The Loudspeakers in a Party

Once switched on, two loudspeakers can seldom be happy in the same room. Many have tried, and many have failed. Those speakers that have succeeded in being with one or more other speakers in the same room have either had to reduce their voice or switch off, if they could not absolutely shout out the rest. 

This creates much trouble whenever the louder speaker plays the generally straining rhythms. Nobody likes it but the idiot fingering that speaker. The louder speaker obviously likes it. The louder speaker controls the overall mood inside the room – happiness, sadness, romance, nostalgia, and the general party mood for the rest of the speakers. 

There was quite a mutiny last month when the idiot threw his bachelor party in a farmhouse outside the city. There were many speakers, all trying to be the loudest. The good thing they thought was that they all started with the party mood, blasting ecstatically thinking that the party mood was going to last forever. They had faith in their unity which was based on their belief in the party mood.

But the idiot and friends shook the living transistors out of them. 

They played all kind of things. Sounds mixed and turned into sounds yet unheard of – frequencies that tickled people inside the skull and shifted down to move their spines along with it – lyrics which made them think of all kinds of drama – and cry and laugh and jump around the house – in ways that it became a song in itself, confusing the loudspeakers to a great degree. If their song was not what made people dance, and rather they danced on a song much different than theirs, did it not diminish the loudspeakers’ point of existence. 

The little speaker inside a mobile phone was the first to show signs of protest – it stopped while taking the phone’s life along with it too. Many fell from their place and broke their own wires. Many sucked in the acidic liquid that was being splashed all over the place. Many took the fight to the next level and competed with each other to gain the maximum voice – while the idiot and friends sang their own songs upon hearing all kinds of melodramatic old sounds from the loudest speaker.

Most of the speakers were in mood for fighting but had to give up. It was not just the loudest speaker at the time, but also the old sounds of their great grandfathers which it was playing, which made them shut themselves down after all, for sake of their conscience at least. 

The party will go on to another day – the speakers told themselves in the wee hours of the morning as the idiot and friends repeated the same to each other. Many have tried and many have failed, but it’s never the same party again. 

_

The light down the road

She stands under the yellow streetlight after the midnight,

Down the road he lives,
Insects hover over her head,

Thinking it’s her,

That makes the light be there.

They never shifted to the other streetlights,

Since generations,

And she had never shifted either.

At the night,

When the city bathes in yellow,

The streets specifically -  

Her poise under the streetlight is rather hard to ignore,

Most people stop to take a look,

She chooses,

Her illusion of exercising a choice,

Much like the insects,

As they choose which pole to hover over,

Even as many die before the sun comes out,  

Even as she cries,

Sometimes when no one comes to look,

As the dying insects fall into her hair,

As she slowly brushes them away,

As someone stops to take a look,

As the light flickers and the stars hide away behind the clouds.

Down the road he lives,

Thinking it’s her,

That makes the light be there. 
_

Today's Horoscope

A lost man looked at his hands hoping for directions. There was none to be found. All the lines looked going haywire. Sometimes the lines on his hands appeared to be stronger than the hands were themselves. That was the ultimate despair that had left the fools wiser and the wise ones foolish.

Few lines hid themselves almost afraid to show up. And few showed up like the length of their stride would determine their right over the lost man’s destiny. It was almost an evil ploy by god to stop the lost man from going on to his own path of happiness. So the lost man looked for solutions from god’s agents, the astrologers and the old stone merchants. He read horoscopes everyday, of yesterday, today, and tomorrow.

The lost man wondered about all the dead people of the day who the horoscopes had missed, and prayed for himself to be a part of that crowd when the horoscopes turned bad. The lost man looked at his hands, believing in disbelief that all his life was coded there, and often spent hours reading between the lines, most of which crisscrossed violently on its way into the heaven.

God has a plan, the god’s agents told him, sold to him, and then told him again upon doubt due to delay in the services the lost man paid for. A proper plan, the lost man hoped, would be better than today’s horoscope at least. However, little doubt had seeped into his mind.

One day the government banned the horoscopes for spreading false beliefs and manipulating an entire race of mammals. There were protests all over the place. Middle aged men and women marched around the India Gate with candles, and their kids and the opposition debated over TV on the extent of the government’s moral policing.

In all this craziness, the lost man felt like a revolutionary all of a sudden.

Some people told him to take it easy, but he took to the streets flashing the rings around his eight fingers and two thumbs. He told stories of their success. He was all of a sudden, an ambassador of the people who were lost within their hands.

The government had to step down. The rules were changed. The power of the stones returned the faith of the mankind, and the lost man felt found for the first time. He then applied for a certificate of the knowledge of the telling of tomorrow.  

He now tells today’s horoscopes over YouTube, and also has been able to find this plan in his hands. It was clear from the beginning, he mentions often.

_

A long song

A song for the sins, thank god for them,

For the flesh and wounds,

Cleaned up with the juice of long forgotten sour grapes.

A song at the mercy of wind,

Heard at the turn with a house of ill repute,

And blinding lights,

Like pitch black with occasional reds,

The song that was heard till the morning,

Of the birds and flowers,

Of old things and lovers,

Of lights that slide through the eyes,

And kisses, broken at the turn of dice.

A song for the snow,

Under the dead tree in the desert of hopes,

Taken for granted,

Like the snow, the brother that lived away,

And the tree, the brother that lived here in its death.

A song for the lies of the employed romantics of life,

Of automated replies, neckties, and ethical culture.

