Buona fortuna- Part 2

“As a matter of fact, there is something you might be able to do for me.”, I managed to say, at which the object of my attention widened her doe like eyes even more. " I’m cold and wet, and I wouldn’t mind a coffee. And I certainly wouldn’t mind company ". Of an angel , I desperately wanted to add, but I was in partial control of my senses now(finally!). And as I watched her face, from an expression of initial surprise, it slowly gave way to a slightly embarrassed smile.

Oh, the smile! There are, according to Rahul Krishnan, many kinds of smiles- the simple childlike smile, the devious business class one that they use to cut your throat with,… But this was as yet an unclassified discovery, with a touchy mix of the childlike innocence, and a warmth that came straight from the heart, a warmth that can assuage the bleakness of cold, rainy Monday mornings, and at the same time give that little jump to your insides. Yes, to speak in the technical terms of my friend Bennet Gerald, a.k.a ,jojo, I was wholly,totally bowled over.

She agreed and off we went to the little cafe near the station. There was this cozy spot near the glass wall, with a cute view of the sidewalk. She was a bit hesitant at first but then again, I’ve got a knack for disarming people with my inherent stupidity and all, and to cut a long story short, I could see she was enjoying herself. Twice, I caught her looking at me, and twice I found myself lost to the world in her eyes. The air around me had a precious feel to it, a sweetness that I had felt only once before in life, before I messed everything and lost the people who mattered.

No, no sad thoughts, I told myself and it wasn’t quite hard if you had an angel sitting across you, reaching for your heart. And when the vulgar part of all such evenings, i.e. the bill arrived I reached for it slowly, with a timing that would have made Oliver Kahn proud, I managed to hold it, but the feel of soft fingers was unexpected. In a slow, graceful motion she slid her hand back, and I caught a glimpse of red on her cheeks as she looked down.

It was time to part and I tried to look composed, with not much of success,I should add. The rain had ceased, and the cool misty afternoon was turning out to be immensely pleasant, more so with the faint tugs of the strings in the heart. I could already hear the music inside, but a little voice in my mind was whispering , asking me not to get over excited. But its easy to ignore the little voices in one’s head when your senses are on a high, and no amount of negative vibes would be enough to ruin this day. Or so I thought. And then, finally we bid each other adieu , with a promise to meet on the same place the Friday evening.

As the auto rickshaw came to a noisy halt in front of my gate, my mind was aimlessly wandering in wanton dreams, dreams that tend to make you smile at odd occasions, such as when the driver ask for his fare.” Oye!! Are you short of money,man? Like I said, its 20 bucks”. I smiled apologetically, and took a crumpled rs.20 note from my pocket. Inside, I made myself a quick coffee, and while sipping in the warmth, I took the newspaper and started sifting through the pages. Sachin Tendulkar had copped another achievement to his not so small collection, and a certain ex chief minister had supposedly cheated 3000 crores in liquid cash. And then did a quaint little article catch my eye. “Pick Pockets Thrive in the City”. As fate would have it, I began to read through. A spate of recent incidents was causing many complications for the police force. A group was reportedly at work behind the scenes, and their modus operandi were very delicate. One of them would distract the intended victim with a well directed push, or by some other means distract him enough so that their leader has the time to pick the pocket, or bag of money as the case may be. And then the strangest of thoughts crossed my mind. Instinctively, I reached for my pocket. Where a purse laid with Rs 3,455 was, only a void remained. And as my brain registered this appalling discovery, I began to see what happened, and quickly the void spread, but to my heart. The glass slipped off and shattered, but I heard no noise ,nor did I feel the pain of a couple of the shards finding bloody solace on my body. There must have been 2 of them at work on me, I detachedly observed, the boy who ran into me first and that beautiful serpent. I am not a man of great internal strength, and is easily moved to tears. Even more so, when my ego is hurt, as it was in this case. I wept like a mere child for 25 minutes straight, and I got over it.

Footnote 1:The pickpocket

He was drinking the 6^th peg, in under half an hour of entering the bar. But he was still in full control of his senses, at least to the extent humanly possible after consuming a not so little quantity of alcohol. "But what the hell, today was a day to celebrate, with the best loot I’ve had in a month’s time..",he thought. Rs 3,455. He liked paying attention to the details, and go over them with sweet scent of success. The Kurt Cobain in his T-shirt would have died a second time, with the mere scent of the volumes of intoxicating liquid he was taking in. He would soon be home, and since he’d started operating alone, life had become way easier for him. Ofcourse, he wasn’t missed by the former members of his gang, of that Ajit Tyagi knew. But then again he was a talent on the rise, a prodigy of sorts. He laughed to himself on his little semi joke and once again was lost to the world.

Footnote2: The beautiful serpent

She took her seat in the bus, and got lost to the world in seconds. Today had been extraordinarily good. The man she ran into, quite literally, was hard to keep off the mind .She did not know that the next Friday evening she would wait in vain for that man to arrive, or for that matter it would become a ritual for her to spend Friday evenings in that lonely table in the busy café. And the puppet master, the big man they say who watches everything would pull the strings that her table would remain that way, for a very long time.

