Of Food, Love, and Love for Food

I silently ate my Garden Pulav. It wouldn’t be polite to complain. It wouldn’t be polite to say that I felt like puking. It wouldn’t be polite to puke, either, but I guess one must draw the line somewhere. There’s a limit to how polite you can be. When the body says regurgitate, you regurgitate. Sometimes it makes you wonder who the boss is.

And so the contents of my stomach took a U-turn. I kept my lips shut as tight as possible, and my mouth filled with my own vomit. It made me want to vomit even more. And so I did. Then there was a point when my mouth became too full and my semi-digested dinner had to find another way out. It went up my nose and sprang forth into the great outdoors as two tiny fountains from my nostrils. With my nostrils blocked, I couldn’t breathe. I opened my mouth for air, and everything I had stored and held in there, I dropped onto my plate and all over the front of my shirt.

You could say it was a mess, and Mrs. Khana didn’t think it was too polite. Her daughter, however, was in splits. At first I thought that was rather rude, to be laughing at someone in my predicament, but then I realised that this entire mess started because of my fear of being rude or perhaps offending someone. I also realised that I wasn’t really in much misery, I was just covered in vomit. The others in the room were probably in more discomfort than I was, most of all Mrs. Khana, but what the hell. Her cooking was so bad that someone ought to punish her for it. I had given her quite a cleaning job.

Despite all my efforts to contain my semi-digested food, I noticed that the incident had been quite an… explosion. Although I had managed not to dirty the people sitting around me, the mess had spread quite far out across the table, and I had certainly ruined the Garden Pulav. As I was the first one to try it, I had actually done the others quite a favour. Now none of them would have to eat it.
Sneha was on the floor laughing. Her mother’s reprimands didn’t seem to quieten her much.

I cleaned myself up and returned to the dining room. By then Sneha’s uproarious laughter had reduced to a giggle, and I could see that she was making no efforts to conceal even that.

I wasn’t the least bit offended. It was funny. I should have found it especially funny, and when I thought about it that way, I did. All the crazy things I did just to keep Mrs. Khana from knowing that her Garden Pulav was inedible didn’t help one bit. I ended up puking anyway, and in the process I managed to greatly displease Mrs. Khana and the other pretentious snobs at the table.

“Don’t worry about it, Vikram,” Mrs. Khana said, “I understand. You’ve looked rather ill all morning. Perhaps you should see a doctor.”
Oh, to hell with it. I’d done the puking, there was no point in being polite now. In any case, I didn’t want to be invited back to this woman’s house for another meal.
“I’m not unwell, Mrs. Khana; it’s just that your Garden Pulav was rather terrible. I don’t mean to be rude, but that’s what made me throw up.”

Sneha burst into laughter again. More uneasiness from the others.
“My god, this guy is terrific!” Sneha managed to say, between bursts of laughter, “First he throws up all over the place, then he says it’s the pulav that did it! It’s just classic!”
Now Mrs. Khana’s threw her a look which shut Sneha up in an instant.

Rules of politeness and etiquette are actually not so useful, I’ve noticed. It disables people, makes them unable to react to situations where protocol isn’t followed. For example, right now, Mrs. Khana had no idea how to respond to any of this. I had very openly insulted her cooking skills, and right in front of her friends, too. Normally, this would never happen. Normally, someone in my position would have apologised profusely, made up some cock-and-bull story about having caught a bug from one of his colleagues, and have mentioned what a shame it was that no one else could taste the pulav because it was so full of vomit.

I didn’t do any of these things, and Mrs. Khana was so shocked she didn’t even know if she was supposed to be angry.

I wanted to tell her that the pulav was so bad that my vomit could only have improved the flavour, but I decided not to. After all, all this woman had done was cook some really terrible pulav. Even this she had done with effort and sincerity, and maybe insulting her in front of her friends was too much of a punishment for bad pulav.
“I’m really sorry, Mrs. Khana. I think something was wrong with the pulav. It was only the pulav, though, you know. The dal was really delicious.”
This didn’t seem to cheer Mrs. Khana up one bit.
“The dal,” she said, “was Sneha’s.”
I didn’t really know what to say.
“Um… I’m really sorry. For everything. I think I should just leave.”
I walked out, and Sneha followed me. I didn’t realise she was behind me until I heard Mrs. Khana ask her where the bloody hell she was going.

Sneha stopped me once I was out the door.
“Vikram, that was priceless!”
I wasn’t sure how to respond. I had just made an enemy of her mother.
“Um… ok,” I said.
“My god, I couldn’t stand it in there! All the men there could talk about was business and cricket, and the women, my god… I’d have retched if I overheard too much of their conversation on sarees and shoes.”
“Yes, well, er…” I didn’t want to say anything I shouldn’t. I didn’t want to be impolite with her.
“Of course, you choked on my mother’s cooking. My god, her food is terrible. Garden Pulav, haha. I guess these days you can just throw all your ingredients in a bowl and call it “garden”. I don’t blame you one bit. I mean, with a last name like Khana, you’ve either got to eat well or cook well. And she does neither. At least I don’t have to live with that. My cooking isn’t too bad.”

My interest was heightened. Food was the one thing I loved more than anything else, and I was always ready for a good meal, any time of the day. In fact, I loved food so much that I rarely complained about bad food. Mrs. Khana’s food was one of those rarities. I couldn’t get it down even if I tried.

“Just don’t tell my mother I said all this.”
“You cook?”
“Yes, didn’t you know? I work as a chef at Messy Tandoor, Tandoori Mess.”
“Messy Tandoor, Tandoori Mess!? I absolutely love the food there!”
“Glad you like it. You know, you ought to come over to my place someday and try out my non-tandoori cooking.”
“I’d love to, but I don’t think I can ever set foot in this house again.”
“Oh, I don’t live with my parents. I live at the end of the street. You’ll see the place if you’ll walk me there.”
“Sure, I’d love to.”

