The Cafe`

[ This piece of literature is inspired by one of my earlier works. It is a more vivid description of a scene which happens to be a part of one of the stories I wrote. ]






I was sitting at this cafe
Waiting for my cup alone .
It was raining outside ,
The cold could chill the bone .

And then the glass door creaked
And let in a sight to cherish .
A wet girl shaking with cold :
A stunner without a blemish .

I could've never imagined
God could be so kind .
All the tables had been taken
And there was not one to find.

Then I knew what to expect ,
As she peered into my eyes.
"Do you mind if I sit here ?"
That was when she broke the ice .

I pointed to the vacant chair -
That lay right in front of me .
Her thankful eyes and her smile
Set my harrowing solitude free .

"You are all soaked up" , I said ,
"I'm Glad you came in " .
"Oh Thanks for having me" ,
She wiped the water off her skin .

I passed my handkerchief to her
And she accepted it imperceptibly .
She was not the type with attitude :
She was just my type apparently .

My cup was on the table soon
But my attention was elsewhere .
I woke up and saw her staring at me ,
Pointing to my cup she said, "Its here" .

I asked if she wanted some coffee
"I'm without my purse ", she said.
"Pay for me the next time we're here"
My inhibitions were all shed.

She gave me a shy smile
As I divided the contents .
Her eyes looked into mine
Suggesting "lets be friends" .

We sat there an hour,staring at each other
In the friendly silence .
Some bloke nearby sighed "Weather's fine"
The Rain had stopped in the distance .

I thought it was the end
Of another sweet coincidence .
She and I'd have to part ways
And it made complete sense .

"Lets go", I said walking towards the door
She said, "Can we talk" .
This was not the end I guessed
And accepted "Yeah, we'll take a walk" .

So this was how I first met her :
My very first love ever .
God has his strange ways of
Uniting people forever.

John Doe's got a problem remembering things.

Yes it is true. Our good old, seemingly harmless and the very avuncular John Doe has a problem remembering things. And guess what, JD was the first to discover it too. It started with small issues, as forgetting where he kept his stuff. Then he started to forget things that others told him. And now the conditions deteriorated so much that he has started to forget names of people he once knew. I hope the condition doesn’t worsen lest one day he'll stand in front of the mirror and say, "Nice to meet you". However there is something very peculiar about his condition that is he only forgets things he doesn't care about much. This would have controlled matters to some extent had he been a regular guy. But the fact that there are a lot many things he doesn't care about has worsened his situation even more. I believe he needs professional assistance, but he doesn't agree on consulting a professional.


Once it so happened that he was home alone. And his distant relatives happened to be in town. As a matter of fact they came to visit JD's place. He had once been to their place, but that was half a dozen years ago and he stood like a complete jerk staring at the lady at the door. He was perplexed, trying to remember where he had seen the couple, and in the mystified silence, he sucked big time. It took him a hundred and ten seconds to realise he was supposed to let them in and not block the entrance. He asked them to come inside and kept asking himself who on earth they were. Once they had settled and aunty had finished the customary act of pulling cheeks, he fled from the scene and called mom, his data recovery software. It was a tough time for him to keep them entertained till his saviour mom arrived.
Recently, he received a call from a long separated friend. Since he had not changed his cell phone in years, it had the caller's number, saved by the name of "Task Manager". But the mystery was, who the hell Task manager was. And why such a technical name? However, being an engineering student, JD was good at "Troubleshooting". So he pretended he didn't have the number saved and asked who it was. But like a shrewd Virus, the caller escaped JD's ploy by replying, " Your good old buddy, the Task manager". JD was tempted to ask "Who the f*** are you, fancy name?" but he didn't. Anyways, JD realised his troubleshooting skills were no better than Windows Vista's which always said, "Unable to fix the problem. Contact your Hardware Vendor". JD could not guess who the analogous hardware vendor could be. So he was considering the option of referring to the FAQs instead, but he identified the high risk of embarrassment. So he chose to talk instead, pretending that he knew whom he was talking to. But after a half an hour of seemingly meaningless conversation he was frustrated at his pathetic memory. After killing two days trying to remember, he gave up, wanting to beat himself to death using a baseball bat. Later he even considered the idea of using a Firewall on his cell phone to block incoming calls from people with unrecognized Digital Signatures which could be a threat to his System Security. Nevertheless, he put Task Manager in the list of Quarantined objects.


