I think headphones are a wonderful invention. It allows you to carry your own personal brand of ambience around. No need to worry about anything around you. No danger of being forced to engage in inane social small talks. In fact, no need to think about the futility of inane social small talks either. In a way, you are carrying your own world around with you. It is literally wrapped around your head.

Sometimes, this world spills out of your head. It is not pleasant, especially if that world consists of Justin Bieber. It can become utterly obscene if Justin Bieber inadvertently bursts into a just-need-somebody-to-love through your mouth. The best part is that you may not even be aware that you are breaking into a hum at dangerously audible decibel levels. It can be embarrassing in much the same manner as it would be if someone were to release an incriminating tape of yours on the internet without your knowledge.

This lady in the elevator did exactly that. No, she didn’t release an incriminating tape – Not that I am aware of at least; but she started to sing Justin Bieber aloud in a manner which would put anybody to shame, including Justin Bieber. In an alternate world, Justin Bieber, actually did hear her singing and immediately decided never to sing again, thereby making for a better world. In the present world, however, I was confined in this elevator for a full minute listening to her recital. This experience now tops my list of most forgettable experiences. It required a lot of deliberation on my part to grant this the #1 status as it faced stiff competition from #2 on that very list (turning thirty). In the end, I eliminated turning-thirty from the list since I have already forgotten if that event ever happened. Already forgotten, it couldn’t possibly be ‘forgettable’. Minor but important technicality.

When my colleague reported to me a similar excess he experienced in office, I was so moved that I contemplated turning into a superhero that will rid the world of such ignorant and untalented singers. I designed a logo, made a costume out of curtains, frills and empty detergent boxes and was just thinking about inventing the usual gizmos, the utility belt and the likes, when the inspiration dawned upon me. So I decided instead to use this space to write some techniques that can help you in dealing with such atrocities in the most humane manner possible. These techniques don’t involve any binding/ gagging or pulling out of nails; not even any odd kick to the skull. Here you go:

Break into a version of a dance involving some karate chops and pulling your hair. When the culprit looks at you with admonishment in his/ her eyes, simply say – you provide the score, I do the choreography.

Tap on the shoulder and compliment the lovely voice s/he has. Also suggest lining up for Americal Idol auditions.

Proceed to give him/her a CPR. Ignore all protests. Call an ambulance. Destroy the CCTV and leave before the ambulance turns up.

Step in close to the person. Take out your ultra small foldable pair of scissors. In a swift undetectable motion, cut the cord. Abort if it is a Bluetooth.

Entangle the cord into some fixture to allow for a slow-motion tripping of the culprit. Lend a helping hand and mention what a health hazard the headphones are.

Write a fictitious report with the headline – Headphones discovered to be the prime cause of brain tumors. Carry a print with you at all times. Pretend to read it while keeping it in full visibility of the unsuspecting hummer. Ensure font size and colors are attractive and readable.

If nothing works, take this opportunity to swear at the person in vernacular. This emotional outlet will keep you sane for the next six hours. Find another culprit in the mean time to fuel your addiction.

If it were a tennis ball or a golf ball, I would not have been around to write this article. But, it was, in fact, a cricket ball. And someone had given it a good rub so that it was a little shinier on one side than the other. This shine had survived even down to the sub-atomic level which led to a kind of a reverse motion. The particles, instead of floating away, started to converge. It seemed they wanted to gain their form back.

The reverse motion moved past the tipping point without losing a heartbeat and soon threatened to tear through the fabric of time and space. From the other side of the fabric, the batsman (yes, the same one, they just couldn’t get him out; it helped that he owned the only bat in that universe) assumed it to be another shady tactic of the fielding side and hooked it out of that universe again to widespread awe. This is also referred to in the history books as the big bang. No, not the one with Debbie in it. That came a lot later. And hardly worth a plop, if you ask me. You may want to check out Sheila instead.

It was such a ferocious hit that the ball immediately dissolved into gazillions of particles who then shat their pants and raced away at a breakneck speed. They have not stopped since. In fact, they are running away even faster, petrified to the core. Some found comfort in numbers and clustered around to form stars. The early stars crumbled under the collective fear of the willow and so the particles formed even complex structures such as galaxies to hide within.