We started walking to Sneha’s house. I was really excited that I’d met her. Messy Tandoor, Tandoori Mess was definitely my favourite restaurant in town, and the fact that the mastermind behind the food there was actually inviting me to taste more of her cooking was just too good to believe.

“Are you sure you want to stick to your offer, though? I mean, you work as a chef, cooking in your free time must be the last thing you want to do.”
“Hmm. You’re right, actually. Forget what I said, I don’t think I want to cook any more than I already do. Perhaps when I retire I’ll call you over for a meal.”
I opened and closed my mouth a few times. I couldn’t take it back, now that I was being polite.
Sneha laughed and slapped my arm.
“My god, I’m joking! I love cooking, especially when I get to cook in my own kitchen and take my own time. And I’m sure I’d love to have you over. You’re a riot.”
I grinned.
“How’s Saturday, for lunch?” she asked.
“Great,” I said, “I look forward to it.”
I didn’t just look forward to it, I couldn’t wait.

We arrived outside her building and she told me which house she lived in and gave me her phone number. We said goodbye and I proceeded home.

There were three days to Saturday, and each day felt like a year. I didn’t ruin the anticipation by visiting Messy Tandoor, Tandoori Mess during that time.

Saturday finally came and I skipped breakfast. I was not going to be polite over lunch as far as helping myself was concerned. I was expecting Sneha to have cooked a lot. My capacity to eat was my most famous trait, and men like me, men of… jolly proportions, that is, tend to eat more than the average individual.

I was not to be disappointed. Sneha had made enough to feed an army. No, in fact, she had even made enough to feed me.

And it was heaven. Her food was so delicious I almost wept out of joy.
“Sneha,” I said, “I can’t tell you how… how fantastic this is. I’ve never tasted anything like it in my entire life. Will you marry me?”
Sneha laughed, and I was joking, of course, but I wouldn’t be a few months later. But I’ll come to that when I come to that.
We finished eating, and then we talked for a while, about this and that, and I told her that hers was the only meal that ever truly satisfied me. She said she was honoured. Then she got up to go get dessert from her freezer. I had eaten a lot, of course, and my digestive processes were making me terribly drowsy.

By the time she returned from her kitchen, I was out like a light.

We made it a habit; I’d visit her every Saturday, and she’d feed me, and we’d talk. I wasn’t normally a very talkative chap, but with Sneha I talked until I ran out of words. We talked about all sorts of things, from Walruses to Carpenters.

Then one Saturday morning, a few months after our first Saturday meeting, Sneha called.
“I’m really sorry Vikram, but I don’t think we can meet today for lunch. I’m busy today.”
“Oh, really?” I made no effort to conceal my disappointment.
“Yes. We’ll meet next Saturday, or even sooner. I’ll make up for the missed lunch.”
I laughed. “You don’t owe me anything, Sneha. In fact I was beginning to wonder why you take the pains to feed me every Saturday.”
“Oh. I thought you should have begun to wonder a while ago.”
I grinned, but she couldn’t see it on the other end of the line.
“So, why do you feed me every week? I mean, even if you enjoy cooking, why do you cook for me every Saturday? Don’t you get enough of it at work?”
“Well, actually, I just enjoy laughing. And, my god, you make me laugh. So it’s a fair trade. Food for humour.”
“Hmm. Glad to hear there are no bills in the mail. So, what are you busy with today?”
“Well, actually I have to go shopping… with my mother. No, wait my mother’s in Jakarta. Um, I need to go shopping today.”
“For what?”
“Uh, you know, sarees, shoes, all that stuff.”
“I see,” I said, not in a very ‘seeing’ tone.
“Okay, alright, I’m not going shopping anywhere. I just don’t feel like cooking today, I’m sorry. But I won’t do this again, I promise.”
“Why didn’t you just say that?

So I said I understood, and that I wouldn’t bother her on that day.

I was finding it very difficult. I had gotten used to the weekly routine of lunch at Sneha’s. I found myself hopelessly squirming about on my couch wondering what I could do to console myself over the loss of this meal. Of course, I could go to Messy Tandoor, Tandoori Mess, but it wasn’t as good for lunch. I realised that even before I learnt that Sneha only worked there in the evenings.

I decided to head there anyway, it was my favourite restaurant even without Sneha’s cooking. I stepped out and I caught an auto. I got in.
“Where to?”

And that’s when it hit me.

I didn’t want to go to Messy Tandoor, Tandoori Mess. I didn’t even feel like eating anymore. My stomach still rumbled, but I didn’t seem to be taking notice. Suddenly, food was the last thing on my mind. I told the auto driver where to go.

Sneha was surprised to see me. She probably didn’t think I’d come anywhere I didn’t expect to be fed.

“Vikram? My god, what are you doing here?” she said, “I mean, um… I’m sorry, come inside.” She giggled.
I stepped inside. I wasn’t exactly sure how to explain myself. I had told her that I wouldn’t be coming.
“I’ll… um… You’ll have to wait a bit. I haven’t made lunch yet. I’ll just get started,” she said, and hurriedly entered the kitchen.
“Sneha!”
She turned around.
“I don’t have amnesia or anything, and neither do you. You said you didn’t feel like cooking today, so don’t. I didn’t come to eat, in any case.”
“You didn’t?” she said, now returning from the kitchen, hesitantly. “Are you sure? Because if you’re hungry, it’s no problem, really.”
“No, I didn’t come to eat. I already ate lunch.”
“Really? What’d you eat?”
“Uh, I went out.”
“Where?”
“Tandoori Mess,” I lied.
“Ah, right. Of course,” she said, and I could see her trying to hide her smirk. “So, what are you here for, then?”
“Nothing. Just thought I’d come and see you.”
“Scho Schweet.”

