Battered.

Battered. Top, down, left, right and center. Inside out. Physically and more so mentally. Personally and professionally. Fate looks into my eye and roars a demonic laughter. All that I'm gonna do is- Smile Back, as I've been busy sharpening my claws, to Claw Back.

Introspection- Shaken but not Broken.

A Chapter

My best friend always said that our life is a book and that different phases of our life are just like the various chapters in a book. The cover of the book is named ‘life’ and is the same for each one of us, but only the chapters are rearranged; as each one of us pass through the same things, but at a different period of time. And now, I shall read out to you one such chapter from my book. For me, the present chapter had been filled with a lot of turmoil. As I read (experienced) each word (minute) in this chapter (phase of life), there had been a great unrest in my mind and I had to read all of it not knowing what’s in store in the coming pages (days). I did not expect that there would be any peace or happiness in these pages, but arrive it did, in a little sub chapter- as a pleasant surprise. Suddenly, though in deep turmoil, my body and mind had been filled with renewed strength and courage. And as I read each word from those pages, my heart was filled with unconditional bliss. To make it simple, it was something like, after a couple of years of being dead, I was born again.

But, the fact is that Mother Nature’s rules can never be broken. And one such rule is- what goes up must come down. Similarly, the chapter too is coming to an end. I try to slow down thinking that it would take sometime to finish, but I fool myself. Because even though I read slow, the words will not continue to build by themselves and provide an extension to the chapter. As the end nears, a big bold ‘full stop’ stares at me. Deterred I am, but unmindful of the end, I pause and go back to the beginning of this sub-chapter and start reading it all over again. Each time I re-read, the blood in my veins is rejuvenated, the heart beats with increased intensity and Goosebumps follow naturally. But as each time I do this, my heart says to me, “Kamal, don’t forget the ‘Full Stop’ as eventually, you’ll hit on it”. Then, I silently wish to myself-“if only this book of mine had even more chapters of this peace & bliss”.

“Do I really take this as an end ? Are there or will not there be anymore full-fledged chapters of this ‘Intense, Little, Beautiful sub-chapter ??” these are the questions that I ask to myself as I continue reading through from where I’ve paused from and wait to see how hard will I hit onto the ‘Big Bold Full Stop’.

Last but not the least, this chapter was the main reason of making me do something, which I’ve not done in a long time - Steal, that too right from God’s own abode. And previously I had only one reason to not leave my homeland and I just realized that now, I have not one, but two. And yes, given a chance, I would Steal yet again, this time it would be the beautiful chapter itself !!!!!

Self-Ex*

Dear Shaitan,

I hope you're doing good. I've been trying my best to visit you often and spend time with you but, off-late I had been busy with various tasks. I also know that I don't have to justify myself for being this way, as you know me very well and that I don't do things just for the sake of it. Then why am I talking like this? It's something like - sometimes when so many things are on one's mind, he/she doesn't know what they are actually talking.

Anyway, what I want to tell you right now is that I'd be leaving home very soon and that thing is making me think, big time. One thought keeps worrying me- Whether am I fulfilling all that I am supposed to be doing, while being here? Or am I missing something? Will I go back to the U.S. and then suddenly think- Damn!!! I missed doing that/meeting that person! Everything has been going really well until now and I'm happy about it. But, like you know me, I'm a person who believes in my instincts. Seldom have my gut feelings proved me wrong and taking this into account, my guts slowly whisper in my ears, "Kamal, are you sure that you're not missing anything?". And it's from that I start to worry.

I really don't know how to deal with this and all that I am doing is that when I have such a conscious feeling, I tend to spend more time with myself and try to observe whether such feelings are showing me any visible signs in the material world. Sadly, I have not seen any till now. I also wonder, whether am I taking this overboard and thinking about something very trivial? Like as I previously mentioned, I don't know. I just hope like always, my instincts should never go wrong.

On the other side, I hate to use the clichéd phrase,"Time runs so fast". But, now it's actually happening with me too. Not that I have wasted all of it, but it's like a plane ready to take off. In order to get (the plane) airborne, you start at one end of the runway(time), and slowly pick up speed on the tarmac. What if you want to pick up someone just before take off? You cannot afford to slow down, if you had to, you wish you had a few more meters of runway. Now all I can do is, reach out my hand, hook them onto the plane. This is the same with me too, I obviously cannot ask for more time, but do whatever it takes with what I am left with.

I believe the analogy was too dramatic, just like in the movies. Whatever the case may be, that's my point. Hope I seriously stick to it.

Regards,

Myself.

*ála Fed-Ex (Federal Express); Self-Ex (Self Experss).

My Darl'n

The first time when I heard about you from people around me, never knew who you actually were. Then slowly I saw you every now and then and told to myself "stunning you are, wish you could be mine". Snap back to reality and there I was, at the same place before I slipped into wonderful thoughts which had nothing but you, only you.

