stand and exercising peaceful protest.

"This involuntary fearfulness", our expert psychiatrist relates to us, "is the growing trend of 'Clusterophobia' ". This damned ailment of the Indian psyche is extremely widespread, although not contagious. It's strange symptoms are that of tension, hypertension, constant fear and acting completely shell-shocked on seeing a group of more than five men together. The worst of cases might also consist of severe schizophrenia where the patient has delusions of a crowd constantly around. "The reasons could be many. The press, for one, does nobody any good by constant exaggeration of facts and misrepresentation of reports of crimes.", finishes (thankfully) the expert. The public seem to have a better idea of things, we found out, as the latest SMS poll was conducted on the subject. "TV is biggest culprit", "The police are like sitting ducks", "I love John Cena", "I need help", "Thr s a cnstnt fear englfn us n dat s nt a gud sign fr d cntry", "Nethn is pssbel", "V hav 2 b prepard 4 d wrst", "We have too much corruption and poverty" were some of the best of the lot. Ladies and gentlemen, kindly avoid the expressions of 'tru luv' in times of national crises such as these.

As prevention measures, it is advised that one should stay away from crowds, lock him/herself at home and order free home delivery. Use the internet for your work and shopping and the telephone for communication. Suffer, instead, from claustrophobia.

* You're right, you literary geeks, you! It is the official Oxford dictionary opposite of claustrophobia.

The Greeting Card Gentry

I stand in front of the stacks of birthday cards, selecting the 'most appropriate' one for the occasion and purpose*. After going through with the mental ordeal, I stand in line to cash out my singular simple little brithday wish. Priceless.

To my utmost shock and surprise, it cost me a whoppingly meagre twenty-five bucks! Aww, man. My Birthday wish is worth twenty-five blood-sucking smackaroos? Damn! Why in the world don't they write the god-forsaken MRP on the card? Every other thing thronging the unholy aisles of retail stores and gift shops alike do a seemingly small but heartily selfless favour of carrying a simple little price-tag, saving us from falling from grace, as I have now. No, no, no, I think to myself, the relationship is deep. It deserves a minimum of fifty, no hundred .. Okay, chill .. Seventy-five bucks worth of effort. This is outrageous. This just can't be. I pay the twenty-five and force my way out of hell.

The explanation. There was only one force against me in this decision. My own conscience; the onus of protecting and celebrating the relationship, that I honestly cherish, lying on it. What is the relationship really worth? Of the scale of one-to-ten, how much INR** is each unit worth? The rupee is appreciating against the dollar, by all means. No doubt about that. So if there is an international standard that I clearly don't know of, do I benefit now by paying less INR? But then again, there was only one force within, still standing by me. The one which these EQ tests make fun of; and newspaper supplements thrive on. Have I, like, learned nothing from Tulsi and Parvati? How dare I put a price on the sacrosanct bonds of a genuine relationship? How dare I consciously think of a bond's worth? After all, I have selected a suitable card myself; how dare I track back on natural selection? What right do I have to judge how far a relationship has gone, or is capable of going? Why has my unconscious gone so quiet? Should I resign from worldly life and meditate for revival of my true senses? Rather, have I become completely capitalist in a mixed economy, once briefly being slave to liberal tendencies?

As these two true-type forces started to collide, I paused for a moment to look at the bigger picture here. This battle of mine is too trivial. There is a bigger war we're all a part of, a greater meaning engulfing our every action. The war waging on for ages between Grand Master Money and Grand Master Emotion. Money has been renowned to have telling upper-cuts and under-currents to deal the death-blows to Emotion on many an occasion, especially recently. This great battle, of which I find myself a part, has the Greeting-Card gentry handling the left wing of Emotion's blood red-flagged army. Money's black suit-flanked green army has engulfed the teddy-bears and have even bribed some of the other enemy soldiers at MRP to march to their newly found homes and not participate. Now the Greeting Card wing has devised a guerilla tactic to confuse Money. They have removed all traces of MRP from their bodies by some recent advancement of technology. Money is now utterly helpless, having hardly any battle strength or combat expertise. But then, suddenly, there was an unusual and abnormal arrangement of stars and planets, such that a time-warp was created. The battle had to be finished in haste; and the warring soldiers had to escape the unknown dimension through the Gate of Transaction. Money used his power in numbers and forced it's way through the Gate and pushed Emotion out of it's way, heavily outnumbered by this time. Hence, Emotion, trapped for eternity within the unknown dimension had no option but to wait for the next battle. His army is reportedly recuperating, but the progress is sluggish. Money is said to rejoicing and celebrating the debatably deserved victory.

So, I, owing to paucity of time to think, rethink, imagine or consult my inner/outer/peripheral self, pay the twenty-five and force my way out of hell.

