The Stadium

After about three sitting-downs I finally completed my 1058 odd short story. :) Though its a bit late posting this,but what the heck...
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The Stadium
Vedantam Aditya

From high up in the stands, I could see the tiny semblances of white brown moving carefully toward the centre of the large circular field. A dull click later, the now worn out ball moved lumberingly towards the boundary. It was a hot summer afternoon and the place was studded with lazy scroungers, young couples and old cricketing veterans who never made it big. The faint claps all around Wankhede Stadium did nothing though, to assuage the struggle in my mind. I was sitting with my knees clasped together, my hands wrapped around them, my chin resting on the hard bones of my knees. Now suddenly tired, I shifted, and lay down on my back and watched a single cloud of no recognizable shape, slowly move and block out the sun. Somewhere, an old man yelled out encouragement to his son.

The stadium was more than a symbol of cricketing lore. It was more than a symbol of class when the great Clive Lloyd played in the 1975 tour of the windies, more than a symbol of gentleman ship when Gundappa Vishwanath coaxed the umpire into reversing a caught behind verdict against Bob Taylor, more than a symbol of raw aggression when Ravi Shastri hit six sixes in six balls en route to the fastest double century in first class cricket. To me, the stadium was a harem of memories.

It was where we used to sit on weekends, with hampers of cold liquids and a plethora of snacks neatly wrapped up in aluminum foil set aside paper napkins and bed sheets. I used to work my homework in the shade of the broad roofs of the place, while occasionally glancing up to see the score, eagerly waiting for my father’s batting. I was young, yet knew all the nuances of cricket. From the gully to the deep square leg, I could name them all, comment on evenness of the pitch or the lack of it, predicting whether the pitch that day would favour the spinners or the pacemen. Sometimes when the ball came flying our side, I would expertly take the catch albeit after some years of handling the ball.

I remember the day I broke two fingers while trying to catching the ball. I had never seen so much blood on my knickers. Dad retired early from the match so he could take me to the hospital. Apart from the anesthesia and the doctors’ looks, I vividly recollect lying in bed and asking him how he thought my catch was, for I had not let go of the ball in my bloody fingers. He reprimanded me for that, but I could see the dancing smile in his eyes, and my catch earned me a day out on the following weekend.

October 15th, 1987 I came here with her. The caretaker knew me, so it was no problem at all getting inside. I remember her looking divine, her jeans pulled up so that they didn’t get wet in the moist grass, her hair ties in a loose bun just waiting to cascade onto her back. Her scent was overpowering in a very nice kind of way. Sure, there was the smell of the grass, that of the cold wind against your face, not to mention the stadium itself, but it was as if I had unconsciously blocked all of the material facets of the night, and revelled in the feeling that she was right beside me, happy as a baby and guilty like a kid caught with chocolates, on being out so late in the night. She wore a pink sweater and I remember telling her that I cant resist women dressed in pink. She had laughed gracefully at that, and later she had kissed me on my cheek while we sat on the steps of the stadium, with the moon looking patronly from above, a benign smile on his face. Yes, in a city like Bombay it was my first kiss, four years after which, I married her.

That is not to say all the good things in my life have happened here. The stadium, my brother, has been a mocking witness to many of my embarrassing moments. My father being an exceptionally good state-level cricketer, who never made into the national team, naturally wanted me to do better than in him in that area. It dint occur to him, that the kid who took good catches was long but gone, and was replaced by a gangling lazy man, whose lung capacity was that of a two-year old's. My particularly bad phases saw me getting out consecutively without putting a natural number up in my score, while my good phases saw me entering double in digits in a triple digit number of balls. My most magnificent achievement, a 50 off 98 balls came off a particularly inferior opposition, who the veterans called a bunch of morons. Nevertheless, my old man, was blind to my faults, and consumed by a desire to see me at the top. It was here, that after losing yet another match, I told him I didn’t want to pursue a career in cricketing. I still remember the look of shock and then resignation on his face. But we talked, all night as a matter of fact. I talked to him about my career, about my interest in advertising, while he talked about his younger days here, and of his struggle to reach where he was now. It was one of the most satisfying nights of my life.

