CELLf Realization

Disclaimer by VJ:

No. This incident has not been sponsored – monetarily or otherwise, by the various telecom hand set/ service providers. Nor is to endorse any of their products or services. A quick recap of telecom ads, jargon and cell phone features is suggested before you 'login' to this narrative. Go on; discover thy ‘Cell’f.


By ‘configuration’, we are RAW (Recovery Agent Whackos). We provide….. ‘music on demand’. We ‘snap our fingers’ and demand the payments. If the demands are not met, we let the parties face the music.

By ‘build’, we are Baddies. Tough skinned, mean looks and all. Our attitude sports the ‘wallpaper’ of the cross boned skull.

That was our ‘profile’ until………………
Until, into the ‘inbox’ of our existence arrived an experience as an ‘SMS’:
A message of CELLf realization


I remember, as part of the Baddies gang, were on ‘roaming’ – exploring through a bike expedition, the hitherto unexplored regions of the Himalayas. ‘Top Ups’, we called them; mountains and peaks we targeted for their sheer inaccessibility and toughness. Reaching a ‘top up’ really provided our ‘systems’ a well deserved ‘recharge’. On one such ‘go to’ attempt, damn Mr. Fate decided to ‘activate’ my disaster ‘account’. Serving as a rear-guard sentinel, my bike skidded on the slippery ice and thanks to these ‘graphics’; I lost ‘contacts’ with my ‘pack’, the rest of my gang. The ‘radio’ and the ‘GPS’ onboard too conked off. So in that Himalayan ‘gallery’ I lay alone……….a wreck amidst the wreck.

“Get up, get up, my son”
I must have fainted, ‘memory’ blanked, conscious ‘put on hold’, ‘number not reachable’ until this Old Man woke me up with this ‘alarm’. At his feet, stood proudly wagging its tail, flapping its ears, a cute ‘pug’. The Old Man had a ‘tower’ of a personality. As I ‘unlocked’ the ‘keypad’ of my vision and took a look around, I realized I was in a completely different ‘circle’. As my mind’s ‘cam’ played ‘back’ the ‘video clips’ of the accident ‘recordings’, I knew this was not the accident ‘site’. Now, this Old Man, was quite a ‘talker’, a platinum ‘user’.
I had no idea of his ‘talk plans’. But our ‘talk time’ came to be my ‘cellf’realization. Neither ‘pre-paid’ nor ‘post paid’, all free and ‘unsolicited’, so much so that I promptly wanted to list him with the ‘Do Not Call Registry’. However, he seemed to have established his ‘network’ all over my neurons. Any thought I had and he promptly divined the intent, detected the ‘signal’.

“You have escaped grievous injury. But you are a winner of the ‘meet-me’ ‘contest’, and hence you are here.” The Old Man said by way of stipulating the 'terms and conditions'.

“What…….the accident was a jackpot to meet this crackpot?!!!”
I was ‘vibrating’ with fury inside. You must remember here that though I come packaged in the violent mode, thanks to the accident, here I was left no ‘option’ but to ‘subscribe’ to the ‘silent mode’. I was hurt in my gums and hence couldn’t ‘talk’.

“Hey…….I am not a crack-pot”.
Boy, this old fella really had darn good ‘coverage’ over my thoughts and here he was sending me this ‘alert’!!!! From here on, my ears were on automatic ‘stereo widening’ mode and I just let him have his ‘say’. It was all one way ‘traffic’.

First, he rubbed my wounds with a white cloth that soon was dominated by a red-hued ‘theme’. Blood red as in ‘infra red’. Then noticing my gums, he referred to the cold and said I had a ‘blue-tooth’ and instantly offered me ‘black-berries’. A few ‘mega-bytes’ later, I experienced an ‘enhancement’, feeling almost no pain.

“Who are you?” I questioned his ‘ID’ by way of gestures.

“Well……..you belong to the '.com' generation. I will converse with you in your ‘language’. You are a RAW, isn’t it? You do that recovery stuff, don’t you? Help recover lots of valuable stuff. But you forget to recover the most important and valuable stuff.”