I began visiting her more often, even when there was no promise of food. Of course, I’d regularly raid her fridge on every visit; she’d always have some tasty leftovers stowed away. Once, I happened to try a pulav from her fridge. It wasn’t Sneha’s. After I had choked on the pulav, Sneha explained to me that her mother had made her notorious Garden Pulav again, and had been gracious enough to send her some.

It took me about a month after my first ‘random’ visit to muster the courage to tell Sneha that I loved her. And I did. It was on a Saturday, after lunch.
“Sneha?”
When I told her, she looked slightly surprised at first, then she nodded and looked away. I waited a little while for her to say something, but she didn’t. It was as if I’d just informed her of the score of the ongoing cricket match. Mildly interesting, but nothing to really discuss.
“Sneha?” I tried again.
“Yes?” she said, looking in my direction again.
“Um… er… did you hear what I said?”
“Yes, I did. You said you loved me.”
“…and?” I prompted.
“Oh, I’m sorry, did you say something else, too? I didn’t hear you fully, then.”
“No, that’s all I said… but… what do you have to say?”
“What’s to say? You think you love me.”
I wasn’t sure how to respond.
“Sneha, I don’t think I love, you, I do love you. I’m pretty sure.”
“I wish you did love me. But you don’t. And I’m pretty sure of that.”
“What are you trying to say? How can you say that I don’t love you?”
“You’re in love with my cooking, Vikram. You wouldn’t be interested in me if cooked like my mother.”
This offended me.
“That’s… That’s not true, Sneha. I really love you.”
“I’m sorry, Vikram, but I don’t believe you.”
That was her final word on the matter. She didn’t believe me, and I couldn’t make her believe me. I stormed out of her apartment, quite offended that she could actually tell me that I wasn’t feeling what I was feeling. Once I cooled down a little bit, I began to wonder, though. Was there perhaps some truth in what she said? If it wasn’t for her cooking, I probably wouldn’t have met her as often as I did, and maybe I wouldn’t have fallen in love with her. But now she could stop cooking altogether and I wouldn’t love her any less. I was sure… well, almost. In some dark corner of my mind, a nagging doubt refused to shut up. There was only one way to find the truth.

The next time Sneha saw me was only a fortnight later. I had been hospitalised. While I was glad to see her, she didn’t look too happy.
“What the hell are you trying to do, Vikram? You think trying to commit suicide would make me believe you? My god, I thought you were smarter than that.”
I smiled weakly. I had wasted down to almost half the weight I used to be. I had taken the extreme diet. I had gone on a hunger strike.
“It wasn’t suicide, Sneha,” I said, “I just needed to prove that I loved you more than your cooking; more than food itself, in fact.”
“That…”. She gulped. “That’s just stupid, Vikram,” she said, but she wasn’t as confident this time.
“Well, it wasn’t just you I needed to prove it to. I needed to prove it to myself, too. At least I’m no longer overweight,” I chuckled.
She smiled a small, brief smile. She was still visibly upset, though.
“Would you still love me if I say I’ll never cook you another meal? Ever?”
“Of course I would.”
“Never. Not ever. No more Sneha’s cooking, no more Tandoori Mess, either. You’d still love me the same?”
“I wouldn’t love you an iota less.”
“In that case, I’m going to do just that. I’m never cooking for you again.”
I smiled.
“Fine,” I said, “as long as you’ll love me back.”
“I’ve loved you for quite a while now, Vikram.”

She did cook for me again. But it was only after we were married. I was glad to taste her food again, terribly glad, but the joy her cooking brought me didn’t even compare to the joy she had.

A Place

Again I found myself in one of those places. I wasn’t sure how I got there, I didn’t know how I fell asleep, and I couldn’t quite remember much before that. All I did remember was that the feeling in the back of my head was certainly not a pleasant one, and that I had felt it before.

The last time this happened, I thought I should be taken to a hospital. I was. Only not the kind of hospital I was expecting to be taken to.
People said I was hallucinating, that I was behaving abnormally, that I needed doctors, the kind who fixed your mind. But I remember that day perfectly, and not a single thing was abnormal about it. Well, maybe a few things.

The feeling of déjà vu disappeared when a plane came crashing down into the ground, right in front of my bed. It hit the ground at an extremely high speed, nose first. Then, once the nose had been smashed in, the wings hit the ground, the left one first, then the right one. Debris flew everywhere, but I was unhurt. I would always be unhurt. That’s the way things worked here. I couldn’t get hurt here. At least not physically. I rose from my bed and walked over to what was left of the small airplane, the back of my head still hurting.

Through the wreckage I could see a squirming mass of blood, flesh, and bone. I looked closer, and I realised that it was a man, trapped within the remains of the plane, probably the pilot. It was not a pretty sight, but then, few things are pretty, really. He seemed to notice me. He tried to say something, but his attempts at speech were incoherent. He spat out some blood and a few teeth.
“H…he…help me,” he managed to say, finally.
“Do you really think I can help you?” I asked him. “Is it really in my hands? Look at yourself. I’m not a doctor, and even a doctor couldn’t help you. Face it. You’re going to die, and there isn’t a hospital anywhere in this world. Hospitals are only built for real people, and I’m the only one over here who’s real. But since I can’t get hurt, there are no hospitals, understand?”
I spoke to him calmly, reasonably, rationally. He had to understand that he was going to die. He had to understand that it didn’t matter, because he wasn’t real. He had to understand that the pain and death were only illusions, like him.

I felt a sharp jolt in my left rib from behind. It felt like an electric current, and I almost passed out from the pain and the shock. I fell down. Okay. So maybe I could get hurt here.