Over time, the memory of the big bang started to lose its intensity and some of the particles settled down in distant parts of the universe in the form of planets. A few decided to lead the revolution to form their own cricket team to tame the galactic monster batsman. After quite a few trial and errors involving fins, webbings, tentacles etc, they moved onto four legged animals. Seeing that such animals could not throw a ball if their lives depended upon it, they finally zeroed onto a two-legged creature.

By now, so much time had elapsed, that the two legged creatures weren’t sure of their place and purpose in the larger cosmos. Initially, they amused themselves with sex, religion and wars. They were then depressed for a while but after a bout of cold, they quickly discovered philosophy, rock-n-roll and drugs. Nowadays, they mostly scratch themselves, fart and make faces in no particular order.

And now, the most intelligent cluster of particles walks this earth in the form of yours truly. I mostly think deep thoughts and withdraw money from the ATM. Yesterday, my ATM asked me if I was single and I responded – No, just delusional.

This is going to be a short post.

Let me start by apologizing to my imaginary fans for not writing for some time. You will understand my reasons by the end of this article.

Let me now tell you why I started this blog in the first place.

A while ago, I attended a talk. We were asked to write on a piece of paper a list of future accomplishments which when achieved will give us a sense of fulfillment. The items on this list were to be struck out over time as and when the respective activity was accomplished.

I wrote many things on my list. Some have been struck out since but the #1 item on the list still remained intact…..on the list. It has mocked me for as long as I can remember. This accomplishment was to become a published author.

When I embarked upon writing a novel, I realized what a lonely life an author leads. I couldn’t share my little project with anyone for fear of ridicule or for fear of what I would term as contamination of the story to the point of rendering it not-so-original.

Not sharing my project meant lack of both feedback and in-process encouragement, leading to lack of motivation. So, I started this blog for the selfish reason of keeping myself motivated.

When my novel was being rejected by agents and publishers alike, it created more doubts in my mind still. But while my novel gathered rejections, this space continued to accumulate glowing comments. So, what started as a selfish enterprise became much more than just that.

My much fancied reader, you have provided great encouragement which not only helped me in finishing the novel but also eventually in getting it published.

So, I am pleased to inform you that my novel has been accepted for publication in India. Past few days, I was busy with the same and could not attend to the demands of maintaining an active blog. But I think, my reliable ally, you will understand. As always.

Service will resume as usual shortly.

He tried to recall that conversation with another Big-un, the one with the whitest hair and also the one whose ears were comically sprouting hairs and who smelled funny. That conversation was the key. He could always go up to that Big-un and ask but he was tired of being laughed at. He roamed around restlessly. Another Big-un tempted him by making funny faces. He laughed heartily at that Big-un, also stuck out his tongue. He stole a cookie from the table when none was looking and ate it.

His stomach gave a satisfactory grunt. All of a sudden, he was reminded of his problem. This caused much agitation. He wondered if precious time was already being lost and whether it will be too late soon enough. Now he remembered. The whitey Big-un had told him once that the pests have to be killed as soon as they turn up or else they will breed and take over the house.

He kicked himself as to why he had to eat the water-melon seeds. He looked at one of the melons in the kitchen and compared its size with himself. The lemons lying next to it looked much smaller. He could easily see a big melon tree growing from his stomach and eventually branching out of his head. He was depressed with the prospects of having to walk with a treetop for a head for the rest of his life. He wasn’t sure whether it will come out of his head or his ears, though. He thought about it and established that it must first come out of his ears. This brought him to a shocking realization – Whitey must have eaten some seeds as well.

He was concerned for Whitey. He went up to him and warned him. Whitey laughed at him as well. He was embarrassed and told himself never to talk to a Big-un ever again. But he did tell Whitey that he was going to drink some pesticide to prevent the tree from taking over the house and that Whitey was welcome to join him.

This brought about the silence he expected. He must have impressed the Big-uns with his intelligence. It was about time that they showed him the respect that he deserved. There was a lot of shouting and yelling. Whitey was towering over the original Big-un who was cowering away. He chuckled – The Big-uns were so funny. He reckoned that if everybody was so afraid of Whitey then it might not be so bad to have some tree branches peeking out of his own ears as well.