I wore that ‘sorry, wrong number’ look. The Old Man began turning up the ‘volume’ and switched to ‘speed dial tone’ emphasizing urgency.

“I will help you recover……….yourself. I am your ‘PDA’ (Personal Discovery Assistant). Here is my ‘offering’. Avail my ‘service’.”

Again, my face would have suggested a ‘this is not a valid number’ ‘image’. For immediately, he helped me onto my feet and led me into the lake shore amidst the scenic ‘settings’.

And even as I looked into the lake’s clear waters, LCD (Liquid Crystal Display), the Old Man did some tinkering, treating the water surface almost as a ‘touch screen’. Immediately, on the ‘menu’ of the reflection came for a ‘view’, a ‘countdown’. You know that 10, 9, 8, 7…..2, 1 count off in a black and white circle. Following that began ‘play’ of scenes from my ‘collection’ of childhood memories. I immediately was held captive. I got ‘engaged’.

Me as a lad, helping a blind man cross the road with his ‘hand-set’ on mine. Stealing mangoes, yet sharing even the last one with hungry friends without ‘book marking’ even one for myself. Serving as an ‘organizer’, sharing my ‘notes’ with that dear little classmate who always happened to be at the ‘receiving end’ of everybody’s humor. And then the ‘spam’………incidents of betrayal, inflicted cruelty that ‘hacked’ into my system, ‘clearing the cache’ one by one of all my ‘folders’ of goodness……………………….


Clap
'Exit' the show.Switch of ‘application’. The ‘demo’ was now over.

“You know life does play ‘games’ with you. And there are certain times -tough situations, tougher and rougher people. You feel life really ties your hands & you bloody hell wish you had your ‘hands free’.”……..the Old Man ‘pinged’.

“But at such times, you gottu think out-of-the-box. Have to think out-of- this-box.You have this box, ‘built in’ by ‘default’”……Don’t forget the BOX………Suddenly it all went ‘dead’.

Slurp….whouoop….laapurp……….

As I opened my eyes from sleep, ‘switching on’ my waking state in my ‘home’; to my most pleasant surprise I noticed a most welcome ‘pop-up’. This wonderfully cute…….. pug. It was wagging its tail, flapping its ears and ‘uploading’ its salivated love onto my face. Gently, it dentally ‘selected’ my right hand’s pajama sleeve and guided me to a ‘packet’ I was sure had some ‘data’ relevant to me. And sure enough……….it had this ‘reminder’ from the Old Man in my dream in the form of a letter:

Dear Baddie,

Here, where I am, the ‘air tells’ ‘express yourself’. They say over here, ‘barriers break when people talk’. At the outset, I understand you are angry for me so abruptly vanishing. I guess I must have at least bid you ‘Tata’ to set you ‘in the calm’. I guess I became a bit ‘busy’. It may all seem quite ‘phony’ to begin with, but you gottu take me on my words, give them full face value and place ‘reliance’ on them. I suggest you ‘think hatke’ here as you will then realize that this Old Man’s talk is far from the gibberish and what he has is ‘best hai mere liye’. Now about the BOX, we were talking about. Your ‘search’ for the answer ends here. The ‘password’ to the puzzle is ‘magic box’. Just whisper, ‘magic box’ twice in the pug’s ear and it will guide you to its location.

(On doing as instructed, the pug places its paws on my heart).

Yes, my dear. The heart is the MAGIC BOX.
Hear that.
Lab dab.Lab dab.
Life’s ‘ring tone’.
Love’s ‘caller tune’.
‘IM’ good, its ‘dial tone’.
Think out-of-this-box. FEEL out-of-this-box. As long as you are tuned here, you can ‘go wherever, do whatever’. ‘Wherever you go, this network (read – the Old Man) will always follow you.’ In every tough situation, you will receive ‘unmatched coverage’ and discern this ‘unbreakable bond’. Rest assured, this offer comes with‘lifetime validity’. Go on, unleash its magic.
‘Make the most of now’.
Share from the magic box, all your love.
Here’s how:
‘Drop a line’.