And very recently JD has been receiving emails from one of his blasts from the pasts (I believe you are keeping up with the current teenage lingo, in case you aren’t, consult the Oxford). But as it is with girls, she insists on his figuring out who she is. I’d like to mention that JD has had a jolly good past and for a guy of his stature it sometimes gets really tough to remember the dramatis personae of every play he reads. The girl says they met on a Friday and that he was wearing a grey chequered shirt and similar stuff. But he doesn’t even remember the shirt, let alone the girl. And he doesn’t wish to guess, for if he guesses wrong, any guy with brain in the right place would know what’d happen.


So he has been asking me what course of action he should follow. I believe he needs to execute Check Disk or even Defragment his hard drive before any Bad Sectors creep in. Before I can convince him to see a professional I’ve asked him to eat sprouted almonds. And he’s jolly well doing that.

Life teaches us to live and we must learn to learn

Hunger bothers me
But I will not complain.
I am but a no one,
And no one listens to me.

My feet ache
Out of walking barefoot
But I must walk
The place doesn’t belong to me.

This place’s not mine
I don’t belong here
I have no place
And I’m not supposed…

Its not that I have nothing
The penury is mine.
My unheeded wounds,
They do remind.

The tears are mine -
My kith and kin.
For they come to me
When I most need them.

The helplessness is mine
And the loneliness.
The world’s just about fine
I’m invisible.

Life teaches us to live
And we must learn to learn.
I’ve no books
But only experiences.

Everyone errs.
People learn from each others mistakes.
I make my own mistakes
And learn from them.

I will perish
And leave no traces behind.
Except an unsung tale
Of failures and an obscure existence.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Let me ask you to solve a simple riddle. What is a nine letter word which stands for something that follows you like a shadow, doesn’t let go of you and you can’t get rid of it easily? NO! It’s not Virginity you polluted minds, what I meant to suggest was AMBIGUITY. See, ambiguity is omnipresent, even in my question. In fact, it is far more potent than you would have ever imagined. TRUST ME! I’m not lying.

Ambiguity refers to the state wherein one thing said can have more than just one possible meaning. And as always, there has to be just one intended meaning. But the fact that there are more than just one possible meanings, the probability of the addressee understanding the address is less than or equal to half, mathematically. In simple terms, there is always more than half the chance that you will be misinterpreted. But chance is chance: it has no bearings upon what actually happens. Probability is a mathematical - or let’s say a hypothetical - concept that fails to predict what’ll happen in the real world, outside the framework of the rules that govern it. And from what I have seen so far, let me assure you that you are bound to be misunderstood more often than not. In other words, to some extent, there is absolute certainty that the blasted words you spit from your goddamned mouth, will always betray you and create an unintended reaction from your over-speculative audience. Don’t mind my blasphemous language for it is just intended to bring in some humour. You simply can’t mean what you say. You always have to mean something else. You got to appear like an asinine jerk.

Ambiguity is an irritating and unnerving companion. It’s a pain in the butt: it won’t let you sit and you’ll have to lie on your stomach. Once it sticks to you, like the deadliest of all viruses, it gets into your system folder and modifies the content of your vital system calls, and you are ruined. Even the most obvious of your statements tend to appear like mischievous puns, intended to disrespect people around you. Nobody takes you seriously, and when someone does, he happens to be the beau of a pretty girl who believes she is your object of desire and the results are very unpleasant: you end up wearing a denture. And you know what, I’m married to the dame called Ambiguity already. She’s my wife. And my life …… is …..

We don’t need to look for Ambiguity with a lamp. It’s everywhere: all around us. It’s in the air in the form of sound waves caused by vibrations of the vocal chords of the species that we know as homo sapiens. When we say “I’m sorry”, we mean “stop nagging”. When we say “nice” we mean “not bad”. When we say to a girl “can we be friends” we mean “will you be my girl friend”. When she says “no” she means “I have a boy friend”. When she says “okay” she means “ I don’t have a boy friend now, so consider yourself a temp. You might not be Mr. Right but you might as well be Mr. Right Now.” When she says “I’ll be glad to” she means “I don’t deserve you but luck’s on my side.” When the speaker says “we’ll die for our rights” he means “you do the dying, I’ll do the reaping.” When I say “we are fooling ourselves” I mean “you are fooling yourself.” So, if there is anything that is like advertisements in the middle of interesting news (I mean unnecessarily too much), it has got to be Ambiguity.