I took about half a minute to get up. I looked behind myself to see where the shock came from.
“You’re real, are you? What makes you think that, Atlantic?” Atlantic. Last time I was here my name was Pacific.

My vision was still hazy, but I could vaguely see a dim, winged figure in front of me. I think it was a she, but I was only guessing from the voice. There was no way to tell by appearance. My vision was clearing up, and I saw that she looked like a cross between a gecko and a butterfly. Her eyes were cold and beady, and I couldn’t tell where she was looking. I get a creepy feeling when I can’t tell where someone is looking.

It took a while before my vision became completely clear, but she still looked as vague as she did before. Now, however, I noticed that she was holding a sort of baton in one of her six hands. She held a tome in another that said Infractus Oris. In the third hand she held something like a long stick with a short blade at one end. On the stick was inscribed Vindico. The rest of her hands were free, while she hovered a little above the ground.

“How are you so sure that you’re real, Atlantic? What makes you think you’re real – more real than any of us?”
The man in the plane had stopped struggling. He was dead.
I didn’t answer her question but stared back at her quietly. “Answer me.” She shoved her baton at my chest, and again an electric shock passed through my body and I felt like a truck had hit me. I passed out this time.

I came to shortly, in the same place that I was before, the gecko-butterfly still hovering in front of me. “Are you going to answer me, or will I have to resort to more severe methods?” she said, fingering the stick that said Vindico. A lump formed in my throat.
“I’m real… because I… I feel real. I mean, I am real. I just am.”
“Oh I see. But if someone can feel pain, if someone can get hurt, they are unreal, am I right? You are real because you can’t get hurt, but we all can’t exist because we can die, we can get injured,”
“No, I can get hurt. You just proved it,”
“I can hurt anyone. I am the punisher over here. My name is Punitor, which means the same thing. No one else can hurt you. Tell me something… what is your name?”
“Uh… Atlantic.”
“Is it?”
“I think so.”
“Then how come it was Pacific the last time you were here?”
“I don’t know.”
“Let me tell you something. You can choose to be real or unreal. But whatever you are, we are, understand?”
“How come I can’t get hurt then?”
“Does it matter?”
“I think so.”

She flew a little distance away from me, and turned around. “I must warn you to stay away from the man in the white cloak. He is The Executioner, and you are on his list. He can hurt you far more than I can.”
“But I thought you said…”
She had already flown out of sight. I began to run behind her. I ran as fast as I could, but I could not find her. The ground was wet and bare and hard to run on. A fog had begun to settle on the flatlands.

I saw a figure approach me. It had wings and hovered slightly above the ground. I was about to start running towards it, when I noticed I didn’t have to. The figure was flying fast towards me. In the fog, I did not notice the colour of the cloak the figure was wearing. Not until it was too late. This was not Punitor, it was The Executioner. I couldn’t run. There was no air in my lungs, and besides, it wouldn’t make a difference. I wouldn’t be able to outrun him.
He came to me, and picked me up by my collar. He was a towering figure, at least three times as tall as I was. In the air, he seemed even taller.
He lifted me to his eye level, about a metre above the ground. This man did not have six legs, and he carried no batons, tomes or bladed sticks. He carried an axe, and a huge one at that. He raised it, placed it near my neck. He swung the axe back, and prepared to swing it forward.

*

“Please don’t kill me, I didn’t do anything wrong, please.”
“Shiva, stop. You’re hallucinating. Don’t worry, it’s not real.”
I opened my eyes. I saw a doctor in front of me. Dr. Shekhar. I knew him; we had spoken many times.
“What?” I asked
“Whatever you just saw, it’s not real, Shiva. They’re just hallucinations.”
“Oh.”
“Yes. They aren’t real. Have you been taking your medicines?”
“They aren’t real?”
“No. They aren’t.”
“So what makes you think I’m real?”
Dr. Shekhar didn’t answer. He looked a little puzzled.
“What makes you think you’re real, doctor? What makes you so sure?”

Waking Up

Most of the time, I can’t remember my dreams. I remember a lot, but I’ve forgotten a lot more. And each day as my life gets more and more complicated, I want to dream more and more, and stay in my dreams for longer. I don’t want to know that I’m dreaming. I want to fall into a dream and never wake up. No, I don’t want to die. I just want to dream… and keep dreaming. I hope tonight’s a good night. I hope I have good dreams. I don’t even mind the bad ones; as long as they’re dreams they can’t hurt me. But then… I don’t want to know that they’re dreams. And if I don’t know I’m dreaming, how will I know whether I can be hurt or not? You can feel pain in dreams. After all, pain is in the head, and that’s where dreams are, too. So I don’t want to have bad dreams. Good ones. Just good ones. Do I? I can feel pain. No, no I can’t. But I can. No. Yesterday, all my troubles seemed so/just fall asleep, deep, deep asleep/far away… now it seems as though they’re here to/ride, she’s got a ticket to/I’ve got to wake up early tomorrow/don’t worry about that, just go to sleep/ri-i-ide, she’s got a ticket to/have I set the alarm? Yes, you have/yes, I have/yes, you/I/you/I//\\*&what time have I set it for/gotten to set the alarm/no, Iyou hasn’t/far away into my sleep/into ky dreams, into ky ve#y own world/this pillow’s uncomfynamousli/ousli/ousli/what’s the w0rd>/pi/slllleeeeppp/22/7/’twas brilli)(&**&x~~~~/aaaaa/knaidhgohnn/alaaa/lkddogh/rm/slleep/sllep/dree-eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeEEm/oj0hkvnhdhoytakdhkkajdijkjfladjladkvnhfauejjfhdfiahdjgj/falafel/to hi~~~/shshshshhh/oh, I belie-/choolakdgehedbkbvkoiuythbaiedkvbdgaid-jahkjvgidfyafnlbvoiagfiaiefpodayg97t9843575hgoua86hdfifuf 86tq3hhfgv&&^&hog97f94h%&*^598h94tGIUGotOUIOHLHoihoiyueoiruoytrebleoihjoeojlajdffbasslkjo booecaoihdalarmalarmalarmalarmkhohovnboendoioieonv 98687923/I.//I.///I.//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// ////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////I.////////////////////// //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// /////////////I.//////////////////////////////////////////////////I./////////////////////////////////////////I./////////////////////////I./////////////////I.////////I. //////I.///I.//I./I.//



