* The occasion and the purpose, both, not relevant to be disclosed here.

** Indian Rupees.

Hail Comrades!

Note : Translated from orthodox German. Bear* with the divergence from the obsolete grammatical complications of orthodox British English. No word, or anything between the lines, however, is lost in translation.

Comrades!

Hail Fuhrer! Hail all neo-Nazis and the dedicated followers of our dear Fuhrer! He has personally sent me a divine, yet grave message from beyond the grave! Believe it or not, there is a camp currently in the making that we, as able descendants and scions of the revered superior clan, must protect and aid at any cost!

The camp is stationed at Bhopal, in the state of Madhya Pradesh, India. Kindly visit the link for the geographical coordinates. It was initially disguised as a Lord Ganesha temple, supposedly sacred to the Hindus of India. The Hindus believe our revered black Swastika to be a sacred theological symbol of some sort; they adorn the walls and floors of the temple with their Swastikas. They use them once they bear children, occupy new homes, ride new cars, scooters or the weird gear-less things they call scooties (Thank goodness for German engineering!), or any other sacred possession. This is usually accompanied with the smashing of an exotic fruit called a coconut. They consider this absurd ritual to be a symbol of happiness and prosperity to come, and protection from the evils of the unknown dimension. The third world country, needless to say, is beyond the comprehension of the Third Reich.

However little importance all this may be of, it is necessary to note that these Hindus have, through our telegraphic, telephonic and telepathic influences, distorted their original Swastika sign to many a different figures. Reversed, rotated, they twist and turn it at will. However, my dear comrades, it is my utmost pleasure to relate to you that an increasingly large percentage of such distorted signs is created by the rotation of their Swastika by forty-five degrees, clockwise. Yes, dear brothers and sisters, that becomes our symbol. The symbol of our struggle! The crown on the flag of our nation!

The fraction of our Swastika shall be enough for us to occupy the temple in due time. Hence, brethren, we shall together raid this camp three days before Judgement Day, so that once and for all we may take over what is rightfully ours. Come together, comrades, and make our Fuhrer proud!

* Or beer with ... Cheers!

Mr. Confusions, Episode 1.

He strutted with pride, to fall in puddles,
Stirred stride-by-stride, as ever befuddled,
And 'cause of his generosity,
Of incessant curiosity,
His own cat died, the one he cuddled.

A chameleon he met, and 'fore him press't his case,
"Aye", he did fret, "whatever be thy race?",
"Not black, not white,
I'm seasoned; yet spite,
Gifts plenty-a colour-set, so I hide my hideous face."

DreamTheatre 01

Disclaimer : The following chronicles are accounts of dreams. They might not make any sense whatsoever, but I somehow find it imperative to record them. So there go the chronicles of a million contradictions and random, involuntary thoughts. Although I am tempted to include them, no interpretation, no separate facts, no representation of real life or real things is intentionally added here. There is no theory subscribed to. All coincidences are purely imaginary, and bear who-knows-what resemblance to anything living or dead or trying to be alive.

The night of May the 24th, 2007.

I am a prince, the would-be 18th king*, of the Rajputana clan. My father is the present emperor, ever since my grand-father had decided to hand over the helm of worldly activity to him. My grand-father looks forlorn, and my father, determined - all, including me, dressed simplistically, but with vibrant colours. However, there is immense tension in the household as there is an argument regarding who will climb down the hill first. On the top of this hill is none other than the Rajputana palace. Through the torrential rain, I was one of the last to climb down, followed by servants clad in white. We reach down to a barren, red land, where we continue the argument.

There is a blank**.

My little cousins and I are all aboard a super-fast train, extremely smooth and complete with fibre-glass window-panes and automatic doors. This time, all of us clad in white. All my cousins are wearing a transparent white traditional Muslim head-cover, but I am not. There are no seats; we are all sitting on the ground. Suddenly, a Muslim fundamentalist enters the train from infinity, with an automatic black rifle. He sports a white kurta-pyjama, has a young black beard and has the appropriate head-cover. He shoots and kills each person without the headgear. Nobody gets up in panic, all sit and wait; and so do I. When he reaches me, he pumps in six bullets straight into my head. Immediately afterwards, his attire turns blue. I feel heavy, but I get up and grab him by the collar, and shove his head out of the running train door. His head is severed, yet no blood is spilt. He is lifeless and I leave him on the floor, only to return to my seat on the ground.

* From what I remember, there was a papyrus script, engulfed in smoke, and on it was written in English with red ink the successive kings, I assume. And the last on the list, number 18, was my real name. It seems I tried to turn back the pages to 'visit' my ancestors, but there were no names against the previous numbers, starting, of course with 1.

** Let me term a sequence of events I cannot recall as a blank.