When the time decided to stop...

The tick-tick of the clock stopped suddenly...
I would not have really noticed the sound of the clock had I not been alone in the house ...reading in the silence...only the clock’s sound to lend me company.

Thinking that the batteries must have conked off....I took a deep sip from my coffee cup and flipped a page. Something made me look out of the window... I noticed that the wind had stopped blowing....even the trees that were swinging in the wind....were frozen in the positions that they had been in! The stray dog of the colony had stopped in its strides as if posing for a portrait...the still children in the park were looking at their ball in mid-air. Everything was stationary with a quiet stillness that I had only seen in movies or still photos!

Astonished, I stood up from my position and checked all my limbs...all seem to be working and moving....then what had happened here...? If I could move...why couldn’t the others? Confused and a bit scared, I helplessly looked around for a reason....is this doomsday...?? Did I do something that I am in this labyrinth? Is something going to happen that I am not aware of?

With the feeling that I am missing something drastically important, I decided to go and check on the other people....in the neighbourhood....Going out of the house, I pressed the bell of the apartment opposite to mine but no sound came...was there no electricity? But I could clearly see the light in the corridor...and in my own apartment....I tried my bell and there it went.... peeling loudly...making me jump out of my skin in the eerie silence surrounding me!

Why was it that everything that was mine was functioning ...while the rest of the world seems to have gone into a lull!!???

An idea struck me...and I rushed to switch on the TV...there to my shock.......the frozen images....kept changing...but only when I switched one channel after the other! All channels gone bad together?

Now I was really scared...what the hell was happening???? Was all this a big joke...was someone playing a prank on me!?? Or was this a divine intervention for paying me back for my sins??? Or had I gone crazy in the head??

Taking a deep breath....I sat down on the couch and tried to think what to do next...
I tried to recall if I had read or seen anything like this before...

Remembering Wells’ “Time Machine” that I had read in school...I also recalled many movies made on the same theme... But apart from a few scenes, in which people had travelled back and forth in time using the time machine....I couldn’t recall much......but what was happening here? There was no time machine...what did I have to do? What was the significance of all this? What am I expected to do?

I got up to tweak the hands of my clock...as I remembered people doing in movies...waiting for everything to go back in time miraculously and start moving!!! But still nothing happened....

Panicky and trying not to cry...I prayed hard for things to be normal again...but it seemed nothing was working....nothing was normal....or maybe I had become abnormal and was imagining all this??

Perplexed and helpless...I started pacing the room...thinking of my options...now that the world had literally stopped all around me...what was best possible in this scenario? What shall I do? Shall I read, write, pray, or go to sleep....could I ever fall asleep in such a situation!!! Was this going to last forever??

Questions raced in my mind….I picked up the book I was reading….went back to the coach and tried to concentrate on the printed words but everything blurred and I couldn't stop the tears of helplessness that started falling down my eyes…

Suddenly…I felt a strange stillness within myself…and I could hear my hear beat going thud-thud…and then missing a beat…and then almost vanishing…panicked …I tried to sit up but my feet, my back, my hands refused to move…as if they had been turned to stone….I could feel the tears that I had shed moments ago…turning hard on my cheeks...and not rolling anymore….

Oh! I thought…so its happening to me too…but then I started hearing the clock going tick-tick again….and I wanted to shout with joy…but couldn’t...the immobility had struck me...was it some sort of virus??

As I sat there like a stone…with the book clutched in my hand….and the pearls of tears sitting on my cheeks…I began noticing other sounds around me…yes, the children were shouting and playing again...and there...the dog was barking too...the images of my TV were moving again…a woman politician had attacked the microphone...of the speaker of the assembly and threw it as people ushered her out of door...I could even hear my neighbour's son shouting at his mother…

My cell phone started playing "Yeh Dooriyan"...my latest ring tone...and I just kept staring at my friend's number flashing on the screen paralysed....

Everything was back to normal...the only difference was...now I was the one for whom the time had stopped moving...

The Generation Gap

Today flipping through the newspaper and sipping the cool coffee at a coffee shop in the afternoon....sound of young giggles made me lower my paper and look up.