////////////////aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Ah, Greece. The one place you won’t be found with an omelette for a wife. What I intend to say is… oooh, look, piranhas. Look at their sharp teeth. Sometimes sangitoniously that happens. Sangitoniously. Sangitoniously. The tree. I must get to the tree. The mangoes beckon. They say, come hither, little man. Eat us. Eat us. I’m so close now. I can see their lips moving. Eat us, they say. I can almost feel them, but the glass stands in the way. I must find a way to break the glass. Eat us, they say. Eat us, eat us, eat us, eat us, eat us, EAT US, EAT US, EAT US EAT US EAT US! AAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!!! I need something to smash this glass with. I must save my children. The chair should work. The tank is filling up with water. My children are inside. They don’t know how to swim. None of my eighty-five chil/mangoes/ know how to swim. The glass seems to be strong. The chair cannot break it. Wait, my children, I am coming. The fiery mangoes are falling into the water. EAT US, DADDY, EAT US! I have to save them. I’m pounding my fists against the glass. I tripped on a stone/[hey]/the ground is rising up at me. It opens its mouth/[hey]/ I fall into its mouth/[HEY!]/fall. Falling. Falling, falling, falling through an endless chasm/[where am I?]/what will break this fall?/[I must be dreaming]/I can see water below. A swirling vortex. The water is orange./[I’ve got to get in.]/as I fall the water seems to be falling towards me/[STOP! I don’t want this.]/the alarm!/I’ve got to/the orange waves wash over me as I fall/under me is a sea of alarm clocks[am I inside?]/ a sea that is distant. I keep falling[Steer the dream. Lucid dream.] I don’t want to die. I don’t want to fall into alarm clocks. I don’t want the hands and the bells and the gears and the batteries and the numbers to be sticking through me. I don’t want to die. Not that way. [I’m not falling.]I keep falling. No. No. No, no, no, no, no, NO, NO, NO, NO!!! [This is not working. Steer the dream. Try harder.] Suddenly I swing around and I am jerked upwards, the way I came [YES!]. My head jerked backwards and is ripped off my shoulders. [No! It doesn’t. My head is on my shoulders.] My head is still on my shoulders. Below me, I can hear the mangoes and the children and the alarm clocks sing. The black alarm clocks with the green hands and numbers that glow in the dark. Beep-beep-beep – beep-beep-beep – beep-beep-beep, they all sing. Beep-beep-beep – beep-beep-beep – beep-beep-beep. Beep-beep-beep – beep-beep-beep – beep-beep-beep. Beep-beep-beep – beep-beep-beep – beep-beep-beep// Beep-beep-beep – beep-beep-&beep – be^ep-beep-be$ep. Beep-beep-beep – beep-be@ep-beep – be#ep#-beep-be`ep.

My hand moves out and knocks the alarm clock off its stand and onto the floor. The clock stops ringing. The wind up clock. The display shows 5:30 AM. I get off my bed. I leave my clock on the floor. I don’t think I’ll ever wish for dreams again. I don’t even want sweet dreams. Next time, I just want to sleep. Plain old dark, undisturbed, undisturbing sleep. The clock starts beeping again. My wind-up clock. The black one with the green hands and numbers that glow in the dark. I move towards it to turn it off when I stop. Wind-up clocks go “TRRRRINNNGGG!!!”, not “Beep-beep-beep”. Especially mine, the one with the green hands and numbers on its face that glow in the dark doesn’t have a digital display that reads 5:32 AM. Or does it?
Wait a minute. Am I awake?/Or am I?

Bad Hair

My hair was bad. It was mischievous, arrogant, and disobedient. I’d tried every sort of shampoo they sold in stores. The ones whose advertisements carried the adjectives “Smooth and silky”, “Soft and Manageable”, “Strong and Supple”. They didn’t work. My hair still fell out, refused to be combed, changed colour, was dry and frizzy, and at times wet and oily, too. Nothing worked. My hair was incorrigible.

I wanted to discipline it my hair. Make it do the things I wanted. Stay combed, or even just be combed. I should be the master and it the slave. But now, I was running from place to place, taking the weirdest of advice (including a friend who told me to drink a solution of two drops of turtle blood in a bottle of whisky once a week), and shelling out all my money just for this rag on my head.

I had immense faith in dermatologists. They gave me medicines that I knew would work. I was, of course, eventually proven wrong. I kept going back to the dermatologists, knowing that sooner or later my hair problem would be solved. After all, the working theory with doctors is quite simple. Don’t expect your ailment to be cured immediately. The doctor doesn’t want it to be cured immediately. He wants to prolong it, but keep it from getting worse, so that you keep going back to him for treatment. After the doctor thinks that you’ve spent enough of your time (and money, of course) with him over this problem, he’ll cure it in no time. In this manner doctors do business and “an apple a day keeps the doctor away” couldn’t be more wrong. The truth would be something closer to “For a very hefty pay, health problems are kept at bay”.

This principle didn’t really bother me too much. After all, doctors did eventually solve the problem, and all doctors did work by the principle (at least every one I knew), so I didn’t have much of a choice. I had even less of a choice when the dermatologists didn’t help. I knew that they were stumped, and the solution had to lie elsewhere. If there was a solution. I believe that every problem has its solution, only that you may not find the solution in your lifetime, and the problem will die with you. This was what I feared was the case.