Amid the commotion, he stole another cookie from the table and ate it. He patted his tummy and fell asleep.

PS – The term Big-un was originally coined by William Golding in the book “Lord of the Flies”.

The line is also very subjective. Your line is going to be very different from some one else’s line. Chances are good that your own line shifts depending upon the time of the day, your gastronomical balance and your mood. In fact, you also draw different lines for different individuals. Some lines are porous while others are unbroken. Some are straight and some take impossible dips and turns.

Despite all this, there exists a general consensus on what the line means.

What the hell is the line?

The line is that personal, subjective and intangible self-protection mechanism beyond which the concerned other person is not welcome. If the other person continues to intrude, then, well, s/he would have crossed the line.

Herein lies the dilemma. Even though crossing the line is frowned upon universally, yet the line is crossed almost all the time.

The first part of the problem lies in differential understanding of the line due to the numerous self-conflicting properties it displays (as mentioned before). Some animals are known to do a better job of drawing the line eg. by urinating, by defecating or by prominently displaying something as intuitive as a claw-mark on some sufficiently tall tree. Somewhere during the evolution, we missed the simplicity of marking our territories at the cost of being more cultured. But we gained one crucial advantage – any of us can invoke the line irrespective of our physical or mental prowess or the stench quotient of a randomly taken urine sample for that matter. In fact, a line is largely invoked because of the lack thereof. If you were a physically imposing personality, hardly anybody would be crossing the line with you anyway. On the other hand, if you were witty, you would be the one crossing the line more often than others. Fascinating, the line is.

The second part of the problem lies in the lack of consequences of crossing the line, by and large that is. This poses another irony. For such a universally understood moral crime, a lot of guilty people still seem to get away with it. This brings me to the various similarities that the line shares with a religion. The line and religion share the dubious distinction of being universally acknowledged but rarely followed to the point (pun intended). The line lends itself to different meaning to different people not unlike any religion. The line, much like the Supernatural God, cannot be bargained with once it is invoked (Try telling a friend who is messing with you – Mate, you have crossed the line; and then see how s/he fumbles with various lame attempts to salvage the situation). The line is also and often invoked as a last resort when you find yourself in a corner. Without the line or religion, majority of the human beings may find themselves without their moral compass. In fact, looking at the similarities, the line could actually be declared a religion.

The last part of the explanation resides in the fact that it is simply too tempting to play with the line. Especially since it is someone else’s line. Playing with the line allows you to come up with your own psychological assessment of the other person even if at a high cost. It is also entertainment at somebody else’s expense. Some people play with it better than others but invariably when you play with the line, you also run the risk of finding yourself on the other side before you remember to rein yourself in.

Whichever way you look at it, there is something quite fulfilling about finding the line, flirting with it but never really crossing it. I think I am going to devote the rest of my life to this pursuit.

This also gave me a free hand. I leveraged it to the hilt in creating my own reign of terror. It helped that I reached my teens before the terrorized. Being bigger, I got away from quite a few chores. Let’s just say that I had to relearn later how to polish my shoes.

Unfortunately, however, this golden era lasted only a couple of years. While I was in a hurry to get to my teens, my brother took his time about it but when he did get there, he suddenly outgrew me. This prompted me to briefly patronize a theory that I was an orphan left at my parents’ doorsteps just like in some of those western movies revolving around deeply troubled and conflicted heroes. I indulged in this theory largely because it filled me with a sense of grave manly self-respect, even if unfounded. However, after a lengthy but thoroughly useless investigative work and for lack of believers, I was eventually forced to discard this line of thought.

Thereafter, I managed to divert the sibling rivalry towards other pursuits where I was able to stamp my authority. Fist fights, however, continued to be the last frontier. But my brothers had outgrown the concept.

Still, I sought to be thrilled elsewhere even if without much luck. In one such case, after a swollen upper lip, bruised neck, and a stomach that remained moody for a week due to many a kick attempted at it, I decided to finally grow up.

Alas, there won’t be any fist fights. Not for me. Not any more. Only nostalgia.