There are very few places in the world that offer you solace and comfort. Everywhere you see, there is competition, everyone trying to get over another, more so in a city like Bombay, there being the expectations of your parents included. Some prefer going to temples for peace, some prefer working, but for me sitting in a secluded corner of the stadium, was relaxation in itself. How many times had I not heard couples talk out their problems, crazy fans burn paper and plastic and noisy kids scampering around? The stadium for me was like a kaleidoscope of life, which afforded me to forget my own being for a while and look at others. It helped me evolve a perspective in life, which was what I needed the most. And In a way I look at it as a brother, who has always been there for me. This stadium, has and will always remain, a harem of memories.
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Amen to my writing skills.he he..

Of cycles and mudballs

I was walking back to my room today.It was a lazy,dispirited walk.To assuage my boredom,and for the lack of anything constructive to do,I started rolling a a "mudball" in my way.You know,a kick,watch it roll along a unpredictable trajectory, bring it back onto track if it strays a lot to the side,and then kick it again.The ball kept becoming smaller.With every kick a portion of its mud fell off,and was lost on the path mingling with the dirt on the road.I thought then that thats what life is you know,its just a ball of mud that keeps rolling around losing values as it goes by,losing mud as it rolls along.Arent all of us like this? Born perfect,the apple of everyone's eye(well neglect the exceptions) , pure and perfect(almost always) and well...new.Then we begin roling...

But then something happened that destroyed the train of thought I was trying to construct.A bunch of cycles approached me from the opposite direction on that dimly lit path.I stepped hastily to one side and sudenly realized i hadn't saved my litle mudball,my companion of now,my analogy to life.And then,in one sudden movement,one of the cycles ran right over it...

Kismet

Kismet(KIZ-met) is not remotely related to what I was going to write now.I use 'was' because using 'am' always makes me feel distinctly uncomfortable.Exactly like committing to something that I may or may not do,connected imperceptibly to the vagaries of my mind and hence as uncertain as todays weather.On second thought since the weather these days seems very much predictable(just as loads of water and misery for Bombay or slisha cloudy but with a little sunshine for dear old hyd) it would be prudent for me take back my last few words and replace the analogy not with todays weather,but say the hotness quotient(1) for NDTV's female reporters.

Yes,Kismet.Kismet supposedly comes (via Turkish) from Arabic the qismah, "portion, lot."It means fate or destiny,quite a close resemblance to the hindi kismat.The word is also as beautifully close to kishmish as it is to kiss,the former being something I absolutely adore the taste of and the latter errr..being something I wouldn't mind.(hypocrite!!)

So Kismet has it that I went today to get a new frame for my poor spectacles,as strained from being thrown about the footer fields and the badminton courts as from long pointless excursions on the internet as from being unceremoniously flung away before I go to bed,suffering probably the agony of contact with the bottom of the maids foot twice or thrice,as from being literally squished under my pillow,as from the pressure of the lascivious gazes and wide eyed stares from one side of it to the miss USA teens posing in their bikinis on the other.Not to mention the UV rays(somebody please seal the hole,they plead),the ignomity of fog and rain,dust,mud,smoke,CO,sweat...

Anyway the point of this post is not the nirvana of my long languishing specs which are not so blessed to have their owner word reparo but the fact that this bloggers confidence levels(which is not very much to say the least) dip to at least 60% of their original values in the presence of a girl.Now,not all girls have this effect,but I see it very wise and prudent to just say 'girls' rather that try being precise(do I give myself away?) with a longer 'hot girls'.You see,the blogger is making sure that he is not embarrased,with the oft-repeated girly question that the blogger wont mouth here(consider it taboo like Lord Voldemort.I only pray that the male readers of this blog dont have to answer to that question) if he ever has the most gratifying experience of meeting any of the female readers of his blog.