When I almost gave up hope, a friend of mine suggested that I go see a hair doctor. I laughed. I said that there was no such thing. But my friend insisted. Then she gave me the number and address of a hair doctor who lived nearby. She said it was awfully lucky and coincidental for me to live so close to a hair doctor when their type was such a rarity. After much persuasion, I finally agreed to go see this doctor.

His name was Crovon Vleebashq. Sounded vaguely Russian. I really wouldn’t know. Maria Sharapova didn’t sound half as strange. His clinic was small but well-maintained. There was a large hollow plastic board that held a tube-light inside, illuminating the words on it that said “CROVON VLEEBASHQ, M.D. All sorts of hair problems cured”.

With an air of scepticism, I entered the clinic, and took an appointment with the receptionist. There was no one else waiting. She told me to wait until the doctor could see me. I took the seat facing the doctor’s door, next to the stack of magazines. I picked up the September issue of Weekly Follicle. I flipped through it, not quite looking at what was in the magazine. I caught the glimpses of ads that said “Jeebo Shampoo: The tastiest shampoo you ever tasted” and “Let your hair feel the rich, luxurious, foamy lather you get only with Tuttlebluttle shampoo”. I flipped all the way to the last page, looked at a detailed diagram of the cross-section of a strand of hair, and then flipped back to check if Tuttlebluttle shampoo contained any Turtle Blood or Whiskey.

I didn’t find out, because just then, Dr. Vleebashq opened his door and shouted “NEXT!” looking straight at me. I put down the magazine and proceeded into his office.

I had made up my mind that this doctor would not be able to help me. He would first sit in front of me, ask me what my problem was, look at it, rub his chin, give me some advice, and then give me a prescription for a bunch of medicines that would not help me in any way, and then charge me my wallet.

But I was wrong (about some things). He wasn’t like a usual doctor. He didn’t even ask me what my problem was. Once I sat down in front of him, he leaned forward, and painfully (for me) pulled out a hair from my head. I made it quite obvious that I wasn’t pleased.
He took that strand of hair and he played with it. He looked at it in the light, he pulled it, he folded it, he ran his finger over it, and then broke it into two pieces.

“Did you see anyone about this before me?”
“Yes, I did.”
“What kind of a doctor did you go to?”
“A Dermatologist. Four of them, in fact.”
“Ah.”
I waited for some further comment from him. He just kept toying with my strand of hair.
“So?” I said.
“Well, dermatologists can only deal with your scalp problems. They think that since the hair arises from the scalp, all its problems should arise from there, too. Ha! Bhongu Thalayas! They think they know everything because of one degree.”
“Since that occurred, do you really have a degree?”
“Never mind that. What I was saying is that your problem has nothing to do with the scalp, it has to do with the hair. It is a completely different science altogether.”
“But hair is just dead cells.”
“You see, technically, what you say is true. Every cell is dead. But the entire mass of hair is in fact a very living thing. When people say that their hair has a life of its own they are not exaggerating or joking. Everybody’s hair has a life of its own. It’s just that some of these lives are more rebellious lives, so they make their presence more felt.”
“So, is my hair rebellious?”
“Oh, terribly. Your hair is so rebellious that it goes to extreme lengths to grab attention. It even does things like commit suicide.”
“Suicide?” I asked, in a very un-surprised tone of voice. This guy was trying to feed me more and more codswallop.
“Yes. It damages itself, it stops taking nourishment just so that it gets attention.”
“I’ve given it lots of attention. What could it possibly want? More attention? How on Earth and in what form am I supposed to give it more attention?”
“Aah, Hair Psychology. I did a paper on that once. A very interesting field… lots of new talent springing up in Hair Psychology.”

At this point, I thought that I ought to write a paper on Hair Doctor Psychology. This guy was psycho. He was mental. He was deranged. He was making me want to call the mental hospital.

I got up, shook his hand, ruffled his “lively” hair, and, much to his surprise and dismay, walked out of his clinic.

As I walked out of the clinic, I looked up at “Dr.” Vleebashq’s board that carried an “M.D.” after his name, and shook my head.
I also reminded myself to call my friend and thank her for her wonderful recommendation.
*
I looked in the mirror contemplatively, picturing myself after the process. I nodded and said “Take it all off.”
And the Barber began.

Joseph's Sick

Joseph’s Sick: A Play

By Kaushik Viswanath

Characters:
Robo: A Man – The victim of the play
Niya: A woman – Robo’s wife
George: A man – The mason
Joseph: A man – Nobody
Fromus: A man – Nurse
Lieben: A girl – Niya’s daughter of George

SCENE I – Robo and Niya’s House
Robo: I feel sick.
Niya (feeling his forehead): So do you.
Robo: “So do you”? What do you mean?
Niya: Joseph’s sick
Robo: Who’s Joseph?
Niya: How should I know?
Robo: I thought you knew.
Niya: The mason.
Robo: What about him?
Niya: His name is George.
Robo: So?
Niya: Starts with the same letter as “Joseph”.
Robo: No. “Joseph” starts with J. “George” starts with G.
Niya: So what? I love him!
Robo: What?
Niya: You heard me. I don’t love you anymore. I love him. I’m leaving you.
Robo: Who’s him? Joseph? And how can you leave me? We got married yesterday! Plus, I’m sick! You can’t leave a sick man… can you?
Niya: You don’t even listen when I’m talking. I love George!
Robo: The mason?
Niya: Yes!
Robo: For how long?
Niya: Since I met you.
Robo: Huh?
(Niya storms out of the house)

