(this has been sitting on the stove for too long. patience died. the title is no more a title.)

I sit in the bus, the sweater pulled around my shoulders. It isn't cold but I need the extra warmth. I am leaving town after all and without a good-bye wave to anyone or a polite nod that would've meant, "Until next time then". The bus would stand still for another 25 minutes. Until then I am left to ponder the cloudscape - my send off party, I presume.

I wonder if I'll miss anything or anyone. Surely, this question has been through the mind of every single person that has ever fled from his life, his town or anything else for that matter. I have walked on these roads for years, I have shopped at this convenience store, I have seen these people that I look at from behind tinted windows. I even know the names of some of those people. That's Ram, he runs the only restaurant in town - a sorry little affair with only two tables. He's a happy man though, it shows on his face even now. Oh and that woman in the red sari sitting behind that pot of buttermilk. I think her name is Lekha. She has set up shop at the same spot for over five summers now. She doesn't live here, she has to travel 10 miles everyday to get here. The ragged dog that you see hanging around Ram's restaurant, that's Tony. Tony is what all of us call him. He's ragged but always clean. I suspect that he is someone's pet but nobody owns up to being Tony's master.

I have lived in this small settlement forever. Do you see the tree that stands alone on that small path which leads into town? That's the tree I used to pelt with stones as a kid. The juicy tamarinds were every boy and girl's favourite. Not mine though. I felled the pods for my best friends - Meera and Prashant. I don't want to think about them now, but I know that my mind will wander back to them.

We grew up together - the three of us. We were friends even before we started school. Our mothers used to visit each other all the time and we would be left to play our games.

If things were different, I would have gone to college in another year. Meera wasn't too keen about college and she always dreamt about waiting, while Prashant and I worked towards a job. She always talked about the longing and the pain of the wait. She was a romantic and you didn't have to see her half-dreamy eyes to know that. Before I miss the point, I should clarify something. Meera and Prashant were in love. The whole town knew it, their parents too. When Meera spoke dreadfully mushy things it was about Prashant. Not me.

Their togetherness often annoyed me. I was happy for them and all that, but it often got weird when after talking about something for a long time I realised that they were lost in their own lovey-dovey world. They were a sweet couple - the two of them. I used to watch them walk hand-in-hand, blissfully aware of only themselves and wonder if love would strike me ever.

Prashant died last week. At my hands. It was an accident but I don't expect anyone to understand that. Noone else knows how he died, only Meera and I were present there. Meera is no longer in a position to talk about it though. She has retracted her life into some hidden corner within herself. I am leaving town because I cannot bear her lifelessness. She thinks I pushed him into the rushing train's path. I can see it in her eyes.

There he is. The driver that would drive me away in this tin-box bus. He wouldn't understand the significance of today's journey. I'm sure he doesn't find anything different from his routine. He's walking up to the same bus now, spits into the same corner and wipes the same palm across his face.

The wind feels nice. I wish it blows away all the negatives that are on my mind. The memories too, if it could. The familiar fields pass by, weaving a farewell tapestry. I can feel my heart wrenching its way away from this heartland. It's tearing away with a fleshy rip - long drawn and painful. I hope the pain is just the rite of passage to something less empty and further from the present.

The stream of light circled the floor until it found the guitarist and flooded him with its white shine. He sat on a tall stool, his hair brushed back, one leg on the floor and the other tucked onto the stool's lower step. His face was lifted up into the glow of the light, exalted and content. The guitar stood with its side resting on his thigh. His left hand held its neck in a loving embrace as the fingers on his other hand gently caressed the wood, lightly reaching up towards the strings strung taut against the body. He was in love with his guitar and with the music that came forth from its hollow like a coin from thin air.

He sat in the front row, watching the guitarist performing a ritual so close to his heart. He closed his eyes to listen to the ecstatic cries of the strings as the guitarist moved his fingers from fret to fret. He felt the friction slide through his own body. He watched as the fingers waltzed around the sounding board, playing and cajoling the strings to dance to the rhythm, that ironically was their own. The air reverberated with the notes that flowed as part of it. He could sense the heart beats of space salute the notes that passed through it. He listened with wonder as unrelated sounds came together into an all-encompassing oneness.

He had wanted to be there. He dreamt that he could be there. Not in the limelight. Just the center of where music came from. Where the music relived its life. To swim in the fluidity of the guitar chords. To pick notes that could set pulses to dance along. To be able to slide his fingers across the fret to arouse the rose wood into a sensual rendition of its song of joy. He wished he were able to conjure order out of chaos, music out of crude sounds, joy out of thin air.

