Comedy At Dawn

“The moon was blood”, the day the donkey was born. What happened when I was born? This ebbing question has now become a tidal wave lashing as I try to crack this riddle. Why must we even think about this unnecessary question you may ask? Rational minds think this way but the ones whose minds have been converted into a disco floor with strobe lights atop, for them it is a very pertinent question.

I have accepted myself as being life’s chosen audience for its shows. I have been chosen to witness the uncut version of life’s most original creations and situations. My groomed self tells me to look at things with indifference but my inner core, my true existence tells me to marvel at it. Since life has been honest enough to show me its innovative creations, I have no hesitations but to react to it in my true uninhibited style.

It was an hour before dawn when sleep is at its deepest that I could hear a familiar tune. It was like harp being played for me by the maidens of Eden. The music amplified and shook me out of my blissful world, sleep still dripping from my eyes like the last drops of dew before sunlight wipes it off. It was my cellular phone belting out a much hackneyed tune. What taste! I admonished myself.

Fumbling I picked up the phone and in a voice that had all the seven notes of the musical chord I said “Hello”. Silence from the other side and then a pair of voices broke in but I realized that none were talking to me. Even with a half active mind (the other half was still in slumber) the voices sounded familiar. I listened to their conversations through my routine hellos.

Eavesdropping never was my taste but here I was invited! Given a front row seat. This conversation was getting good by the moment. The couple was talking in the most disconnected way that only a master script writer could perhaps pen. I too tried my poor hand at it a couple of posts before. But this one had me in splits. No I am not spilling the beans. This pair was half the globe away totally unaware that there was someone other than the two in that car with them that evening!

If your mind is working over time to just imagine what the conversation could have been, do not bother. You cannot even begin to imagine. Let me help you. It was as if Jennifer Lopez was singing at the Opera House and Pavarotti doing a rap number. Or elephants doing a tango while the big cats chirped. It was as diverse as like someone putting sun tan lotion under moonlight and the other wearing a raincoat to prevent the harsh sun. While one was dissecting human relationships the other was engrossed with car mechanics and wonder buttons.

“Somewhere in my childhood or in my youth, I must have done something good”, to be woken up in this unusual way and have my sides aching with laughter. What a way to begin a day! One more of those special treats of life with the “only for you” tag attached.

“Good Morning” I winked at life and pulled the blanket over my head.

HOW'S THAT POSSIBLE!!

A man being dropped or being over looked by a sports selection committee is not the issue here, it is the mindset and the stench of blatant misuse of power that upsets me . Being a cricket fan, I cannot come to terms that we have a bunch of vindictive, spineless, jelly fish ruling the roost.

With Third Umpire being brought in to resolve any doubts on the field, we have done all that a game is not about, off it.

We have proven again that petty politics is our forte.

I don't know why my question, of how a foreign force could come in as a mere trader and go on to rule us got answered yesterday. I see a striking similarity. Of course then it was hospitality that was taken advantage of and today it is perhaps sheer lack of self respect and any national value that has made this possible.

Well done selectors. You just made Mir Jaffar look a shade better!

The Writing On The Red Wall

We were at an art shop trying to pick up a painting for our living room. Not one to understand the delicate nuances of a painter’s brush, I rely upon the colour used. Also as a preface to this piece dedicated to painters and paintings I must add that I have this unique non-ability of drawing even a simple straight line. Perhaps my Creator forgot to choose the brush and palette icon before hitting the “create” button. Could be a genuine error or could it be a talent lying in me covered with volcanic ashes, I mean bile juices and loads of fat.

The little bell that jingled as we pushed open the glass door set the mood for appreciating a world created with colours. Some say it with words, others through action, some choose in-action while others mime and this favoured lot express through colours. They can whip up a storm, shade a sun, carve a smile, express expanse of the blue ocean with a curve, smear sorrow or spread joy with equal ease, hold a well of tears in a single droplet and catch eternity in a glow. A story, a mystery, a question perhaps even a war all said through a brush and with a riot of colours.

It was this painting with mellowed shades that caught our eye. Fairly large squarish in size. We requested it to be mounted on the stand for us to take a look which the shop manager did. We stepped back and looked at it. The painting was simple, large clusters of tiny flowers in varying shades of pink and white on both sides of a pathway and a few steps climbing up and getting lost into the misty greenery behind. The steps had a touch of quaintness in them, were it in the way the bricks have been laid or were it the colour, I just kept looking. The droopy greenery behind lent an eerie calmness to the painting. Tall trees with thick foliage but the green was not a vibrant one but a subdued definite green with the leaves speaking of numbness.

The flowers in contrast looked a happy mass. Tiny with pointed petals speaking of a sharp character. Pink has been used in all its shades and a few white cluster give it that touch of divinity. In all the vibrancy the painter has been able to bring about a stillness, a unique contrast if I have read the painting correctly. The pathway is in a mixed colour of brown and green giving it a glow as it meets the steps. A short flight before it merges into the background. Where could the steps lead? I turned to my other family members and it was as if in perfect synchronisation that the question peeped into our minds.

The manager of the shop brought us back from the woods by gently reminding us that it was almost time to close for the day. Unbelievable, we were all staring into a painting wrapped in a golden frame for nearly sixty minutes! It was an unanimous nod. Carefully we took it home holding in rapt silence. I can vouch that our minds were still standing in front of the steps wondering where they lead.

Dinner time was spent in questioning the mist, the lone tall lanky tree with just a few branches at the top and the mood or time of the day. Twilight. Or could it be dawn, the moment before the dark blanket of the night is lifted completely. Or how about late afternoon, the thick foliage anyways would not allow too much sunlight to seep through. The cluster of flowers looked bright but the painting was topped with this layer of haze. Could it be clouds descending from the mountains and settling in on the tree tops? The steps give a hint of paradise beyond. Could it lead to the garden of angels or is to a graveyard where time stood still.