“Insert poignant comical quip about Mondays here”

Pretty sure my bladder is on non-speaking terms with me. Pretty sure that dull ache wasn’t where it shouldn’t be yesterday.

Prescribed dosing – No more than three status updates a day. In case of addiction, stop paying your internet bills, smash your laptop or slit your wrists, in increasing order of desperation.

All this is of course harmless fun. But what if some important people were addicted to facebook? I am not talking about celebrities who obviously will have professional help. I am talking about people like a small-time judge? Let’s imagine what he might post…

Fell asleep again today.

What a bloody racist. White trash, if you ask me.

The universe has never been a more comical of a place. Not the mildly ticklish kind but like a train-wreck kind of funny. Those watching from higher dimensions must be confused out of their wits. Meanwhile, you continue to be the joker and I’ll be the resident clown. And we’ll laugh while we are up there and we’ll laugh when we are down.

But then again, have you ever tried walking straight from point A to point B? It is not too difficult if there are no distractions. Such a setting could be the 100m dash at the Olympics. Of course, the idea is to run the shortest distance possible to the finish line if you want to win the race. For simplicity sake (And for Euclid’s sake; May he remain peacefully and eternally dead), lets assume that the shortest distance is indeed a straight line. Let’s now move to a more real world setting. A shopping mall, for instance. Have you ever noticed how people walk around in a mall? I have. Not out of choice but because my office is situated right on top of one of those things.

You have got to understand that I am not prejudiced. It is just that when I get out of my office and inside the mall to get my lunch, I walk with a purpose and energy and it is my mindset that clashes with the aimless zombies that mar my way. We could be the best of friends at any other given time but at that particular moment, I simply thank my stars that guns, knives or for that matter weapons of mass destruction, are frowned upon in this country. There is a good possibility that I might have gone trigger-happy otherwise.

An average shopper (if you could call them that since they are all extreme outliers and they hardly seem to shop) is a fierce combination of being decidedly indecisive and resolutely unyielding. They are like the walking dead or barely walking (take your pick) who seem to suffer from the same lack of direction as a leaf in a whirlwind. But unlike a leaf, they simply wouldn’t give way. Not if you request, not if you holler, not if you stomp, not if you were driving a fire truck with the sirens blaring and if you were to viciously open the hose.

Further, they seem to have a type of randomness to their moves that will defy the results of an unbiased coin toss carried on indefinitely. Even a series of coin tosses will eventually follow some sort of a statistical distribution (I think so anyway) but not a selection of shoppers whether or not they are in the same group. In fact, shoppers who shop in a group add a whole new dimension to the term Catastrophe. They act like a bunch of ants pulling their load in different directions but that is where the similarity ends as unlike the ants, no larger force prevails to guide their movements. The resultant unpredictable chaos could make for a study in paranormal occurrence beyond the realm of human understanding.

To be fair, sometimes a pattern does emerge and the packs of zombies start to behave more like a herd gathered around some new attraction that more often than not consists of skimpily clad girls selling the latest perfume till stock lasts or an emcee pretending that he has something profound to holler about. But those are rare exceptions to an otherwise mind-boggling myriad of floating undeads the movements of which when plotted on a chart would put quantum analysts to test and might even cause the discovery of a radical new theory which should be aptly named The Special Theory of the Shopping malls and Rats therein. One of the key statistics of such a theory has to be the average KMs travelled by a given shopper in any given visit to a given mall which when stretched out on a straight line could reach halfway to moon.

Blah.

Remember the rich boy in college who would turn up for the street-soccer game dressed like he could be the first replacement choice for Liverpool, especially when they are down and out which is pretty much all the time anyway? Well, he is NOT a Serious Amateur. Even if he did have some skills (and I could have had a million dollars).

But the girl who competes like the Warrior Princess Xena over a board game of no less stature than ‘Taboo’ even when the skills are no match for the nonchalant opposition as can be seen from the back-to-back effortless defeats, She is.

Serious Amateurs inhabit that tiny territory that has not been claimed by the amateurs or the professionals. It is a growing profession (How ironic) and is normally associated with that phase of a civilization’s growth when
- the majority have decided to relinquish arms
- insidious boredom has been seeping in for at least a select segment of well-off people who can lead quite comfortable lives with relative ease without over-exerting themselves, and
- in absence of warriors with claimed and verifiable kills, the finer ladies have decided to offer themselves to those who demonstrate proficiency, even if only perceived, in more than one vocation.