He wanted to be there but he wasn't. He called himself a loser and immersed himself into the dream that the true artist weaved for losers like himself.

Like a mad man, he screamed at the top of his voice and jumped out of the house. The metal on his belt flashed in the crazy light from the hot sun. He ran and ran. People split to let him pass by. Some of them stood watching him run and wondered what it was that made this man look so happy. His toothy grin and his flaying hair made him look like a crazy bum. His clothes or the lack of them, for he only wore his torn jeans, made people pity him. Yet they were surprised that this poor, wretched creature seemed happy like none other. The man ran into the pier and stood at the edge of the pier. The sea gulls swooped around, looking at him with curiosity. He smelled of something nice that the birds would've liked to feed upon. They circled around for a while and then knowing that this was just another human being the gulls went on their way.

The man shouted something out to the sea. Alas, there was no one around to hear him speak. The sea boiled on without giving him another thought. He might have been speaking in a language that none knew. His monologue with the sea continued until he grew exhausted. He was vexed that nobody cared to know that he was hurt, angry and feeling miserable. The grin on his face was involuntary. He didn't know what else to do with the enormous misery coursing through his veins.

He turned away from the ocean and ran into the road, not waiting for the traffic to stop. He only wished that his death be quick. It wasn't!

This might be the other, smaller side of http://bijucool.blogspot.com/2005/12/end-of-road.html

She shivered underneath her thin clothes as the moonlight chilled her with its touch. She felt betrayed. She felt unloved. Without an end in sight, she walked along the narrow streets. She wrapped her misery around her shoulders like a silken shawl. There was no reason for him to leave her. She had never given him a reason to. She had always showered him with all the love she could gather in her divided heart. Yes, her heart was divided and he didn't know of the division. Or did he? Was that why he had decided to leave her? But he couldn't have known. She had never given him a chance to know. It was no fault of hers though. She had been a little tipsy from the wine then and it wasn't until two hours later that she realised what had happened. It was too late and she hadn't known the actual consequences at that time. She had come to know of them a lot later, a few weeks before. She had been preparing herself to tell him and to omit a few truths for the benefit of their marriage. It was too late again. He was no longer with her, for her to tell him about the child that now shared her love. The child that was not his, but she didn't intend for him to know this fact.

Her feet moved of their own accord and lead her on. She passed shops that would be bustling come morning, she walked by benches that would see people sitting on them the next day. The streets that she had known for ten years now seemed an alien, abandoned movie setting. The chill tingled her spine and she cringed from the silence around her. She wondered if it would be right for her child to be born loveless and out of wedlock.

He lay on his bed, the brown sheet lying around him in disdain. He lay distorted with his legs splayed and his hands bunched up under the pillow. He watched the darkness ooze out of the walls and embrace him with a stealthy grin. The silence of the night ricocheted off the walls and the ceiling, causing his ear-drums to quiver in anticipation. Time moved past in slow motion. It was so slow that he could see the turbulence the fan blades made as they revolved lazily. The air around him shimmered in the dark like a brilliantly cut diamond. His eyes closed to search for whatever his mind wished to see.

Through the pallid veil of his eyelids, he sensed a beacon light him up. Slowly he opened his eyes, ready to blink if need be, and saw the warm light streaming in through his window. The sun had risen and a new day was born.

The car, moving smoothly until that moment, suddenly swayed and seemed to slip and slide and then stopped dead in it tracks and refused to budge. Cursing his luck he got out of the car knowing what to expect. A flat tyre is not very funny when you have unsettling thought saucers flying across the honeycombs in your mindscape. Well, it is not funny in most other circumstances too, unless you are watching a sketch with a Mr.Bean character trying to fix his flat tyre. The key there is second or third person. A whole lot of things can seem quite amusing and funny when it doesn't happen to you.

He got out the car and its cocoon into the graying reality outside. Though he cursed and fumed, the soup he was in did not do much to wet his feelings. He was getting used to the wrongs in life. Anybody would when the foundation that they perceive their life to be built on shakes and shakes, crumbling and falling apart, unseen but surely felt. The tremors had been felt and duly ignored as passing rumbles.

"Oh yes! I have realized my folly.They weren't mere rumbles, were they? And they sure as hell were not passing. Like all bad things, it's all too late."

The road was deserted. The few unbroken lights threw patches of display window light on the potholes that were the only remarkable features on the otherwise dull tar. He was smiling; at how life had turned out, at change, at the uncertainities that lay ahead. He leaned onto the bonnet of his car and stared at the moon and the emptiness of the night. The night seemed to mimic what he felt of himself - empty and dark and the only moon in his life on its way towards the other end of the world.