So there I was haggling with the optician(my old specs lay forgotten.A new,classy frame was dangling from my hand) over fourteen hundred or three hundred more because rest assured if the guy had his way(all my senses were on red alert) then I would be pretty much penniless over the weekend which was by all means to be avoided.I tried an old tactic.A little look-i-am-smart-so-you-better-stop-haggling trick.Lets say astigmatism.The greenish white card that the doc had handed to me minutes ago pronounced very clearly that i needed some 0.5-0.5 cylinders(God knows what they are) and that my sight stood at -0.75 for the right eye and -1.25 for the left(2) one.Now,already wise from the few minutes of chat with the worthy doc and a recollection of the old-high school optics fundaes,I tried proving to the optician why the specs I was buying now could not prevent me from having a different power in different directions or in more layman terms why it could not prevent me seeing the lengths of the vertical and horizontal radii of a circle as different or in pseudo-impress-listeners terms why it was no good for astigmatism.Everything was going well.I had him sufficiently muted and he looked (i think) to be on the verge of letting the three hundred bucks stay in my purse for a little more time.Then...disaster happened!

She came and stood right behind me.She was tall(5'11 i guess) and fair.She was pretty young(20 or so I think).The very thought of her now makes me write three very simple sentences which my grammar teacher would take one look at and shoot a note to my mom saying that her son did not know the basics of combining sentences, or in other words,unfamiliar to conjunctions and give me disapproving stares the rest of the week.Anyway,so she had the most beautiful eyes ever.Lips that would have made Love Hewitt(ya so?) feel inferior.And a beautifully toned skin color that would have made the white sea gulls take the next ship back to North pole.She had the most perfect ass.A statement i could well justify,having first seen that part of her in the mirror before turning around to gape at her.Well,she was beautiful and it I would not need Jeeves to open the little door at the side of my head,reach a finger inside and switch on the little bulb which seemed to have gone phusssss to tell me that she was wayyy(Note the extra y's) out of my league.

To cut a long story short,she seemed to suck up my confidence like maybe a Dementor, in those few seconds she stood behind me waiting for her turn.The three hundred bucks in my pocket went bravely to the smiling cashiers drawer.My fundaes on astigmatism seemed to evaporate,leaving a temporary bulge in my throat and a suddenly strained voice which seemed to say something like
Gurrp Burp Gurrrum Burrm Gurgle Furble Furrrrm ph Wuakkkk 300 Wuakkkkk.

And I hear there are hot chickos in the corporate world...God help me!

"We are all weirdoes together ... but the 'together' is the important part."
Rhiow, "The Book of Night with Moon" (p.216)

MS Word

I vividly remember the lot of red strikes and round clear red circles I got as a school boy in my notebooks.The math teacher,being particularly zealous when it came to correction,used to circumscribe my calculations with particularly large ovals which started from one end of the page,encompassing all,ending with a flourish cutting the start of the oval forming a decent sized noose.In fact,I beleive,so much was her zest for redding my notebook that the circles included for a majority of times,elementary calculations that were without doubt correct.Even if I ever ,in regard of the matronly figure,forgave her on that account,she would definetely need to apologize to me someday on taking away my power of assumption or rather redding it.It was because of those overbearingly large red circles that I doubted my statements like "Let x=no. of mangoes that Ramu has". :P At that time most of my englih teachers had about the same habit.It was as if any 250 word piece of witing would look good only if the blue mass of words was suitably punctuated with a lot of red.

The first time I met Microsoft word,I was reminded of them again,after a very long time.You see,they have the same highly disconcerting habit of redding stuff.While it is most helpful,if you put that indicative curvy red line below "words" like benaeth or curwy,My dear Bill Gates,you still have to apologize to mankind on how your deplorable software decided to red proper nouns?? Now,I sit writing references to my report with Sankalp on The Word.Fine if you think Haykins(a no unordinary author let me assure you) should be spelt Haskin or Harkin or Hakim or Haying but it is agonizing when I enter my name for a change and find that according to Word Aditya is wrong and it should instead be spelt,Abita,Anita or Dainty????