Touch your heart,
Feel its ‘ring’
‘Key’ in the target,
Place your ‘call’
Make the ‘connection’
Let love ‘mobile’
Let it go ‘live’
Live its ‘buzz’
All this done
‘Say with pride……….hello’

This is CELLf realization. The univerCELL truth. It all really is that SIMple.

Logging off,
(:)ld Man.

PS: A ‘pug’nacious fella like you deserves the ‘pug’.

Thanks, Old Man.
SIMply put…………………….’What an Idea’.

I can't but 'channel' my 'credit' to him for lending 'balance' to my life:

"You and I, in this beautiful world.

Green grass, blue sky..........in this beautiful world."

APRIL FULL

“Ayya, who are you and who let you in?”
It was the boy at the counter confronting a coal-skinned man. The man wore just about enough to cover his lower limbs but otherwise had no cloth to cover his bare chest. He wore a weathered cotton dhoti tied in the style called the cycle style. One end of the cloth swirled to a lump and stretched from the front to be tucked at the rear. Crowning this simple get up was a brick-red cotton towel, tied serpentine around his head much as snakes adorning Lord Shiva’s head. Hard toil and sheer ennui had added far more years to his wind-beaten physical frame than time. You may be forgiven to place him in the early 50’s when he was actually in the late 30’s. His name keeping with his color,Karruppu.And here was he, in Murugan Ready-mades, the largest textile show room in this small town, trying to find the price of that prized item he had seen in the display window – a kurta\pyjama set just about the right size for his 6 year old son.

But the counter boy would have none of it. Promptly summoning the shop security, he was now confronting Karruppu – “Ayya, but I am afraid you have to leave.” “But why?” pleaded Karruppu. The counter boy could only muster a sigh for an answer. Suddenly Karruppu stopped in his tracks. Pointing to his object of desire, he asked, “Thambi, how much?” The counter boy provided the price quote which elicited a sigh, but this time from Karruppu.

“How much?” It was a kid enquiring about the cost of the sturdy raven black cycle displayed at the same town’s Hari cycle mart. And when he heard the price, he drew in his lips into a closed position signaling cemented resolve and determined intent. A New Year had commenced on a very enquiring note.

Three months past these two ostensibly insignificant incidents of enquiry, Karruppu was by the river side taking his bath. Each ripple of the river serving a reminder of the pleats he weaved of the hair of his wife, now in the custody of the skies. His kid, Muthu was by his side. He was picking up flat pebbles from the bank and hurling them along the surface of the river. The effect was instantaneous – little fountains on the water surface, turning on & off sequentially along the trajectory of the pebble’s path. Muthu’s antics served yet another purpose too. It shook Karruppu out of his sad reverie. Karruppu had noted with paternal concern Muthu turning up late in the night at their hut ever since New Year day had dawned. “Muthu, so how many more days of coming late at night from school?” “As long as you come late too” was the witty reply from Muthu. Karruppu too had been coming late to the hut in the nights, ever since………..New Year dawn.

Karruppu, a complete illiterate and being a daily wage laborer earned his income out of being a loadsman. The town had godowns stocking cement, rice and a host of other essentials. Karruppu’s work was loading, unloading and shifting bags of these items from vehicles to the godowns, from the fields to the vehicles and the like. Everyday he would hike a ride paying the fare on the local minivans to the spot of work. It was an existence that emphasized the importance of the instant. Every day was a new battle for existence; a new quest for survival. No work meant no money and hence no food for that day and no school for Muthu. Hence, each godown came to be a temple; each vehicle a temple chariot and each sack a venerated item of worship. Given Karruppu, every tomorrow’s work was a God that needed to be invoked via fervent prayers and Muthu’s sight was enough to sustain the spring of devotion, day after day of heavy work.

And three months, past that fateful New Year dawn, the conversation by the river side continued. “Appa”, Muthu continued, albeit hesitantly, “Will you be going for work today?”
“No. Luckily, yesterday I completed all my work and was paid double for working through the night. But why do you ask this question?” Karruppu enquired.
“Nothing Appa, I am going to a place. So will you please join me?” Muthu pleaded.
“Ok, let’s go as I understand you don’t have school today.”