During my courtship with Ambiguity, I had observed that things were going astray. My words perpetually conspired against my intentions. I took care to choose my words, and always said what I meant, but people never seemed to understand. To tell you the truth, I’m not just the one she’s been dating. She’s a polygamous bi***. All of us face problems making others understand what we truly intend. I’ve always said that it is better to find out than assume anything. So at one point of time, just to get rid of any ambiguities I always blurted out unnecessary questions. If someone said she could cook, I’d ask if she meant preparing something fit for human consumption by means of heat. If someone asked me to turn on the light, I asked if I was meant to push the electrical switch. If someone asked me why the chicken had crossed the road, I asked what exactly “chicken” was meant to be. At one point of time I was so much into finding out that I became utterly obsessed with Ambiguity. And then people started avoiding me. I distinctly remember the gal who called me home, saying there was no one home. I went there and indeed there was no one home, not even her.

And then I stopped talking much. I do talk but tend to use the least possible number of words. I guessed the amount of Ambiguity was proportional to the number of words. Lately, I have been using the interrogative “What’s that supposed to mean?” pretty often. It’s my favourite line. And these five (or six) words form the combo that I speak most times every single day. So feel free to take a leaf from my book and ask “What’s that supposed to mean?”

An Interesting Conversation

The protagonist in this composition is our Mr. Not So Perfect, a guy who has a tendency of falling for everything that is female and moves. He claims he's got taste but I'd not testify that for fear of being ostracized. He's waited too long and now he longs for his somebody. He is fed up of waiting for a miracle to happen, so he's on the road, with the hammer of nervous impatience to break the ice of his solitude. He's looking everywhere but nobody looks at him. He means business but he's not the best in the business. He is sick of being a nobody, but above all, he's sad at having a nobody. He's more impatient than ever but is not a patient of love. Fortunately he's found a date but unfortunately she's engaged and still more unfortunately, she's brought her swain and now Mr. Not so Perfect is in pain. What a mess!
He's not known for his patience but the girl's beau happens to work out slightly more than his gym instructor, a fact which his bulging arms bear a testimony to. So our hero slips out with the pretence of using the men's room.
As soon as he finds himself alone, he unlocks his Nokia 1600 keypad lock and dials the last dialled number, which happens to be his roommate’s. Oh I forgot to tell you that our protagonist is a sophomore in a reputed Engineering College. Well, following is the conversation that took place between the nervous wooer and his confidante. I hope you wouldn’t mind one last interruption from me when I add that our hero has a name but I prefer calling him John Doe and his roommate will be called good old Roomy.

Here it goes:

Roomy: What ? Done Already ?
J.D.: Yeah man. I’m done for.
Roomy: Are you kidding. It’s been only three goddamned minutes since you hung up when you saw her entering into the café.
J.D.: She killed the mood. She’s brought her boyfriend. She’s engaged.
Roomy: Blast your red whiskers! Why did she agree on coming in the first place? Had she seen a caring brother in you?
J.D.: Don’t know mate. Girls are so very unpredictable. You can’t say what they mean merely by listening to what they say. Why can’t they be damn straightforward?
Roomy: It’s us guys who expect a lot, sugar. Is this not the same word she used for you in the party?
J.D.: I now guess she wanted some sugar in her coffee that night. But she should’ve clarified when I called her honey.
Roomy: She’d have thought you needed some honey in your shake.
J.D.: Blast your sense of humour! Can’t this talk be more sombre? I need some help.
Roomy: So what can I do for you Sir? Yeah your Pizza will be there in half an hour sir. Would you like extra cheese? Maybe a drink to wash that down sir?
J.D.: Look at me, I’m laughing. Enough of your PJs for the day chum. How do I get out of the café without facing them?
Roomy: Try digging a tunnel right from the toilet to our hostel. Or maybe with that sissy figure of yours you could dive into the commode and swim your way out through the sewage pipes. Or wait right there, I’ll order for you a Spider Man’s Costume to be delivered inside the lavatory of Lover’s Lane Café.
J.D.: No papa, I wanna be the Batman instead. F*** you. Come up with something practical.
Roomy: It’s your run-away-attitude that causes you to be such a loser. Go and join them. Try to act as if everything’s okay.
J.D.: How can I? As if everything’s okay? Well, things were looking pretty okay until that jerk showed up. He’s like a hole in a million dollar, gold brocaded, diamond studded briefs.
Roomy: Yeah he is. But remember, diamond studded briefs are not meant to be worn. They’ll leave scars all over the goddamned place. Diamond is the hardest of all substances and can cut through all other hard things.
J.D.: Cut the crap.
Roomy: Who started it?
J.D.: Okay. Now what. I’m not going back and paying the bill which will include a shot of vodka that would have gone down that sonofabitch’s f***ing throat.
Roomy: Then ask him to order for a beer instead. That way you’ll not have to pay for the vodka.
J.D.: As if that ox will listen to me. He didn’t even nod back when I said Hi.
Roomy: Apparently the ox’s got attitude.
J.D.: Attitude or not, I can’t stand that sonofabitch.
Roomy: Then keep standing in the urinal until he dies of old age.
J.D.: I thought we had already established that this was no time for jokes.
Roomy: Who’s joking now? I’m dead serious, junior.
J.D.: The thing on top of my agenda. What about that?
Roomy: You mean running away from them without them noticing it? Right?
J.D.: Either that or getting rid of the out-of-place bone in the kebab.
Roomy: You need a second opinion dude. I believe you are the bone in the kebab and not him.
J.D.: I’d really appreciate if you let me be a judge of that. It’s my date, my girl, my money and my me. Whose side are you on anyways?
Roomy: Yeah if every goddamn thing’s yours then why is it that you are hiding in the lavatory? The only thing that belongs to you is your shit and that too will cease to be once you use the flush.
J.D.: So what do I do? Walk up to the bar and holler out “Drinks to everyone from my side in the honour of the beautiful couple “
Roomy: Not a bad idea. Could you wait till I come? It has been time since someone paid for my drink.
J.D.: I feel like socking that madcap and you are only helping me decide in the favour of executing my plans.
Roomy: Go ahead. I’d have one private ward reserved for you in the Apollo.
J.D.: Can’t you talk sensibly?
Roomy: Okay. Here’s the plan. No more buffoonery. I’ll speak and you’ll listen.