I saw a young girl and boy, dressed in school dress enter the coffee shop. As they stood at the counter ordering muffins, I amusedly thought...they must have stopped via their way home to take a bite before heading home...

The sight made me nostalgic for a while....as I remembered the good old school days when we used to walk home from school and often spend our pocket money on ice-creams and sundaes in summers...and dig into hot chocolate in winters!!

However, as they turned towards one of the tables...the girl's low slung short skirt caught my eye...winging on her hips as she cat-walked to the table. I looked over her and noticed the eyes highlighted by Kajal...and lips by gloss...her hair were cut in the latest Katrina style...and she was tossing them around quite adeptly!
The boy was tall and lanky... around 15-16 years of age...with new hairs covering his face...that had not yet grown so much that they could have been shaved...his school trousers was as also as low-slung as the girl's skirt... Smiling to myself, I remembered our plain grey tunics... that made us look like nuns!

Chiding myself for staring, I was about to go back to the newspaper...when I saw the boy's hand going around the girl's shoulder...In a minute, both were kissing...right there...in the coffee shop...among the crowded tables...with the muffin sitting on the table between them!

For a moment, I was shocked...not because I had never seen anyone kiss before...or have never kissed myself...!

I just couldn't believe that what I thought as an innocent muffin-eating visit...was aimed at something else ...and that at the age of 15-16?????

For even a person as liberal as me this sudden bold gesture by two school kids in public...was a bit too much...Its not that I never had crushes in school or never heard of such things going on..in school...but somehow...today's incident just shook me...

I couldn't stop myself from thinking about their parents...innocently waiting for them to return home from school...not really knowing ...what they are up to...

The girl's eye caught mine....and uncomfortably I looked away...even more surprised...that she looked so normal and quite comfortable...and not at all bothered about the looks that quite a number of people were giving both of them!
They just calmly tucked into the muffin...kissed once more, paid the bill, picked up their cell phones...and their school bags... and left the cafe, holding hands...

I was left thinking....have i turned into a conservative prude or is this what is called the Generation Gap?

Are you happy?

Rita and Seema were best friends since school....they sat on the same desk, ate from the same lunch box, read the same books, had crushes on the same type of guys, listened to same kind of music....and often spend the night at each other’s houses....talking into long hours of the night.

Both wanted to become engineers....and get into a high-profile company.

Needless to say like any two close friends...they also experienced their share of arguments tinged with shades of jealousy and fought over various issues....
But throughout .....their friendship remained....intact...at least till they grew up.

Both went to different colleges in different cities...but were in touch through lengthy hand-written letters that arrived...days after they had already shared any big or small news through STD calls...

While Rita had numerous boy friends in college...Seema was too idealistic to make boyfriends before “falling in true love”! Both continued to share the gossip about the various admirers they had in college and how they partied their weekends away!

This continued till the final year of college when suddenly Rita’s parents asked her to meet their friend’s son .... their prospective son-in-law! A few months later, an astonished Seema went to attend Rita’s engagement party. She was amazed at Rita for getting into an “arranged marriage” and couldn’t understand how she could have agreed to marry a rich businessman who was 6-7 years her senior....whom she hadn’t known before!

But when she saw Rita happily busy with her engagement preparations and her trousseau...she decided to only wish her the best.

Anuj was nice...friendly...and even had a good personality.....but.....he was definitely not one of the types that Rita and Seema had always seemed to like...

A few months later ....right after her engineering, Rita and Anuj got married...and a month later Rita happily called Seema to tell her about the “good news”. Trying to sound naturally happy for her, Seema congratulated her and for the first time in years....felt the distance between them....becoming wider and wider...

Seema couldn’t understand how could Rita give up all her dreams and aspirations and get married to some stranger....who belonged to a family of businessmen...where wives remain housewives...and mothers of their children for the rest of their lives...

Now years have passed....since that time....

Rita takes care of her husband’s extended family and her two children...and spends her free time in getting facials in beauty parlours, shopping at malls, and vacationing in Singapore and Bangkok.