SCENE II – The Hospital
Fromus: Lovely.
Robo: What?
Fromus: You have a temperature of 310.
Robo: What?!?!
Fromus: Kelvin. 310 Kelvin.
Robo: What?
Fromus: That’s 37 degrees Celcius. Normal body temperature. We’ll have to move you to the operation theatre.
Robo: What?!!
Fromus: Just kidding. Oh, you know what?
Robo: What?
Fromus: You have a visitor.
(Joseph walks in)
Joseph: Hi Robo, I’m Joseph.
Robo: What?
Joseph (yelling, really screaming): I SAID, HI ROBO, I’M JOSEPH! I LOVE NIYA AND I’M GOING TO MARRY HER!
Robo: What?!?!
Joseph: Sorry, I didn’t say the part about Niya the first time. We’re getting married tomorrow.
Robo: What…
Joseph: … about your marriage? It was a fake wedding, so there’s no problem.
Robo: What?!!?
Joseph: Yep. Fake wedding. Fromus here was the priest. He happens to be a Satanist.
Robo: What!!??
Joseph: You’d better believe it.
Robo: What about George?
Joseph: The mason?
Robo: Yes.
Joseph: What about him?

SCENE III – Niya and George’s Home – 5 years later.
(Robo walks in.)
Robo: Hello Niya.
Niya: Hello Robo, nice to see you after so many years.
Lieben: Unkal, Unkal, come have some human kidney juice!
Niya: Oh, Lieben, stop being morbid.
Robo: Who’s this?
Niya: Lieben. She’s my daughter.
Robo: She’s so cute and chubby.
Niya: Oh, she’s not chubby. She’s obese.
Robo: Um… she’s just chubby!
Niya: Oh stop it. You don’t have to be polite. She’s got all George’s genes. More like George’s mother’s genes.
Robo: George? This is George’s child?
Niya: Mine, too. She’s only 50% George, you know.
Robo: … What about Joseph?
Niya: Who’s that?
Robo: Joseph. He visited me in hospital and told me he was going to marry you.
Niya: Tsk tsk tsk. No such thing. I don’t know any Joesph.
Robo: Oh. So you’re married to George?
Niya: The mason?
Robo: Yes.
Niya: Yes.

SCENE IV – George’s Room.
(George is cementing bricks in odd places in his room)
Robo: George?
George: I’m leaving.
Robo: Huh?
George: I’m leaving Niya and Lieben.
Robo: What?! Why?
George: I’ve just realised something.
Robo: What?
George: What?
George: I love you, Robo.
Robo: What!!??
George (yelling): I SAID I LOVE YOU, ROBO, WILL YOU BE MY WIFE OR HUSBAND?
Robo: … Does your name start with J?

--- Curtain ---

Zebo Notori

Loosely based on a vague half-dream.

I reached into my right pocket, hoping to find some form of object that would help me defend myself against the scum that is salesmen. This one, in particular seemed uniquely threatening, I didn’t know what he was trying to sell, but he seemed awfully confident of himself, and terribly zealous.

Salesmen like that ought to be avoided. I dug deeper into my right pocket, knowing that somewhere, in that myriad of junk I carried there I would have something that I could use against him. Salesmen like this one always made their sales, backing those slightly timid customers into a corner and pointing their products at their foreheads like guns, and threatening to shoot if they didn’t buy it from them. The customers would buy it just to be rid of the salesman.

I was not about to be taken advantage of. The problem was, though, that in most cases, the salesman has more experience with customers than the customer does with salesmen. So he did take me by surprise when I opened the door and found a man who whipped out a card in a semi-circular manner, bending the card in a sort of semi-circular manner, held it in front of me, and with the same tone of voice as “Bond. James Bond” said, “Zee. Zebo. Notori.”

I stood, unwilling to ask him to repeat himself, determined not to take the card from his hands, despite the fact that he was actively pushing it towards me passively.
I knew he was a salesman from the general way he carried himself, with a briefcase in one hand, with a white collared shirt and tie, and brown-black full pants, and that menacing smile that was supposed to be charming. I’d seen it before.

I decided to see in what way I could outwit the salesman, short of throwing the door in his face. I stood in front of him, silently, not asking any questions with my voice, eyes, or nose.
The silence held itself for about a few minutes.
Then, “Zee. Zebo. Notori.”

Again, I asked no questions, made no response, simply standing in front of him, looking him straight in the eye with a blank look, like I was staring into space. I did not want to stare him down. That would make him realise that I was challenging him. I wanted to confuse him, drive him to madness out of the frustration that would be spawned from my silence.

We stood, staring at each other, for about a while.
“Zee. Zebo. Notori.”
I was getting bored. It was as if I had already defeated this salesman, but he refused to admit defeat. His hand was still outstretched with the card. His arm ought to have been exhausted by now, but he held it straight, unflinchingly. I could certainly give him credit for that, and his patience. But this was going nowhere. To shut the door on him after spending so much time on this pointless activity would certainly be a waste of time, so I decided to make it a little interesting for myself.
“Egg. Zebo. Notori,” I said.
“Jhi. Zebo. Notori,” He responded.
“Jhi. Zebo. Notori,” I said back to him.
“Jhi. Zebo. Notori,” he said again.
“Jhi. Same. Notori,” I said, wondering what he would do if I changed the second word.
“Jhi. Krose. Notori,” he said.
“Jhi. Zebo. Notori,” I said, changing it back.
“Zee. Zebo. Notori,”

This salesman was keeping such a straight face, I found it hard to believe that he was playing a game with me. I pulled the card from his hand.
It read:
Zee Zebo Notori
Jhi Krose Halawis
Mri Artix Jyenewus
Ami Nitwas Liadun
Upi Itido Maprapo

I studied the card, trying very hard to find a pattern linking the nonsensical words. Not looking up from the card, I said, “Zee. Zebo. Notori.”
“Zee. Zebo. Notori,” he responded.
“Zee. Zebo. Engine…?” I said.
“Zee. Zebo. Halawis.”
“Zee. Zebo. Halawis,” I repeated.
“Zee. Zebo. Maprapo,” he said.
“Zee. Zebo. Halawis,” I said again.
“Zee. Zebo. Liadun.”