BEEP BEEP BEEP !!! CALL DISCONNECTED DUE TO INSUFFICIENT BALANCE ! RECHARGE IMMEDIATELY FOR CONTINUANCE OF SERVICES !!

J.D.: Blast your Red Whiskers.

The Analysis of A Statement: Blast Your Red Whiskers

I seldom write about things I don't understand. But when I do, I turn my brain into a bowling alley with pins of sanity falling with every strike of the ball of attempt. And the result of the exercise is a preposterous masterpiece of utter NONSENSE. At times people who try to comprehend such literary crap end up with a sore psyche and suicidal tendencies. Why I involve myself in this life threatening exercise is a tough question. I reckon I consider myself a creative thinker and being some sort of a loner I tend to seek some sort of a companionship with my perceptive abilities which stay with me and are always faithful to me. My mind, being my companion and friend often talks to me. And sometimes, it talks nonsense - like all friends do , in an attempt to stir up humour and put up a show of its unparalleled jocularity. But believe me, I hardly understand its jokes and stuff. And consequently the rest of this document marks my genuine efforts to analyse this statement, " Blast Your Red Whiskers ", which happens to be one such statement which makes me nervous each time I think about what it means.
I heard this statement several times in a hollywood motion picture once, and by the mercilessness of chance I don't have the complacency of remembering its name. The particular actor who was hollering out this particular line did so in times of great personal anguish, in an attempt to imply to his co-characters that they needed to get lost, get out of his sight or go to hell. That was what I guessed he meant, but its hard to be absolutely certain of what someone other than yourself has in mind. So rather than trying to plunge into the deduction and interpretation and rendition of the statement, I'll try to confine myself within the bounds of semantics. In other words, without even bothering myself about WHAT THE HELL THAT JERK MEANT, I'll only try to get an idea of the meanings of the different words used in the sentence.

Being given to dealing with first things first, I'll start with the first word first. Now "blast" here doesn't mean an explosion or a blow. In this context it is used as an interjection, an abrupt emphatic exclamation expressing some emotion. "Blast" here stands for an exclamation of annoyance. As far as my knowledge of the usage of such words is concerned, I believe one could've used the term "damn" or "goddamn" or even "curse" as a safe altenative. So the statement could well be reconstructed as " Goddamn your red whiskers ".
The next two words in the combination are well understood. "Red" as an adjective could also indicate the property of something characterized by violence or bloodshed. However such a usage is ruled out by the presence of the last word in the sentence which happens to be "Whiskers", a noun in the context. Whiskers are the hair growing on the lower part of a man's face - that is the moustache ( and not beard, as most would conclude ). Moustache can definately be coloured red but not be violent or sanguinary. Therefore the "red" in the statement stands for the colour and not for anything else.

So in a layman's terms the statement could be put as " May god curse your Red Moustache ". It makes complete sense from the perspective of a student of semantics, but it hardly makes any from the perspective of a student of metaphysics.
The statement has an asthetic value as well. Each time I read the statement, the phrase "red whiskers" succeeds in creating an impact on the mind's eye whose vigour doesn't seem to lessen. How beautiful and soothing is this picture of Red Whiskers the mind creates. Red Moustache has something manly about it that one often relates with the masculine street hooligans from the West who are found on their Harley Davidsons loitering about with no particular purpose. How the idea of a white or a black or yellow-skinned man having his moustache coloured red fascinates us, no one can fathom, not to leave out the red heads. It has a hint of metrosexuality but that is OK in the modern times.