Karruppu ruffled the hair of Muthu. An hour or so past this conversation the two found themselves at the entrance of Hari Cycle Mart. Karruppu was taken aback. Even as his mind was examining the “why here?” question the owner Hari walked out to greet them. Immediately Karruppu dragooned by rustic simplicity, removed the brick-red cotton towel from his head, folded it and held it under his right arm. “Karruppu, you must be very very proud of your son.” began Hari. Pointing to the sturdy black cycle he had always wanted, he continued –“Here, take the keys. Your boy is a king, a lion.” Karruppu stood still stuck to the spot. In a flash he recounted that one time on New Year’s Eve when he had passed by the cycle mart with Muthu besides him, but not before stopping to gaze at it. Continued Hari, “It’s all yours. Paid for by your son’s diligence. Ever since New Year Day, he has been coming here after school hours working to earn enough to pay for that cycle. At first, Muthu being a child, I did not want to employ him. But when he spoke to me about working to gift you the cycle, I couldn’t resist. Even then, I asked him to not work but he wanted to learn about the cycles and the art of repairing them. So here….” Saying this Hari held Muthu’s palm open and Karruppu’s tears became rivulets easing along the bruises and cracks.
“Muthu, my prince. I am going to a place. So will you please join me on this cycle?” Smiled Karruppu through his tears.


“Ayya, who are you and who let you in?”
It was the same counter-boy, asking the same question to the same person in the same avatar after a lull of three months. The only difference being Muthu joining his father. Karruppu’s cycle ride from Hari’s cycle mart had led them here to Murugan Ready-mades. As the boy prepared to show Karruppu, the door, Karruppu removed a tiny bundle of cloth tucked into his dhoti. He handed the bundle to the counter boy – “Here, please take this. Can you give me that dress?” said he, pointing to the Kurta\Pyjama set. The boy opened the bundle, counted the currency and being satisfied, promptly handed over the dress to Muthu. Muthu could only smile recollecting that New Year Eve’s walk by the Ready made shop with his dad and being enamored by the same dress on display. “Here, go to that room and change into this dress”, said Karruppu pointing to the dressing room. A minute later, Muthu the prince was there dressed for the occasion and the two began leaving the showroom. “But how did Appa manage the money?” Muthu kept thinking. As Karruppu prepared to begin the ride back home, Muthu noticed the calloused bare feet of his father and then the realization hit him. His father had foregone the rides in the local vans, trudging every mile to work everyday on his bare foot and thus saved valuable money.

And so it was, on that bright April morning, as Karruppu seated on his dream bicycle ferried his little prince, Muthu dressed in his dream attire, the heavens decided to celebrate. Touched by their sacrifices, the heavens managed to stroke a wonder rainbow on a cloudless canvas erasing bruises on those tender palms and calluses from those selfless feet. And thus when mortals on the earth below were fooling around April Fool, the Gods in the heavens above were acknowledging - April Full.

SKINCRYPTED

The human saga has veritably been a relentless Q&A session. A game show hosted by nature, produced by time, directed by destiny in a wonderful studio, the Cosmos. And heavens, how could I forget – it’s $ponsored by… life.
Big Bang onwards, nature has been firing questions and we have been answering them. From the Stone Age, the Ice age and into now, the really cutting edge Bond age (clue: agent 007), we have in a manner, come of age. We have successfully managed to answer our way past most of nature’s probes. A few questions we have fortuitously guesstimated – the fire, the wheel, penicillin. Remember the ‘Dimaag ki batti jala de’ sequence from the Mentos ad. For some others, we have seriously summoned our grey matter – achieving the escape velocity. As per the mandates of any game show there have been some questions which have been, quite honest to admit, giveaways – antifreeze for cars in sub-zero conditions. At the other end, nature has thrust on us gauntlets; questions that have been encrypted in nature’s strange ways – Ideologies, Religion, Identities, Nationhood, Disease & Mortality. We are still working hard to unravel these puzzles and decode the scripts. But the gauntlet with the most intriguing encryption is the one concerning Beauty. The bait has been cast and we have been lured. Beauty comes encrypted in the skin. It really is Skin deep or so. It’s Skincrypted and here’s an effort to arrive at a key to decrypt it. To do that we need to journey across the various levels of the skincryption. Let’s commence here:


Just look at him. This is the customary welcome accorded to infants on touching home base – their birth. The qualifying word, to reiterate is - look. Wonder why none of us say listen to him. Or maybe smell him. As humans, right from birth senses have been granted their levels of importance. And the first mover’s advantage clearly is with the looks. Thus, looks have been attached congenital significance by us. Come boyhood and its time for diet-supplementary beverages; each beverage company trying to best their rivals by tweaking the Olympic motto feeding on the audience’s fancy – a kid who is faster, taller and stronger than anybody else. Their dream offer – a kid who has the brains to look down upon Einstein and the height to look down upon a growing giraffe. Teenage is looks gaining steam and youth is well, looks being crowned. Middle age is the time to go plastic. Finally it takes senility with its withering reality to restore parity in helping us smile at the cutaneous adventure we’ve put ourselves through – an infancy of innocence, a childhood loaded with nutrition, a teenage heavy on beauty add-ons, a youth anchored around the mirror and a botox compliant middle age. This is just one facet, the biology of beauty, of being skincrypted.There’s evolution, religion, literature, history and the current social realities still to come.

Sometime between our cross over from the Australo pithecus to the Homo sapiens was the first foray made by nature to skincrypt. We were primarily hunters by the day and the quarry by the night. Night always filled us with a morbid dread. For that was when the scary nocturnal creatures that had us as a choice item on their menu, went about their rounds. So darkness came to be associated with fear, the most primal of our instincts. And fear with its associate, vulnerability, is the ultimate triggering for a myriad other human emotions – loathe, repulsion and scorn. On the same count, we liked the day as that was when we felt secure. Between the unease of the dark and the comfort of the day, we obviously preferred the latter. Later, this preference would rub off on every field of human activity across time as you will soon discover.

If evolution mandated intellectual activism, it also, given the sheer odds stacked against our survival, mandated the emergence of religion on two fronts – thunder and wonder. Thunder herein implying the necessity to appease the powers that controlled the forces over which we simply hadn’t gained control or even had a faint idea about. For example – the thunderstorms, quakes etc. Wonder herein implying the sheer beauty that our ancestors were able to drink in in terms of natural flora and fauna and not to forget the beauty of the celestial skies. Picture here a rainbow on the back drop of a concrete-less world and you have traced the spring of human poetry and fine arts. Across the world, our earliest predecessors faced this common condition - this wonderful juggle between the fear of the unknown and the sheer beauty of the known. And religion became the perfect medium to balance the scales. If there was disease and disasters, it was the time to set a call with the Higher-Up - to beseech, to supplicate. If it was a wonderful day, it was yet another call, but to praise and to exhort. Given this condition, nature proceeded to skincrypt and we gladly obliged with our preference yet again. We beatified the daylight and demonized the darkness. Across religions, myths and cultures the devils came in dark and the deities in surf-excel white.

At some lucky juncture in time we arrived at the happy station of all our basic needs being addressed at least to a reasonable level. As our species gained the ability to cultivate, clothe and defend we derived a valuable gift – leisure. A gift whose conferment marked the acceleration of the human growth story. It clearly accentuated our new found status of being the fittest among the survived. Leisure provided us the time to observe but with a sense of security. Just what the doctor prescribed to unleash human curiosity and creativity. The progeny of course here being Science and Arts. Again, a careful study of the sports, literature, crafts, paintings and sculptures of the various civilizations point to a common thread – the segregation between the good and the evil on the platform of color. Dark colors sought to be avoided or were meted step-motherly treatment. Can you imagine a Taj Mahal in granite black? Even if that occurred, would it have then qualified as one of the seven wonders? It may have been chance or deliberate, but which color is granted pride of a first move in the ancient game of chess? As passé it may seem in noting, the color of the night came to be the palanquin carrying the devil with the bearers being subterfuge, stealth, skulduggery and sinisterness. Yet again we had been skincrypted.