Seema did get into a high-profile company...and is now head of one entire department of the company....She met her kind of a guy and fell in love....and had a “love-marriage” as she wanted...though sometimes....very rarely ...when she has a bit of respite from rushing between her hectic job, her child, her house....she can still glimpse the little ruminants of love that was once existed between her and her husband.

Both the friends meet once in a year...either at their children’s birthdays ...or in their summer vacations....

One such meeting happened recently...when they met at a coffee shop.

They talk and share stuff....while Seema talks about her office life and hectic schedule, Rita talkes about her leisure trips and shopping....

Soon the conversation starts facing long gaps of silence...where both assess each other silently....

While, looking at Rita’s manicured and painted nails and toes...Seema hides her own unpainted rough nails under the table and wonders...was all the hard-work really worth it?

Meanwhile, Rita thinks of Seema’s wonderful profile...and the confidence she seems to be oozing out while sitting in the coffee shop in her plain kurta, jeans and sandals. She hides her own flashy Malaysian sandals under the table...and wonders....where has her own personality disappeared?

Avoiding each other’s eyes...both keep talking of weather....of their children’s schools....and of latest movies.....till they can....but after a while....another long yet strange pause creeps slowly in....

Finally its time to leave....a bit reluctantly, a bit relieved...they bid each other goodbye....

The friends who could tell and ask each other anything in the world.... fail to ask each other the simple question that they long to know....

“Are you happy?”

Freedom of Speech...

One of the most important democratic elements of today's world!

Wars are fought, people are killed, governments are toppled...over this basic human right!

We - as part of today's mainstream society...and an integral ingredient of the country and world...often write thesis, analytical articles and debates defending this right...

But in a single day’s life...there are often situations and circumstances when we willingly disregard it....sometimes in workplaces because of fear of a stinker from the boss...sometimes at a gatherings because of fear of being ridiculed by friends....sometimes at home because of fear of hurting others... sometimes in our realtionships because of fear of rejection.... and even sometimes on roads, on public transports because of the fact that anyways you say will not matter anyways...

Strange but its very true...not only do we stiffle our own voices, opinions, thoughts and feelings....we often encourage our friends, our family and even our children to do the same....

You send the deliverables to the client...after exceededing your normal 8 hours of a day’s work ...because you don’t want your appraisal to be affected and the increment to be deducted... even if you keep cursing the boss and the company with all your hear!

You entertain people you don’t care a hoot about and ask them to extend their visit too...even if you feel like shouting “Get Lost” at them and throwing them out of your house!

You sound as shocked as your peers when they ridicule the latest escapade of the hot girl in office...even if you would like to be in her shoes!

You keep spending the warm nights of the summer tossing and turning in the noisy fan...running on the invertor...praying for the AC light to turn on!

You agree to get married...because you are expected to...even if you would rather live all your life alone...and then turn yours as well as someone else’s lives into a misery!

You keep working in a MNC as the high-profile Project Manager ....when you would rather be at home looking after your family and cooking snacks for your children....because you know that even thinking such a thing will be considered as blashphemy and ungratefulness!

The freedom lost..the power of speech gone...we into hypocrites... unfamiliar with our own eyes looking back at us from the mirror...

When every right thing seems wrong...

There are days when nothing seems right...
The first cup of tea turns out to be lukewarm!
The water in the bath is boiling from the sun outside!
The courier guy hands you the credit card bill as you are about to leave!
A man decides to fight with his wife while driving and bumps straight into another car...causing massive traffic jam on the way to office!
The darned office lift gets stuck and you have to climb six floors!
When you reach the office, huffing and puffing, you realize you left your cellphone in your car!
And last but not the least, the rest of your team decides to go on emergency leave together...leaving you to tackle the humongous workload!

Then there are also days...when all this is hardly noticeable....when you feel generally high on life...and nothing...not even a stinker from the boss ... has the capacity to spoil your day...Yes, indeed such days do exist...but their frequency is going down as the years pass...And when you see...someone...in this phase of life...you actually sit back and notice and feel envious...!

Is it to do with getting older and more experienced or more engrossed in day-to-day life...or is it the general attitude of some people to be Mast and follow the mantra of Chill, Chill, Just Chill!?

I sometimes wonder...if it is only me...or there are more like me....who face such situations???