But for a person like me who never believed in luck, it came; in abundance. And there you were, one faithful day, right on my lap. After that, I don't remember a single day where I have not woken up to look into your eyes, or fall asleep with you in my arms. I still remember touching you the first time- Smooth as silk, which made me feel my own skin to be an industrial grade abrasive paper. Careful was I, not to cause the slightest of discomfort to you. And then, I look into your eyes, never had I ever seen such brightness before. They were and are so bright that the rest seemed to be nothing more than unworthy. Highly intelligent you were and a jack ass was I. Like previously mentioned, stunning were you, so was your mind. Your thought process itself was far different than what I thought would be the same with the rest of your kind, but I was proved wrong. Graciously different were you having your own intricate way of approaching things. Seemingly impossible were you in the beginning, but as we got used to each other's company, I was and continue being simply amazed of how 'simply awesome' you are. A lil' more than a year has passed since we've first met and you still continue throwing surprises at me every now and then, which makes me think "I thought I knew everything about you".

Many a time I've heard from my friends that their respective interests have faded out from what they were before. But, you've never done this to me. How else can I say such a strong heart you have? All I can say that I'll take such good care of you like I always did and we shall see each other through thick and thin. I must say here that you must have got all these qualities from your mum. I have met her only a couple of times, but shall say without doubt that all that you have is a direct pass on from her. In this regard, I'd love to say that if not this life, I'll try hitting on her in the next!

Love you Darl'n, forever and ever.

Reality Check-:

Well, was trying my hand at the literal tool of 'Personification'. My darling here is my apple laptop, a 13'' MacPro. It was an unexpected gift from a cousin of mine and I'm kinda obsessed about her and each of the quality that I mentioned above was referring to it's body texture, LED screen, the Mac OS, battery life and the over all user interface. Now wondering who's it's mom is? It's the iMac. And not in the next life, but in this very own, my next desktop would be an iMac.

Excerpts from the diary of a Sadist*

After a super Chocolicious previous post of mine, this one's gonna be quite opposite. Brace up folks.

The household Lizard. A very calm, gentle, no messy reptile. Yet, I wonder why people hate it so much. So much so that the very mention of it's name creates more than goosebumps to people around me. Poor thing is also considered to be a bad omen to a person, if it falls on him/her; as per Hindu Superstition. I guess I was around 10 something when such thing happened to me, wherein a lizard fell over me and my granny made me take a complete shower followed by some small rituals to "Cleanse" me. Damn that made me think, "this creature fell from no where, technically it is it's fault and I'm made to do all crap to be cleansed". In this process, within a couple of days, I got my own chance to take my revenge. This lizard, probably a fully grown healthy adult was resting on the door frame, right where the door closes into place. What's next? I slam the door with all I can (just to vent my anger) and the next scene be best described something like peanut butter overflowing from two slices of bread, which in this case was the door and it's frame and I don't have to explain which is the peanut butter.

My mum is an avid nature lover and gardening is her hobby. Maintains a wide variety of plants of different sizes all over the home. But, one day she found somebody or something was messing around with her plants. Suspects ranged from mischievous kids to cats, but were never caught. Home alone, parents on a vacation and i'm the king of the home. Parties, friends sleeping over at my place was a common practice, but all leave a day before my parents arrive. On one such arrival morning, I'm alone and as I am brushing my teeth, hear some strange noise. I ignored it at the beginning, but it was too bothersome with each passing minute. I quickly change to mode "Sherlock Holmes". Tracing the noise, leads me underneath the kitchen sink. The moment I turn the flash light on and HOLY F***!!! a bandicoot, never seen one at such close quarters... Man, that was one disgusting looking creature. And suddenly I feel I've sighted the culprit of my mum's damaged plants! In no time I capture it by tossing a bucket over it. Execution follows. My first attempt is to squeeze it's head with my foot, but it's squeals were too depressing. So, I decided to give the creature a painless death. I held it under my foot, took my 20 pound barbell and what I heard next was a sound exactly similar when you crack a walnut. But this time around the nut was it's skull.

Enter my dad. He is one of those sensitive sleepers, who gets disturbed with the slightest noise. On this particular night, I was somehow awake past midnight and observed that bloody stray dogs were having a party on the streets and obviously could observe dad had a tough time catching sleep. I went out to scare them off by pelting some stones. 8-10 pack were they and did not even budge a bit, but were ready to attack me. For my own safety, I had to go back inside only to come back with some reinforcements. From the next day onwards, it was a rather strange experience, because as I walked along the streets, the same strays ran away as soon as they sighted me. What exactly happened the previous night? Unlike the first attempt, in the second I tossed explosive fire crackers at them. Wow!!! I actually scared the S*** out of their A**!