Time, the manager of the toll gates between the past and the present and the present and the future also seemed benign as a permit official. Much as inter-state government buses ply un-interrupted at the toll-gates, this palanquin bearing the devil was allowed an un-interrupted trip across time. But just as vehicle numbers are logged at such spots, time too has chronicled the same. History’s records are replete with innumerable instances of such tragic cross-overs – Colonialism and Slavery. Add to that a new term……..Hitlerism. A quest to assert the seeming Aryan supremacy……nipped in part, real time……thank you Jesse Owens. Nature skincrypting yet again.
And now to our times - this Harry Potter age which dreads the Dark lord Voldemort or this Lord of the Rings era which keeps a tab over the dark forces of Sauron on the insistence of Gandalf. We have indubitably been nature’s most skincrypt friendly generation. And not without reason. True, we have a Naomi Campbell as a Supermodel or Indian women ruling the beauty paegants. But lets play catch up with reality.Pick up any matrimonial and the word fair is inescapable. Watch the TV and one significant observation marches to the fore – the ads hinting at beauty (i.e.…skin et al) outnumbering commercials featuring any other category. Again, the word fair dominates screen space. Fair and Lovely. Fair and Handsome. Fair Forever. You wonder - do you need to be fair to look lovely or is fairness the prerequisite to someone looking handsome? Now to break the monotony here’s a question – what’s impossible for Badshah Khan, Megastar Chiru and Superstar Rajni? Yes, you read that right, impossible even for Rajni sir. Well, they will never be able to covet night-skinned ladies. That will be cinematic kamikaze. Their onscreen counter-hearts (read: heroines) have to be daylit skinned fair-ies.
Why? Director’s decrees. Again why? The masses want it that way, the directors' invariable reply. But why?

Notes, noted social demographer Dr.Soma Das – “The desire to look good is a universal trait across humanity.” Agreed. But this compulsion to consider fair as good? Concedes Dr.Das – “Yes, we have become a looks-obsessed race. Thanks to the PR blitz we are subjected to these days.” But how exactly you ask and the details are spilt in three steps. “First, there’s indoctrination. The sheer media deluge manages this, often harping around the theme of a miraculous Midas touch. Then, there’s habit formation. Early adopters try out and slowly there’s build up of peer pressure. Finally, there’s attitude change. When the critical mass is achieved, the trend gets established as the norm.” And thus we notice that the beauty industry keeps flooding us with newer and newer terms (ex: Metrosexuals) to serve the same fare - instant fixes guaranteeing ethereal beauty all aiming at enticing the opposite gender. Fuelling their efforts are the undercurrents of globalization in the context of a liberalized, fast track nation. The hot and high end international brands once outside the aspirations of the working lot are becoming accessible and more importantly to a mark, affordable. Gone the ‘best foot’ forward generation. Say hello to the ‘best face’ forward generation which is more expressive and experimentative with respect to looks. A clear symptom of being skincrypted.



So what is this Skincryption all about? Wait a second. Remember the game show and its host, Nature, posing the question:
What is beauty?
Skin-cryption is allowing nature to wrong-foot us by answering the above question in terms of two prime stereotypes.
Stereotype # 1: Color of skin
Fallout being racialism. Be it sports (ex: cricket) or reality shows (ex: Big Brother), or nations (ex: blacks in US)

Stereotype # 2: Over-indulgence in skin
Fallout being, over pampering of one’s physicality.

So how do we decrypt this question? On Nature’s show, nature is kind and has offered us two lifelines, one each to decrypt each of the two stereotypes. Well, here the concept of life line or helpline needs a slight elaboration. On nature’s show we can’t make calls but only receive them. The clock is furiously ticking.

Ring……..ring………..
The first call is Martin Luther King. He says in soothing timbre:
“When ebony
And ivory
Are in harmony
In my piano key
Why not we………”
Nature presses the buzzer and the neon shines green. Stereotype 1 has been decrypted. WOW!!!