There definitely had to be a pattern.

“Mri. Artix. Jyenewus,” I read out of the card.
He did not respond.
“Ami. Nitwas. Liadun,” I tried.
“Zebo. Notori. Zee.”
He had changed the order of the words upon my saying Ami Nitwas Liadun.
“Zee. Zee. Zee,” I said.
“Upi. Mri. Zee,” he replied. All three of these words were on the first column of the card.

Then I turned the card around. It read:
WATCH OUT!!!
I read those words again, confused, and I looked up. His fist connected with my face and I fell to the ground, my nose bleeding.

“My name is Zebo Notori. Have a nice day,” he said, and ran away.
I reached into my right pocket and pulled out a pocket knife. A little too late, perhaps. I knew I needed to defend myself against salespersons.

Flying a Nyorus

"So, what is the favour you want from me?"
Titan didn't respond immediately. He seemed to be captivated by the Nyorus-fliers.
"Hmm? What do you want?" Titan was allowed one special favour by the recipient of the delivery.
"Could you... I don't think it's possible for me... would it be possible for me to... fly a Nyorus?"
Wren eyed Titan carefully.
"I mean, I know I'm not very muscular and all. I'm actually rather weak."
"Flying a Nyorus is not about strength... Titannakos... is it?" Wren said, looking at Titan's name tag.
"Yes, but you can call me Titan."
"It's not about strength, Titan, it's about skill. And you won't acquire the skill unless you really want to. Are you sure you don't want anything else? Food? Money? A place to stay? Learning to fly a Nyorus can take an incredibly long time, and I'm sure that you have other deliveries to make."
"Not really, no."
Silence.
"It could take years."
"Let me just try, why don't you."
Wren shrugged his shoulders. "Fine," he said. "But I won't give you anything else, even if you aren't able to learn how to do this. Is that okay?"
"Sure."

The Nyorus were these fantastic creatures, long and slender like snakes, with small wings, and they would swim through the air, gracefully. The smaller ones were one or two metres long, and the larger ones were gigantic. Some of them were a kilometre long.

Wren threw a bundle of thin, silvery ropes at Titan's feet.
"You'll need those," he said, "Reya ropes. Its what we use to catch the Nyorus."
Titan picked up the ropes and hung them over his shoulder, like Wren had done.
"What you need to understand, is that flying the Nyorus isn't the hard part. In fact there's nothing to flying a Nyorus. It's catching one that's the big deal."
Wren pulled out a small device from his pocket. He raised it to his mouth.
"What's that?" asked Titan.
"Didn't you notice? All the Nyorus-fliers use this."
"I did, but what is it?"
"It's a Wan."
"And?"
"And what?"
"What's it used for?"
"We use it to lure the Nyorus. Each Nyorus is lured by a specific tune. You have to know how to play the tunes of the Nyorus you want to catch."
"How would I know?"
"That," Wren said, "comes from practice."

Wren closed his eyes, and began to play the Wan. The music drove strange sensations through Titan.
Titan watched the skies. At first, nothing happened. None of the Nyorus moved towards them. Then Titan noticed a silvery streak in the distance moving, moving in step with Wren's music. It danced in the air, as it came closer and closer to Titan and Wren.

Wren had not opened his eyes, not even when the Nyorus hovered over his head. It was a fairly large one. It could have been two hundred metres long. The Nyorus gazed at Wren, its body and tail still dancing to the music. Suddenly Wren stopped playing. The Nyorus stopped dancing. It continued to remain near them for a moment, confused, unsure, afraid.
Wren yelled.
"Titan! Throw the Reya around the Nyorus!"
Titan gathered the bundle of ropes, and flung them at the Nyorus. The ropes, on touching the Nyorus's scales, grew into cloth, and both ends of the ropes grew downwards from the Nyorus. Then all the ropes slid off, falling in a heap on the ground.

"Not like that, you fool!"
The Nyorus began to flee. Wren, grabbing his bundle of ropes, pulled out one rope. The rope was thin, as thin as a strand of hair. He threw one end of the rope at the Nyorus, gripping the other end in his right hand. The rope slid over the body of the Nyorus, and began to grow, the other end of the rope growing down from the Nyorus's body. Wren ran forward, and grabbed the other end. He held both ends of the rope firmly, and planted his knees in the ground. The fleeing Nyorus was jerked back towards Wren. Now holding both ends of the rope in the same hand, he put the bundle of ropes on the ground with his free hand. Then he picked out another rope from the bundle, and threw it at the Nyorus. He caught its other end as it came down.
One by one, he threw individual ropes at the Nyorus. Then he began transferring rope ends from one hand to the other, pulling on some, letting others go, knotting up some others. It looked as if he was weaving some silver cloth in the air. The Nyorus was now draped in the silver material. It no longer struggled, it simply floated in the air, its body making wave-like movements. Wren began to pull on the ropes. The rope ends gathered on the ground below his fists. He brought the Nyorus closer to himself, and then, grabbing only one of the ropes, let all the others go. The Nyorus flew back like a sail suddenly hit by winds. It remained in Wren's control from only one of the ropes, the others having formed the cloth over the Nyorus. Then, he flew it. He flew it like one would fly a kite, tugging, releasing, changing the length of rope. The Nyorus swam around gracefully in the space it was allowed. And then something flowed from the Nyorus through the ropes to Wren. It lifted him into the air for a moment, a brief moment, but then he looked fuller, stronger.

"Now I don't know how to teach you to do that, Titan."