The U.S., no matter how developed it is, could not eliminate rodents from their land and we all know how messy they are. And, even the apartment I live is also shared free of cost by a family of the same. Life in the U.S. taught me to me more patient. On such lines, one day I see this nice just stomach full (you'll later come to know why I said stomach full) rat is stuck in a rat trap. These traps are those glue board types, wherein these creatures when pass over them get stuck and eventually die. Anyway coming back to our rat, this trap was actually placed under the stove, which partly melted the glue and flowed over the surface. Now, when I tried to remove the trap board, it does not come out, thank's to the overflown glue. I devise a plan. I take a knife and slowly work through the glue, trying to free the board (patience, so as not to mess up the stove). As I was doing this, I look into the rat's eyes, which were expressing mixed feelings. One was something like "so kind of you..hope you free even me too"; while the other was " hope he does not rip me off with the same knife''. Fate ruled in favor of the rat's second feeling. The knife slips and rips apart it's stomach^ and there I see- freshly eaten rice.

Folks, I've got even more similar encounters and shall be glad to share all of them based on your responses for this post.

*This title was given to me by my family and friends. Aren't all of you being too mean to call me that? I was just being adventurous but not feeding on other creature's pain..

^People, the stench that gushed out was literally unbearable. I almost puked after smelling that. But as they say courage is something that is displayed only when the time comes, I swallowed my own puke and completed the job.

Confession- Of a Chocoholic

Early morning fuel or late evening refreshment, milk is always the first beverage that comes to my mind and it must be a glass full, at least. And, this morning the temperature was a good couple of degrees below zero and the temptation to have a hot mug of milk was inevitable. Without further delay, I've decided that Hot Chocolate is "THE" way to start my day. But, my disappointment started as soon as I finished pouring the milk from the can. The mug was only half full. I leave it in the microwave feeling so incomplete of how would I start a day with such "incomplete start". Going out to buy a can or simply borrowing some from the neighbors was ruled out for obvious reasons of procrastination. As the microwave buzzed to indicate my milk was hot, so did an idea flash through the neurons.

Within no time, the mug was up to the brim, so was my content. Magic! It was simple, my roomie the previous night brought home a pack of 'Kisses' and I just put a hand full into my mug. Reminds you of your childhood story "The Thirsty Crow", right? This was exactly what flashed in me, as the microwave buzzed. I never had the slightest clue that a short story from the kindergarten would be so effective, so many years later.

Moral of the story-:

So many chocolates in just a half mug of milk is dangerously addictive, ADDICTIVE.

Tik Tok, Tik Tok.

The other day I was speaking to a cousin of mine who's graduated a couple of months ago; now working as a Techie far away from home and she's never been alone, until now. Each day during our conversations,she gives an account of her different experiences throughout the day as of what happened during work and after. During such conversations, she tells me how freaked out she is, when she hears the clock ticking in the calm of the night.

This reminded me how shit scared I used to be in the same situation when I was a kid. Thank's to the dramatization in horror films, the clock ticking in the dead of the night is synonymous with death itself and leaves an impression on the young minds for quite sometime. But as years pass by, this fright fades off for various reasons.

Presently, at 24 years of everything, something and nothing; the sound of a ticking clock is eternal peace to me. The moment a tik tok falls on my ears, I magically slip into a 'Zen' mode. I simply enjoy every bit of it and feel so blissful that I've got every tik and tok to enjoy such a music from nothing but a small battery operated musician who's instruments are a set of gears and needles. To put it in a better way, it's something like silence personified! Each tik reminds me of how busy I had been all this time, and each tok reminds me to refocus on getting back to what I actually am.

Blame it on the Urban rush, a plethora of appliances, devices and gadgets that make our life "Advanced"; have all these made us lose our keen sense of observation of not only such simple occurrences, but also our own-self? If such a simple tik-tok is a such a rare observation in an urban setting, they say that one can hear their own heart-beat in the highest state of focus, so will this ever be possible for an urban soul? Will the ever advancing, ground-breaking inventions/discoveries in the field of science silence the clock by killing our musician in the near future? Or is it our fast paced urban setting itself that has to be blamed for losing our own self to it? We better brace up....because when we actually get hit, the damage might be irreparable, but we would at least know what hit us.

P.S. It's been a long time since I came back to produce something from this Kharkhana. All my well-wishers who look forward to my posts kept asking me why I was not posting anything. All this while I kept saying was that I did not have anything substantial and that I was busy, or for the simple fact that this kharkhana is place of free expressions and not something to force upon. But how far were all my excuses really true? Am I my own example for having lost to the urban pace? Reasons might be many, but I whole heartedly dedicate this post to Lily, my lovely cousin who if did not share her lil' experience, I would have taken even longer to take time for expressing such intense feelings.