The spare tyre was in the back of the car but there was enough time to try and replace the tyre. "What the heck! I might as well take in some of the evening air."

A hundred yards down the road he spotted a small body of water, the leftover reminiscence of a bygone rain. Mother earth holding onto the sweet memories of a wonderful association that had been taken for granted. The memories would fade away with time, helped along by the sunlight that would shadow them into submission.

He saw the moon reflected in the still water. The water only seemed still, for right under its poker face it carried a constant turmoil that ran harsher in its deeper depths. He stepped out of the road and reached the banks of the temporary pool. The ground was dry and he sat down by the edge of the water uncaring about the dirt that stuck to his trousers. It was nothing that a washing machine couldn't handle. His eyes roved and dug into the murky pool trying to fathom the disturbances that unsettled its calm. He caught his face looking out at him. Sunken and refracted like the skulls that marked railway crossings, warning the tresspasser of the fate that would befall him if he dared to take a misguided step onto the tracks.

He sat up into a squat and began to study his reflection. He saw reflected at him a man fatigued with trying to keep himself together and his life hooked into the society that existed around him. "Happy and well-settled. Isn't that what you are? Isn't that what everyone thinks you are?"
He could see his facade even now when he was in the middle of nothingness with nobody that would notice a scar in his otherwise perfect cover. That was what he was. An actor. The true representative of Shakespeare's staged world. Yes he was an actor, an actor who never took a break from the life that was his act. Why would people want to know the real him? Of what use would his nakedness be to the people around him? He hid his life underneath an elaborate Victorian costume with all the trimmings and nobody noticed that it looked out of place.

He had agreed to marry her when she posed the question to him three years and eleven months before. "I know that you love me a lot. I know you do. I know you want to ask me to marry you. So why don't you do it. Why don't you ask me to marry you?"

He had been astonished. All he could mutter was, "Because I love you too much.. I know it doesn't make sense but it does."

"It doesn't. Can we not give it a try?" "Well, okay! So will you marry me?"

"Yes, I will. Though you will have to ask me again and not in a corridor like this."

They had married two months after. Three years and nine months of marriage. Such a long time, an eternity ticked off by the seconds on the world's timepiece. Everything had been magical then. They loved each other a lot and they were both adapted to the small imperfections that they noticed in the other. It was perfect. Well almost. She had readily come into his arms and he had opened up to her like never before. That was his undoing, though he had no clue about it then. He built his life around her love.

He was paranoid. About everything. He had been like that from the time he could remember. Worrying himself over things that would've otherwise seemed trivial and insignificant. He had seen his parents break apart without a reason that he understood. They had been perfectly happy with each other or so he had thought. Things began to change with a rapidity that surprised him. Where they had cuddled each other, they now argued. They argued in louder and louder tones.

"I hate you. Why did you do this to me?"

"I didn't mean to hurt you. I don't know how this happened. I can't change it now, can I?"

"What about our son? Do you even know how he will take this? Is he ours at all?"

"Please... don't say such hurtful things."

"Ah! So you are hurt now, are you? After all that you have done."

His mom had sobbed and his dad had pleaded. He had only been a kid then and couldn't yet comprehend words like adultery. Such words and others, mouthed by his parents hadn't brought home to him the seriousness of their fights.

In a matter of two weeks, his parents had separated and left him wrecked. The actual day of separation had been too undramatic to register in anybody's mind. He had watched his dad sitting on a chair, his face cradled in his palms. A dishevelled little man whose world had crumbled around him and yet refused to accept the truth. He watched his mom come out of the room with just a duffel bag. She walked towards his father and stood in front of him. His father did not look at her and his mother's hands stretched towards him but stopped short. No words were exchanged and no goodbyes said. His mother kissed him on his forehead before walking out the front door. He later learnt what had happened. His mother had taken a fancy for another man. He couldn't understand how that could've happened when his mother had loved his dad such a lot. But that was the truth and his disbelief didn't change it. His back had been broken and he never got rid of his distrust towards everybody and everything, especially relationships. He had lost faith. He didn't make any friends for a long time until she had come along. She had forced her friendship upon him and he had bowed.

She was the cement that held together the fragmented bricks that was him. In any construction the cement merely holds the bricks and hides the fragmentation that continues to subsist and grow into cracks that don't bother you with their baby cries or any warning until one fine day a gust of wind brings down the whole structure. On further analysis, the cracks, the always there but indiscernible cracks would plead guilty. But by then the damage was already done and nothing can put the same set of bricks back together.