Anyway the name stuck.I am called Dainty nowadays.(rolls eyes..hmph) but not before I turned tables on my dear friend Sankalp by redding his name too in Word.Out of Sank Alp,Sandal and Sanyal,wicked me chose to call him Sandal.:P It was a pity,we mused later,that Bill Gates didnt know Hindi because the closest hindi expletive that came close to ShivRam's redded castration by WOrd, Hiram, is harami. :)It also turns out,we joked about later,that Gates might have been afraid of our professor because Word hardly touched his name.The maximum it did was to sugeest meekly to try putting a space between the name,which was not taken anyway.

Discliamer: Word or no word,nuffink cann correct da speeling mishtakes here on this paage.Screw red.

11:51 to 12:12

I am sleepy.It has been a long day.Not work wise.I dont think I would be so tired if I had actually done something useful this whole 24 hours.I would have been running more on adrenaline than anything else.But I am sleepy and tired.It has been an unproductive day after all.

At the end of one-and-a-half-months of my summer project,i am vaguely left with the feeling that maybe I dont get to do what I wanted to do after all.Publish a paper.The material is excellent,quite stimulating but despo-ism and given-up is not an unordinary attitude to wear at the end of the day,after being subjected to the idiosyncracies of the heralders of learning,our proffesors.While the paper may not happen I sure have learned several things about myself in this stint at IIT Kharagpur.Lets summarize shall we?

a)I apparently can go a full morning and afternoon without anything but tea,provided I get dinner(preferably rice and sambar) at the end of it :P

b)I can survive horrendous bathrooms adorned with extremes like decaying walls that look like they are going to peel off and fall on you while you try not to touch them while taking bath or lavarotories "protecting" or trying to protect the privacy of their occupant with locks that would fall off if a 2 year old sloth lazily pushed it.

c)My shoulders are as good as they were in high school when my heavy(understated) bag used to be the object of perpectual amazement to fellow bus-riders.Now apparently,I can carry a heavy book on Statistical signal processing,an umbrella,dozens of loose papers,2 hard bound long notebooks and my sweater in it without resembling the hunchback of Notre Dame when I get it off.

d)That there are places where samosas are absolutely absolutely uneatable.And at such places,if this blogger tries vainly to get through a second plate of samosas he will end up with a potta neppi(stomach-ache) the next day.Oh,gastric troubles too :P

e)That it is better to use your own legs and walk than try riding a bicycle of the 70's which looks fully capable of dismatling itself into shambles when you try to overtake a cycle rickshaw wala.

f)That sqeuaking chappals annoy everyone,even the matronly white haired old lady who you thought was too busy to notice it even if the lab was on fire.

g)That I dont ever want to hear the squeaking of a bed in the room above me when its occupant is moving his bed around or (more understandably) jerking off because it is going to remind me of this place :P

Okay,thats a lot for now.I dont think I can stand the sleep anymore.I have to get back,escaping the dogs,to my room and then face the mosquitoes you know :P

Image

There is a window.

When I started this post thats all i wanted to write.That there is an image of a window floating surreally in my head.But then,it would be blasphemous to leave such vividity undescribed.

There is a window.Embedded in a creamish cemented wall.It has a prominent black square enveloping it.It doesnt serve its purpose because it doesnt have a glass.This of course,could be a conclusion I come maybe because of my limited insight.Maybe it serves its purpose BECAUSE it doesnt have glass.Anyway there it is.The wall,the window,the infinite sea,the headrush of wind,dirt,the smell of sweat..images and sensations that slowly creep into my mind with every passing second filling voids,giving company to the lonely window.
Black eyed seagulls,rusted lighthouses,the smell of oil,that of withered wood,the scent of a sailors foresight,the orange horizon,a ball,the world,a book,10000 leagues of salted water,Sindbad. The precision of the sheer power of imagination.a mixture of unknown unheard of things in a single frame.A picture that not 10,000 poets could describe in 10,000 pages.And there is sound...
The sound of angry waves,the sound of lazy waves,the sound of solitude,the sound of soliliquoy,sound of silence,silent thought,orders,creaking of hulls,rain,the wind making love to the trees(the tempest wind and the graceful leaves),,roars of a faraway cloud,restless excitement.