A song for the singers of elegies, and for the mourners,

A song with much hated love,

From the corners of the streets holding the hostages of conscience,

Dipped in cheap rum and powdered foreign whores,

A song from around the time, a song for this time.

Played with the instruments buried in ground of mores,

And sang by little pet rats and dogs and cats,

And the little old man fixing the soles of brats.

A song so long I dare not sing,

I dare not complete,

So otiose,

I dare not write.

_ 

The Bus Affairs

Mr. Hari takes a bus to his office everyday. The bus has air conditioning. Only that’s why he takes that bus, even though it takes sometimes twice his time. The bus is not even a bit faulty. But sometimes, as if to make fun of the commuters, the driver sadistically takes it very slowly across the big empty bridge that everyone else races on. It makes everyone go crazy.  

There is a boy in the bus. There is a girl in the bus. There is another girl too. There is the driver. There is the conductor. And then there are they. There is the bus-stop. And then there is her bus-stop, and then there is his bus-top. 

There is traffic.

Mr. Hari has kind of reserved a seat for himself. If anyone takes that, he is frowned upon by everyone else around. Even the conductor asks people not to sit there. The driver keeps the bus longer when Mr. Hari gets down from the bus.

Mr. Hari takes even longer.

The boy in the bus is in love with the girl in the bus. He is also in love with another girl in the bus. He is generally of a very loving nature. The driver does not like so much loving. But the conductor does not like the driver.

The girl in the bus used to sit next to Mr. Hari, until the morning Mr. Hari’s beloved wife came running to hand to him his forgotten wallet. No one knows what she saw. But the drama that followed became a legend and a subsequent life of many a gatherings. The girl no longer spoke to Mr. Hari, and Mr. Hari no longer spoke to anyone else. And that’s when the girl in the bus started to sit with the boy in the bus.

One day Mr. Hari chose to break the awkwardness and invited a few fellow corporate commuters to his daughter’s birthday. They all came and sat for a while. They all brought crayons for gifts. They sat like a bunch of stoned chimps waiting for the candles to be removed from the chocolate cake. They laughed a lot, not talking much, just looking at a bunch of excited kids play with the dog from third floor. Mr. Hari smoked his cigar while giving wife a hand in the kitchen. His wife used to be his dentist. She still is.

The girl in the bus seems to be deeply in love with the boy in the bus. Sometimes she gets down at his bus-stop, sometimes he gets down at her bus-stop. Another girl in the bus seems to have started loving another girl in the bus. The driver does not like so much loving. But the conductor does not like the driver.

Mr. Hari now sits in the front with the conductor.

_

The dog who works for peanuts

There is a dog in my colony. He works for a peanut a day. 

They had brought him from the shelter house. He was not a very nice dog, but could go around the colony and was cheap. Everyday the dog has to get up and start walking around the colony till the evening. If he ever stops, the watchman throws a ball and the dog continues walking, till the sunset, after the same ball, around the same colony.

The dog wants to run away, but he needs peanuts everyday. The dog somehow thinks that he is better off than those dogs who are not asked to walk around the colonies. They do not get any peanuts either, only the dogs walking around the colonies do. The dog does not do much with his peanut and mostly crushes it shortly after getting it. But it does not bother the dog. He loves crushing the peanut, even if it means he would never really get to taste it. 

He thinks he should move to a larger colony where he could get two peanuts, one for crushing, and one for eating ... and may be one more to save for tomorrow. If he gets four ... or five peanuts, he would just stop and get some other dogs to walk around the smaller colonies for half a peanut. And then he’d keep their peanuts too. And that’s half an extra peanut for just sitting around.

But to get to so many peanuts, the dog will have to do a lot of walking, till the sunset, after the same ball or some other, around the same colony or another.

And he'll have to save the peanut, not crush it. But the dog loves crushing the peanut, even if it means he would never really get to taste it.

That’s the dog in my colony, and he works for a peanut a day, everyday.

_

A Reluctant Salesman

Mr. Hari was a reluctant greying salesman who used to smoke fat cigars in the cafeteria of his office. He called himself Old Harry, as said on his business card.

He took the stairs when it was raining. The lift didn’t work then. There was a dog on the third floor that used to sit outside the flat with a glass door. The dog barked at him often. The owners of the house looked outside on some days to see if everything was alright. The owners felt relieved as they too, like their dog, did not like salesmen.

Mr. Hari used to sell nothing. He knew nothing, very well. He would fill it with soaps or powders or juices or coffee or cars. And he would smile and make gestures and lock eyes and wink. And every Thursday evening he would walk to the big famous temple outside of which stood police with guns. Mr. Hari did not ask for anything but a long vacation. He did not seem to be getting it.

On one stormy day the dog on the third floor got so furious that Mr. Hari tripped himself over the stairs and broke his leg. He messaged everyone he knew that he would not be available for the next few weeks. He ended it with a smiley. People loved it.

Lying over his bed with his one leg hanging and wrapped in the white plaster, he had the time of his life watching TV with his family. When his leg turned fine, he just did not want to go back.

His wife had a big fight with him. She was a furious. They locked their kids inside as she threw utensils and sofa pillows over him. He had to give up and go back to the office the next morning.

He took the stairs more often now. The dog on the third floor did not bark at him anymore. The owners of the house looked outside on some days to wave and ask how everything was, especially his leg. 

He stopped going to the temple now, and got new business cards which called him Hari.

_