This period may or may not be followed with decay. Think medieval renaissance. Leonardo Da Vinci, Michaelangelo and thousands of others who wanted to be like them and you would know what I am talking about. Those Thousands of Others could be called Serious Amateurs (As long as you pay royalty to me each time you refer to them or anybody else as such).

Alright, I may have gone a bit too far. No. I have gone a bit too far. This is already getting too serious for my comfort. Perhaps we need another pictograph (This is only a second for me and so I thank you in advance to visit a secluded place to make fun of it before continuing your reading):-

My back is aching. So is my neck. I can’t feel my left leg either –> Its about time that I changed my lying down position.

I feel too lethargic to get up. My stomach is growling. But I did have a hearty lunch –> Oh My God. Is it dinner time already?

It’s quite easy to find an empty cubicle today. Where is everybody? Great. Even the corner office is empty; let me make it my office today. Where is everybody? –> Is it a Sunday? CRAP.

No position is more receptive to epiphanies than the lying down position. Yes. It is that position in which you sleep. Except when you don’t sleep then realizations from higher dimensions descend upon you. Sometimes, they rain upon you like a torrential downpour while at other times, they simply drizzle. If you are lucky, you will be able to duck from them but mostly, let’s accept it, you get wet. Evading epiphanies, especially when it is staring you in the face, is quite an art and I must write about that some other day but let me not digress.

The epiphany I recently had was something else altogether. It happened when I was hit by a series of minor realizations in quick succession over the whole of last weekend. None of those minor realizations were really important in the larger scheme. (Author Note: Though, I think, at one point of time, I did get a clear vision of how life conspired to create the universe to accommodate itself, how all life forms were connected with each other through an underlying thread of common consciousness flowing even through inanimate objects, how human race is just a sensorial manifestation of that infinitely more intelligent and omnipresent consciousness and is an experiment gone horribly wrong and how you can understand all this with the help of a screw-driver and basic algebra but more on that some other day). Anyway, I was smart enough to ignore all those epiphanies and instead searched for the underlying catalyst that triggered the waves of those realizations. Because, all facts considered, discovering a gold mine is not nearly as important as discovering how to find a gold mine. All this, you know, so as to not accidentally fall into one. After all, one has to take care of one’s health.

The underlying catalyst, I discovered, was The Couch. As it happened, I spent about 25 hours of that curious weekend on that couch. Now, this couch is nothing much to speak of. It is a comfortable two-seater that is deliberately positioned right in front of the TV. If a midget were to lay down on it and extend himself to his entire length then his legs will surely be dangling. But it does have a cozy feeling so universally associated with all kinds of couches, irrespective of their shapes or sizes. Now, if you throw in some cushions, a quilt, a large cappuccino, a book, and a wonderful foggy view through an open balcony, you do get that distinct feeling of having arrived fashionably late to a party thrown in your honor. And when one is so relaxed, so on top of the world, so content, that is exactly when those darned epiphanies sneak up onto you. You don’t like it when they do that especially when your own sub-conscious distracts you with inane conversations so you don’t see their approach. As an example:

Me: What a life. I can be here for ever.
Sub-conscious: Yeah. This way you are not going to get anywhere, anyway.
Me: What do you mean? Where else would I wanna be anyway?
Sub-conscious: Ask yourself. You should know.
Me: Even allowing for the ironical stupidity that I could ask myself a question when I don’t really know the answer, where are you going with this rhetoric?
Sub-conscious: The answers lie within.
Me: Are you for real? Or straight out of an Alcoholic Anonymous meeting? Besides, aren’t you supposed to be THAT within?
Sub-conscious: Who am I? I am just a resident garbage collection unit. The question is Who are YOU?
Me (With vacant expression): Who am I?
Sub-conscious: Bingo. (Smuggles in a few revelations)

Score line – Me – 0; Sub-conscious – 1.

Well, I guess, nothing in life is for free. Not even a lazy afternoon on The Couch. Bollocks.