The time factor....

"Gosh...you are a kid"...he smiled the same lopsided grin that had tugged at the strings of her heart in their very first meeting.
"Don't call me a kid"..she retorted with a fake anger which was more see-thru than a bride's flimsy veil.

5 years...is that long enough for one person to call another a kid ? She didn't think so...But then he was gloating over his graduation certificate when she was just being weaned away from her staple diet of 'Nancy Drews' and 'Archies' of the world. He was bursting with anxiety and apprehension of the first day on the first job when she was all smiles with her new school bag. Skewed...the timelines were skewed....the scales were tilted...the blind lady holding the scales had mocking eyes peering down at her through the blindfold, flimsier than her put-on-anger.

"Yes Mr Old Man..." she recovered from her reverie..."what were you saying?"
She bit her tongue the moment the words disturbed the air around her in little waves of ups and downs. Did she really have to say that and drive a wedge in the already wide age-gap?

He seemed not to notice the comment...and carried on with whatever he was saying.His eyes widening as he spoke and then squinting into tiny slits when he came down to explaining the nitty-gritties. Babyish eyes with pink eyelids, she had described to her friends over their usual friday evening coffee. They had all rolled on the couch with laughter- their mocha's and latte's coming dangerously close to the rims.
"Goddd......u r a dreamer maann....whats wrong with you? Pink eyelids...what is he ?
A hippopatamus or something?" More peals of shrill girlish laughter.....!!
SCHOOLGIRL-ROMANCE they had labelled it...!! Any attempts at further explanations would be cut short by exasperated-pair-of-rolled-up-eyes or lets-see-how-long-this-lasts-harumphs !!!!

"Hulloo.....I was saying something", he was waving a chubby hand in front of her face.
"Yeah...I am listening"...she half-mumbled.
"You are such a disaster of a person....", he chided her.
She just smiled in retaliation...a far cry from her usual reaction to such comments.
She was a fiery person...pouncing on any and every one who would throw such jibes at her. The boundaries between humor and insults were an astigmatic blur as far as she could see....and that made her a perfect target for all her friends' comments and jokes. But she was a light traveller...moving through life with a very minimal emotional baggage...no grudges hauled on her back, no revenges slung by the shoulder.
And that made her more perfect than perfect as the butt-of-jokes.

"Maybe its something to do with your sunsign"..he had said over coffee one evening..."Yours is a very fiery sunsign. You act or speak first and then think...very very spontaneous."
The stars...how conveniently you could blame them for any and everything that goes wrong in your life. Or maybe, with yourself. Why was she born on the day that she was born? She could have been born 5 years earlier ? Or maybe 4 ? Would she then not be called a kid ? Would perspectives change ? Would she still be the same person that she was now ? Or would a calmer, more sober sunsign possess her into demurity and serenity of mind ? All if and buts stacking up in her troubled mind.

She could vaguely recollect a scene from a movie she had seen ages ago. A lady caught in the midst of an extra-marital affair trying to unwind that one moment when she met the 'other-man', albeit in her thoughts. Trying to take a path which would piece again the shards of her shattered marital bliss....
The idea had seemed nothing more than a sinner's retreat to her then...a 'fallen womans' attempt at rising from the depths of her guilt.Regrets at having taken the wrong lane...and being caught in the middle of a drunken-driving rush on the expressway !!!
But now the idea fascinated her....what if she could unwind time....go back in time to the hospital and carry the puny pink child tagged with a number...sleeping in the immaculately nursery to a faraway hospital 5 years back in time...next to another puny kid with pink eyelids and a lopsided grin in another immaculately clean nursery...!! Or maybe 27 wasnt a very flattering age for a woman. The pink eyelid-ed kid wud have to be zapped into the future...lopsided grin et al !!! :)

She let out a sudden guffaw !!!! They were walking towards the lift. The discussion had changed track. His one-sided talk was chugging along the lines of job-shift and alternate careers while she was lost in the deep dark chambers of thought-lined time machines.
"You are a creative person. You can try out new options....do what you feel like doing. Your's is a blessed generation"...his face was wrought in seriousness...not even the proverbial hint of humour. She could just stare at him with naked shock.

The lift stopped on the floor with a bing-bong. He got into the lift. There was no space for an extra person...definately not for a 'healthy' person like her.
"I will take the next one..." she murmered through the closing doors of the lift.

Where generations were concerned, taking the next lift wouldn't make a difference. What had been done by 5 years couldn't be undone by 5 seconds of time.
She reached her floor. The door opened to an empty lobby. He hadn't waited for her.
She walked on...a wiser kid....!!!

Perception...

I had earlier written a post(The Flight) using this pic on my blog
So here I am...recycling the pic for my debut post on pick-a-pic :)

Looking out of the window, I could see the wing of the plane. Large and gigantic..as though setting out to conquer the world. The buildings on the ground below seemed so meek and submissive. The cars moving with all their speed were just mere specks glinting in the sunlight, as though mirrors on the jholas hanging outside a roadside shop on Commercial Street. I was gloating.....sitting inside the plane, I was the conquerer of the world. The plane was the chariot and I was the rider.