I do not remember if any of us said goodnight before we fell asleep looking at the steps merge into infinity in our mind’s eye.

Morning saw us all pretending to take a casual walk into the living room but the reality was that we wanted to find out if the fog and mist and steps lined with flowers were just a dream. Yes the painting stood there still packed in corrugated brown paper.

Mid morning my husband called in to say that a man would soon be there to put up the painting. It was a pregnant moment for me. It was my suggestion to have a wall painted post office red so that we could put up a beautiful painting on it someday. Soon we shall know if I had passed the test with my very colourful suggestion. The door bell rang.

The man got busy with the measurements and I sat on the sofa opposite with my cup of coffee. Corners marked, hooks drilled, I saw him yank off the cover and almost flawlessly put up the painting. He deserves a cup of tea I thought and went to the kitchen.

With coffee in one hand and tea in another I enter the living room and notice the man sitting on the stool and staring at the painting. He took the cup of tea without taking his eyes off. He started talking his gaze still fixed on the painting. Cannot be a road often traversed otherwise the flowers strewn on the steps would be trampled. Good observation, I join him in thought. Perhaps the steps lead up high on the mountain he continued. Could be. It has to be winter; you can feel the chill on the trees. True again I thought. Thoughts were chugging in like a toy train winding up a hilly track. The man left still casting a glance back on the wall. His parting comments as he unmindfully kept the notes into his pocket were that there was a story hidden in the painting.

I went back and stared at the misty serenity that a painter’s brush had created. If only the painting could speak it would tell us a story still untold. A journey perhaps into the mind of a mystic, a poet or just a traveler is for us to decode or leave it to our imagination to give it shape and form.

Years have gone by; the living room has seen many new additions and deletion keeping in tune with the changing fashion. The red wall remains with the painting on it. Even today it evokes the same thirst to find that story written so beautifully on it. Magic when woven with such passion and sprayed with the right shades of colour can only be a story of eternity.

PEACEFUL CO-EXISTENCE

It was late evening and I was arranging the cassettes that had been lying around carelessly. Things taken out from boxes become a pain to be put back, I thought as I neatly stacked up the cases. My mind was brimming with satisfaction as I had just completed a piece of writing. Of late I had noticed that it was quite a task portraying the thought with the right expression. Often when I read my words it sounded far from the little seed that gave it its first light. A light tap on my shoulder startled me. My husband was amused at the reaction. So engrossed was I in my world that I had not heard him come into the room.

As I walked in with the tea tray, I thought not again! My husband had taken out the entire family of his digital camera, wires, special lens kit, manuals and was pouring over them as if they were special pieces of gem! Men! I kept the tea tray on the little side table with as much force as possible, my way of announcing my arrival. He gave me a slanting glance and gazed back at the silver box with a blunt nose. Oh the cassettes! I went back to them and automatically again my thoughts went back to words and how to get them at the right time.

“How was your day?” he asked while sipping tea. “Fine” I replied giving a glance over my shoulder and seeing that he was inspecting the camera with the eyes of Sherlock Holmes. Silence. After arranging the cassettes, I moved on to the papers and clothes that needed attention. My mind still playing with an equation that would help in throwing up the right words reading the thoughts. Only a chip can do it, I smiled. “Why does it not work at the right time?” he said. “Exactly, why does it not recognize the setting and act appropriately?” I reciprocated almost immediately.

He: “Fine tuning the settings is quite an effort”.

Me: “My sentiments repeated. To coordinate is such a difficult task”

He: “Playing around with it is the only key.”

Me: “That’s what I have been doing repeatedly.”

He: “Sharpness and colour tones have to be co-coordinated.”

Me: “You said it! To get that edge, I have been trying but how does one get the colour
right?”

He: “The light has to be right to get the right tone.”

Me: “Light? Have never thought of that, maybe I make it too heavy.”

He: “You have to be supple with your choice; otherwise the image quality would suffer.”

Me: “I have been fighting with that, imagery is very important for creating that glass
finish.”

He: “You have been doing well, just keep at it; you’ll get the hang of it.”

Me: “Thanks, I thought you never notice. I know you are hard pressed for time”

He: “Busy yes but not that much to ignore someone’s efforts.”

Me: “Honestly tell me what you felt about my work.”

He: “Good beginning, only perhaps it needs a little sharpness.”

Me: “You mean the character should stand out. I too felt it was a bit fuzzy.”

He: “Look at this tiny button here, this needs to pressed and the zoom adjusts by itself”

Me: “What! Why should I look at the camera?”

He: “How would you learn otherwise? Wifey, you need an open mind.”

Me: “Open mind? But you were just appreciating my work.”

He: “Yes, these two pictures of kittens playing are very well taken, only you missed out
on the sports mode so they look a little blurred.”

Me: “Kittens? But my piece was on lessons learnt! Did you not read it?”

He: “Read, where, what and have you joined some classes? Cooking?”

The room looked neat. All clothes folded and kept back into the cupboards and the papers that were strewn neatly stacked away. He too had almost finished placing the camera and its family back into the box. We both did what we wanted to. We didn’t get in each other’s way.

First it was me who burst out laughing then he joined in as our daughter stepped in to ask how we liked the pictures of kittens which she had clicked.

“Shall we?” he asked. “Where to” I questioned. “Dinner, of course” he said. “I just wanted to be sure that we are headed towards the same direction” I explained walking down the stairs. My daughter gave us a quizzical glance but walked away shrugging.