Basha……….Basha……..goes the next tone.
I am over-the-moon, its superstar Rajni sir. He styles:
“Kanna, its all jujubeee.
Doordarshan’s motto is your answer.
Sathyam,Shivam,Sundaram……..Truthu,Goodnessu,Beauty.”

Before I can ask Rajni Sir, he has read my thoughts. A quick thrust of his palm and golden dust arrange themselves on the………..air.
“Truth, Goodness,Beauty.
Truly, Goodness is real beauty.”
Nature’s buzzer shines green. The second stereotype has just been decrypted. Rajni sir does a goggle twist act and thunders:
“Kanna, beauty is not just about looking fair but being fair to one another.

iddhu yeppidi irruku?”

Now that surely seems a fair deal.

THE INTERVIEW - I

"Oh God!" my friend was nonplussed. I had just managed the biggest scoop of all - an interview with God. I count myself very fortunate. I just happened to run into him. Now close that mouth. As for the details about venue and time, well that's a trade secret. Content is what holds water as the fourth estate readily endorses. And I am sharing it all for free. No philanthropy or altruism. Plain self - preservation as you will soon discover. Here are excerpts from the talk:
Me :: Ok God. Can you provide a brief note about yourself by way of introduction? Just for good old technicality sake.
G :: “Well, I am an author.”
Me :: An author? You surprise me there.
G :: (chuckles) " As God, surprise ought be my USP. Yes, I am an author.”
Me :: Any work of substantial significance so far.
G :: “ No. Not really. But working on a book with a very interesting plot.”
Me :: Your masterpiece?
G :: “ Yep.Magnum Opus. Work in progress.”
On the move, he moves away seeking to avoid the tide of people coming his way. I get a whiff. The talk is heading for a premature end. So I hastily slip in this teaser of a question.
Me :: Any sneak peeks. . Any leaks about the plot?
G :: (swiftly moving away from me) “In fact, take this one page sample from the draft of one of my later chapters. It’s written in the first person- from the protagonist’s angle. It will provide just enough leaks to get you on your toes. But I’m holding back just enough to not compromise the end. I guess you will share it with your fellas.”

The Author gives me the page and escapes into invisibility. Here it is.

Us.

Homo sapiens

Wise man or knowing man.

Bipeds at the acme of biology yet still ambling at the abyss when its a question of our humanity. Entities surrounded by an aura of evolutionary glory but stalked by the shadow of in discriminatory gory. Creatures of perennial hope often being casualties of perpetual fears.

Why is it that in our hour of greatest progress on technology front.....we have greatest misery(hunger)......why in the most cutting edge medicinal times do we have the most casualties dying out of diseases with very simple causes.... why is that when we have the greatest protection(read: nuclear weapons) ......do we feel most vulnerable........why is that when we have the most money........that we feel the most poor, most deprived............why is that when we have global connectivity ........does every human experience a personal disconnect?

No rosy English or daisy prose this. Only the hard fact. The biting reality. The scary milieu. The gnawing truth. Hard as the hunger challenging the kid across the high rises and amidst the slums. Biting as the cold ambushing the scantily clad old man without a shelter. Scary as the terrorist tag we attach to strangers who seek to befriend us given these times. Gnawing as the emptiness eating away the vitals of a person not vaccinated by a dose of pure love. With money maybe you can overcome the hard part and bypass the biting section; adjust to the fact and accommodate the reality. But you need heart to confront the truth.

Here we are. Having come, yet not arrived. Having evolved but not developed. Having conquered but not yet soveriegn. Having advanced but not progressed. Having outthought, outlived, outsmarted, and outdone everyone and still what is the outcome - unable to avoid an existential outage. So there we go...

An existence in opposites.

A presence in paradoxes.

A creation in contradictions.

A potpourri of polarities

A amalgam of the extremes

An instance of ultimate irony

A mayhem of a mixture

That has been the story. Our story.

End of sample.

The Author it seems is bent on one helluva of a thriller and the above snippets is a sample of the draft of a chapter. I just hope the draft is not final nor this chapter his last. I pray you join me in praying for a turning point for this plot. And given the settings, our prayers better not be just lip service. We better act & act fast. Else snap thy finger & begin the countdown to apocalypse.