Buona fortuna - Part 1

I put on my signature black shirt, took the day’s newspaper, the certificates, and the prized letter and set off, for what was to be an eventful day .Or so said the horoscope-“lady luck smiles upon you today, and don’t be surprised if you run straight in to her”. Mysterious, I’d thought, given my recent run-ins with luck weren’t the stuff that dreams were made of, especially so with a certain young lady I’d given my heart to .A little dove fluttered her wings somewhere and once again, that familiar pain ,pain I’d been so much used to that it shouldn’t have hurt at all. In the mirror, I saw a confident young man, not handsome, but definitely not bad-looking, but with the faintest whiff of despair in his eyes. Running late, I thought, better not miss the train, and off I went.




The road near the station was as crowded as ever, and .The throng of people moving to and fro was unsettling enough, and to add on to my woes, there was a steady downpour as well. I started walking down the side walk with my briefcase, and in a moment of impulsive ignorance, a.k.a, utter tomfoolery ,I decided to take another look at the letter, which would have been the foreword of a typical Indian success story, if it wasn’t for the lanky kid in the nirvana t shirt . Wide eyed at the prospective salary, my common sense had taken a backseat, and the kid who was probably in dope tripped me and in a tangle of legs and arms I fell on someone else walking down the road. The object of my attention, the interview letter flew from my arms and before I kissed the ground,I saw a gust of air first lifting it off to the edge of the side walk and then taking it on a one way ride down to the sewers.




Slowly, with all the time of a man whose last chance to redemption just sank in the dirty drains of Calicut, I got up, on my feet. There’s this funny thing about life, just when you think things just cant get any worse, they definitely do. In a wet, angry, dazed state I tend to roar, with tears filling my eyes simultaneously, and the result is a hideous creature, who definitely wouldn’t win “The Indian Gentleman” award. The first thing I did after my crash landing on the pavement was to analyze the scene ahead. Well, nothing different really, people going about on their business, after all what does it matter for them, if a certain Rahul Krishan’s dreams just shattered seconds before, like a streetlamp gutted by crazy urchins? But somehow, my mind was falling it to an abyss, a black hole of negativity, when I first heard that sweet voice behind me, as someone just started playing the violin, to soothe my wretched nerves. ”Are you all right? was that paper something important? I’m so sorry..”


I turned, only to find an angel of a girl standing by the sidewalk, an umbrella in her hand, concern in her eyes. She smiled sweetly at me,and at that instant, I forgot everything that was causing my heart to beat like an overworked rock singers’s drums. As a matter of fact, for what seemed like an eternity, it totally quit working. Important ? paper ? Ofcourse not! ”Well, it was an interview letter, but nothing to fret about .And it definitely wasn’t your fault either, miss”, I managed to mutter, taking in her full beauty. Beautiful would have been an understatement, I thought, with the fair almond shaped face, the brown eyes which were already fiddling with my senses, the rush of hair swaying in the breeze so typical of our beloved kerala monsoon. Pink salwar, and the pink umbrella, perfect with the slight pink of her cheeks, and the wild pink of her lips. On a rainy day, in a dirty street with total chaos, she made people stop and stare, jaws dropping. Probably she gave heart attacks, when the sun was out.” Oh my god, an interview letter. I just ruined everything for you! Is there anything I can do, sir, to make it right? Maybe I can call the company and tell them?” At that instant, a loud siren went off somewhere and through the fence, I saw the train on the first platform begin to rumble along noisily. I watched helplessly, as the train chugged away with my hopes of the dream job.” There it goes. Ah, no matter lady. By the way, the name is Rahul Krishan. And you?” She shifted nervously, “Its ....”

At the gates..

I'm back and what a time to be...Its been pretty long and, i don’t wanna make any excuses. The deal is, plain and simply I couldn't bring myself to the task of sittin down here and type away. But now that part is actually over, the stone has started rolling down the hill, and the cog wheels are clicking, settling in to the rhythm they should be following…

I’m a person with an image memory, now this is not to be confused with the photographic memory which, gott sei dank, I do not possess. Its just that I’ve pictures or really short clips in my mind for anything worth keeping in there, rather than full length movies. To put things into perspective, here’s a little example (Boy, Do I sound like a science teacher!!!).. like my first ever memory of school. I think they’d hung balloons all over the class to put the newly arrived crying, puking, screaming bunch of midgets, yours truly included, at ease.. And I remember the balloon bursting, and me breakin into tears with a time lag of 2 micro seconds..

Ah, school, good clean fun it was. If the devil appeared in my room and start a business talk about my soul(as if the devil has nothing better to do than bargain for that),I’d definitely ask him for a machine that you can go back in time for.. I think there’s not a single guy or girl out here who, at some point of time or space, who haven’t wished for undoing something they have done...But of course, life is a one way turnpike, and as somebody’d said,”fun is fun and done is done”..

Yeah,talkin about images,some of them just stay in your mind and refuse to go away. Trivial things it maybe, nonetheless, sometimes they make you think and think.And some of those images, I feel are to be shared among people.Thats what I think I’ll be doing here,till I get bored and move on to something else.O’course,guys get bored with anything and everything,and some of my female friends may well testify on that behalf..but ofcourse,there are a select few who actually hold on to their normal lives so hard,like sailors in a sinking ship.

I have absolutely zit to do these comin days, and if some of you are actually interested in reading all these silly rambling tales, stay tuned. And don’t forget, feel free to post your comments,ranging from downright insults to heavenly praise. So until tomorrow,alvida,my unknown friends....