Although this statement is not so popular in the east as the traditional "f*** off" and "go f*** yourself" are, but I am quite sure it will definately be used a lot more in the times to come and will emerge as the hands down winner because not only is it less offensive but also is a newer concept and more esthetically pleasing to the ears.
So folks! Stop using the prehistoric obnoxious reprimands and start using the user friendly " Blast your Red Whiskers ".

The Unusual Story

Hi,
I am 20. I am married. I have a kid. And I am happy. I work hard. I study. I’m in college. I’m in the second year of my course. Nobody at college knows about my marriage. Only my family, relatives and a few close friends know about it. Strange as it may sound, ‘tis true.
I was 18 when I first met her. It was raining heavily. There was a chill in the air and the clouds were as close to earth as they ever have been. I was sitting at my favourite table (the one that faces the street) in my favourite café. And then I saw her coming towards the café. She was all wet and shivering. As she entered the café , her eyes looked searchingly everywhere for a place to rest. All the tables were taken. However I was alone and there was a chair vacant on my table. She asked if she could sit there. Any guy in my place who had his heart in the right place would have given the same answer to that rhetoric question. I was a generic guy. I was no exception to the standard rules. I was glad to have her company. We exchanged names. We talked a bit. Soon the rain stopped and it was time for us to part. However, god had his plans and she asked if “we could talk”. I said, “come lets take a walk”. That very moment we knew (or atleast I knew), we were made for each other. She promised to meet me there the next day. I went home. It was the happiest day of my life. But good things in life don’t come to you that easy. Through the illness of chance I wasn’t able to make it to the proposed place at the proposed chance. And it costed me dearly. She had probably left (if she had come at all). From then on I went to that café each day, for a week, in the hope that she’d come there. But she didn’t. I reflected sadly that it was the end.

But it wasn’t. A month later I met her at an Inter Institutional function in a college. I told her I had missed her and she told me that she couldn’t stop thinking about me. We found out that we had nothing in common, but nevertheless we kind of liked each other’s company and felt attracted towards one another. The law in Physics, about unlike things (poles or charges ) attracting each other had manifested itself in the biological domain of two specimens of the species called homo sapiens. Exactly seventy two days after our first meeting, we confessed we loved each other and soon this love found ways of expressing itself, like in the case of the birds, the bees and the butterflies. It is only human to err. Carnal sins seldom go unpunished (or unrewarded ). A month later she started having doubts of carrying our child. Girls have their means of knowing what is going on in their bodies. With the aid of a P-Kit we confirmed the doubt. I was deeply distressed but not even for a nanosecond did I feel the urge to leave her alone or ask her to undergo an abortion. We talked and decided that we’d give birth to the kid. We decided to get married. Initially our parents were against the idea and very adamant to have the abortion carried out. But she popped a few pills and it changed the parents’ perspective. Women can be irrational at times but they are the best judge of what’s to be done, for what they do produces quick results. Fortunately, she was entrusted to medical care before any harm could have reached her or the baby. And we were married in a quiet ceremony in the presence of our relatives and a few close friends. It was decided that she could live wherever she wanted. I thought it better that she stayed in her house. Having her in my home would have required a lot of explaining to a lot of people, most of who don’t think good for you. Unfortunately, because of all this I didn’t do well in the competitive exams that year. She however secured a seat in a good college. It was my decision that I let her join college and I dropped to prepare for the exams.

For about ten months I didn’t see her. I wasn’t with her even when she gave birth to our daughter. The kid stayed with my parents. That year I got selected in all the exams I appeared in and she completed her 1st year at college. So she became my senior (we had different fields of study though, not to mention that we were in different colleges). And then my parents and hers started treating us normally. My performance placated them. Time passed and we completed another year at college. We met only briefly the last year in December when our winter holidays clashed. She stays only a few hundred miles away from my college but we don’t have the time to meet. Right now we are focussing on our education and have nothing else in mind. My parents are looking after their grand daughter pretty well.

This year, finally I found time to spend with her. Both of us had long summer vacations. And she came over to stay at my place or rather our place. Neither of our parents had any objection to this. After all we’re married and doing well in college. Now we are both back to our colleges, but we can’t wait to get out of college. The day I graduate and get a job, telling my colleagues about my life and my wife will be the first thing. It’s sad that I have to keep them in the dark, but telling them about it will be another happy moment.

[ Fiction ]