I could see a faint pink line on the horizon...and for a second it looked as though the world was flat. Just as though the fluffy clouds just went over the edge as they approached the think pink line...and were lost in the unknown, unexplored universe....

I couldn't help but think how awed the people on the ground would be seeing the plane. They would be scared...intimidated....!!!! I had a vision of people running helter-skelter, the way they do in the Independence day, Volcano type of movies. Run u little child..run for your life.....it gave an exhilarating high to be on top of the world.

And then my vision was clouded, literally down to the y. Much as I tried, I could only see the fluffy clouds below. And not a glimpse of the life below. The sun was a flaming red....melting at its edge..dissolving into the afternoon sky. And for a moment, the wing of the plane blanked out the sun. It held the sun captive in its wide span. Look you foolish sun, you are a mere speck...!!!Oh well..the world might revolve around you....but from where I stand...you dont exist !!!! I screamed silently into the depths of the sky...

The plane was minutes away from the descent. The sun was still a molten mass....burning down on the ground which I could now see clearly. And then I saw the shadow. The shadow of the plane...so small, inconsequential, a pathetically shrivelled and horrobily blackened image. And then I saw the people under the shadow-brightly dressed children coming home from school, housewives returning home after a satisying shopping spree, teenagers seeking respite from the heat at icecream shops....!!! The shadow just passed over them and they didnt even bat an eyelid. It was a non-existent entity in their lives....!!!!

And then we descended down to the earth...the plane and my ego !!!!!

Shine onto me, you bright glowing sun
And I will glitter like the chosen one
But I know I will never be sold
For I am not the glittering gold
I am just a small grain of sand
Among thousand others in the barren land

A Great Day for Freedom

I can’t take it any more. This is too much. She just can’t do that yaar..
Yeah, I know. But she is our teacher, afterall.
But that doesn’t mean she should call me like that in front of the whole class! I mean…
Relax. Lets not talk about it, now that school is over. Lets enjoy the ride.
No… she even hits us! That is not at all acceptable. Do you know, according to…
Chuck it, yaar.
But how? This kinda insult just cannot leave my mind. Please try to understand me, will you?
Listen… I tell you something… a secret!
What? What secret?
Shhh… promise me you won’t tell anyone…
Of course not! You are my best friend. I have kept many of our secrets, haven’t I?
Haan. I know. This is about Doctor Uncle…
Oh… what is it?
Swear god that you will not tell this to anyone.
…
Doctor Uncle has given me something that’ll help you forget all this that Nancy teacher is doing to us…
What?
Hmmm… even it’ll let us forget ALL our worries.
What is it?
I’ll tell you… lets just keep the cycles here naa.
Ok…
Remember I was angry like you yesterday, after school got over?
Yeah, because that witch made you stand outside the class the whole day…
Hmmm… so I was almost crying on my way back…when doctor uncle saw me and called me in his clinic.
…
He asked me what happened, why I was crying… so I told him what happened and how she treats us n all…
Achha. What happened then?
He said he has a solution to all this…he gave me one small pill to eat and asked me to relax for sometime.
…
I think I dozed off for a while… when I got up, I was feeling perfectly alright!
…
And doctor uncle was giving me a gentle massage… he said it’s a technique called “Acupressure” …it’s a Japanese technique for relieving your stress
Hmmm.. I think I have read about it somewhere…
He asked me not to tell anyone about this, because the pill is very expensive it seems. But you know what…
What?
I managed to flick 4 more pills from him!! Here they are!
WOW! Can I have one??
Ofcourse, yaar… you are my best friend! Let’s have one each…
Give. Here we go.. Now bye-bye to Nancy Teacher, those rubbish boys and the school … I am so happy…


Nothing is happening yaar…
Let’s have the other one too…maybe that will help.
Ok. Gimme one more.
But wait… first promise me, you will not tell this to anyone. Absolutely no one.
Yeah, I’ve already done that, yaar. I swear…
Ok… take. I too take one more… it just feels so great!

Hmmm.. I am feeling so nice. So happy!
So am I!!
This is just too cool… aren’t we supposed to relax for a while?
Yeah, but I feel like flying hiiiiiiiiiiigh in the air!
Look, lets just go and sit on the lawns there, naa…
Chal…

*******************************

Thursday, September 9, 1968

Two girls aged around 13 years were found dead in the valley of Chakharana near Dehradoon. The shocking incident was reported by local witnesses who saw the girls tripping from the cliff nearby. ‘The girls were acting as if they were trying to fly’, local sources said.

Initial investigations concluded that these girls studied in Mother Mary’s School in Dehradoon. Postmortem reports submitted by the Government Hospital, Dehradoon show that the girls were under a heavy dose of LSD (Lysergic Acid Diethylamide), a psychedelic drug recently added to the “tripper-medicine” list in America. It was also found that one of the girls had a sexual intercourse approximately 24 hours before death.

The cause of what seems like a suicide is still a mystery and...

*******************************

Source of picture: Lost Photograph >> Photoblog

We respect copyrights!
Special thanks to Shailesh!!