I have this image in my head.I just can't get it out.And I could write a song ,a hundred miles long...

Now listening to Billy Joel (Goodnight Saigon)

We met as soulmates
On Parris Island
we left as inmates
from an asylum
and we were sharp
as sharp as knives
and we were so gung ho to lay down our lives.

we had no homefront
we had no soft soap
they sent us playboy
they gave us bob hope
we dug in deep
and shot on sight
and prayed to Jesus Christ with all of our might.

We had no cameras
to shoot the landscape
we passed the hash pipe
and played our Doors tapes
and it was dark..
so dark at night
and we held onto each other
like brother to brother
we promised our mothers we'd write

(chorus)
and we would all go down together
we said we'd all go down together
yes we would all go down together.

Singularity

I dont know why I had to urge to post this.But when I think clear or have these sudden moments of insight I feel it is better to write them down and not trust the single most intelligent entity on this planet.I want to narrate a little incident.It is not much,just very trivial,my reaction to which one would call melodramatic or excessively sentimental.Nevertheless I will continue to describe it,which was what I started writing these conglomeration of sentences.

I cried today.After a long time.And no,I am not a girl.It is a most wonderful feeling and contrary to what one may think not unmanly.They were not just little drops of salted water moistening my eyes and sticking to my eyelids as I buried my head in my hands.They were to me like a chink in the dam of months of restraint against nothing particular,against an unseen unheard of antagonist.Call it society,standards,life...

Life is discontinuous.It is not as we all would like to believe.It does not comply with casual offhand statements like ,"Martin,what are you going to do tomorrow?".While it is most releiving if Martin gives a ordinary/humorous answer to this multi-faceted question instead of a droning philosophical overture,there still remains the vaguely ethereal question to this question in Martin's mind,"Why do you presume that there IS a tomorrow?"

Life is discontinuous.Death is one discontinuity.Though purists would extend the discussion further ,"Why do you presume there is no life after death?".No,I would not like to go into discussions about things I have no idea about,things connected to the metaphysical,something no one has an idea about.I would stick to the hypothesis that we have a zero after death.Hence a discontinuity.If you have agreed to everything uptill now,you will shocked to know how latently confident you are about the continuity of the rest of your life.You would say,"I would get up tomorrow,brush my teeth,take a bath,have breakfast wth my kids,kiss my wife goodbye and go to office" or "I will get up at 12,have lunch and play quake",but you must understand about singularities.Single moments of revelation that can alter the realities of your existence in methods you would have never imagined.THAT my friend,is another discontinuity.Singular explosions of consciousness.It changes your life,your very mindsight into things.And so even that is a singularity.

Today was one such peak when I found myself upset because shiv got lashed at.Professors are no angels but this one is the devil himself when he turns his onetime soothing voice into an dangerous emotionally disturbing one,making you want to be swallowed by the earth when he disproves everything you have done until now.It made me realize how important dad and mom are to me.How important Grandpa and mamaiyya are to me.How important I am to myself and how harshly and self destructively I have been ignoring my own comforts.How important life is...

I am listening to One last breath(Creed)...

P.S:Take care of yourself.

Please come now I think I'm falling
I'm holding to all I think is safe
It seems I found the road to nowhere
And I'm trying to escape
I yelled back when I heard thunder
But I'm down to one last breath
And with it let me say
Let me say

Hold me now
I'm six feet from the edge and I'm thinking
That maybe six feet
Ain't so far down

I'm looking down now that it's over
Reflecting on all of my mistakes
I thought I found the road to somewhere
Somewhere in His grace
I cried out heaven save me
But I'm down to one last breath
And with it let me say
Let me say

Hold me now
I'm six feet from the edge and I'm thinking
That maybe six feet
Ain't so far down

Sad eyes follow me
But I still believe there's something left for me
So please come stay with me
'Cause I still believe there's something left for you and me
For you and me
For you and me

Hold me now
I'm six feet from the edge and I'm thinking...