She had been super-strong hold cement. That was true. She had held him in her arms with amazing strength and made him better with time. Yet all her love and all her comfort could not prevent his breaking apart. It seemed like a very natural phenomenon, something that you never get a hold on.

He knew that he depended on her a lot. Enough to make him addicted to her. His life outside of her had ceased to exist; not that he had much before anyway. But it made him feel insecure.
"Does she really love me? What if this is a game she has chosen to play with me." Maybe she was merely setting him up for a big dramatic final dumping, a throwing into the lowest pits of existence. It troubled him a lot. These fears screamed at him in his dreams trying to grab his attentions. They did get his attention hooked but he did not see the hidden meanings to them. He took his fears to face value and attempted to put them aside as fears. Just another sandman under his bed. He missed the whole point of the thing. The wrong variable in the equation was his detachment and he did not recognise it. It was himself. It was he that was pretending to be in love. He was not in love and he did not notice it. His failing had hidden itself in a play. A play within a play. An actor acting out to an actor.

He changed everything about him to make himself fit her, as they say, like a glove. Yet his facade, his poker face always remained with him. Even though she owned him in all possible ways and knew evey heartbeat that kept his cells nourished, she never could see through his veil. She remained largely unaware of the increasingly turbulent current within him. She was infact waiting for him at home as he pondered at the secrets that his face revealed to him under the dark cover of the night.

In his deepest self he did not grasp the concept of love. What was it about love that convinced people to tied themselves down? Mind you it never lasts forever. One thinks one is tied down for eternity and then the first glitch rears its head. The first doubt, the first questioning smirk makes your mind waver. Once that happens you feel let down by the whole constitution of love. What had earlier seemed like an indelible truth mastered over centuries now shows its true face. Love is nonsense. It is a buzz word that has remained in vogue for too long; just one of those fads that forgot to leave the stage on cue.

He wondered if she had ever stopped to listen to her heart and find why, if it really did, it digged him. You could learn so many things about yourself if you took the time to try. There are a million feelings that you have never felt or realised that you feel them. He was grateful to her keeping his spirits at a higher place yet he was as detached from her as he was with everything else. He liked the vantage point of looking from outside of the frame. He did not consider questioning things, he just took it for granted that whatever he felt was the truth. He did not try to find if he loved her. He just assumed he didn't.

He was sometimes proud of his mother. She had chosen to fall off the conveyor belt that most of the world was sliding upon. It must have taken a whole lot of courage. Ofcourse she had hurt many, but if they made a study of it the ones that felt hurt would see the great benefit she had made available. She had, through her act of perceived selfishness, liberated some souls to where they actually belonged, free from the shackles that binds them. Though he could've done without the ruckus, he felt that his mother had awakened him to the play that society staged. A play that is easy to live by. A play that in all its goodness hid the truth as if it were a disgrace.

For his father, he didn't feel anything, not even pity. The man had wallowed in self-pity and died trying to figure the disillusionment he felt.

He knew that if he continued the way he was now, their life would soon be at blows. He had tried hard to correct himself. He had tried it thinking of her. He had succeeded a little but not enough to make any significant change.

What would she do if he told her that he didn't think that he loved her, not then, not before? In all certainity she would have looked at him with a certain smile. "No darling. You are mistaken", she would have said. She believed in love and other undefinable things as fate. She considered their being together as the truth. The truth, as she thought, that love was indispensable and that they had an abundance of it between the two. The bliss of ignorance.

He got up and went back to his car. A wind had picked up by then and rattled an empty can of coke towards its journey through the drain. He jacked up the car and changed the flat tyre. He wondered if he could do the same with his life. Change a tyre and make a fresh start. He laughed at his ignorance. It was not a mere flat tyre that he suffered from, it was a complete breakdown of everything. Every single thing. There was no way to mend it. No matter how adept a mechanic he could find. "Life is not a broken car. Who am I trying to kid?", he laughed.

The car was on its way in less than 15 minutes. His hands were still greasy when he opened the door to the house. He knew she would be sitting in her chair, a magazine in hand. The television would be tuned into one of the soap operas that were the rage of the season. She wouldn't be watching it though. She wouldn't really be reading the magazine too. She would be waiting for him.

He knew he had to do it. Not for himself for he was beyond any hope of reclaim. He had to do it for her sake. He would yet again change his life for her. As he walked in, she put her magazine down and smiled. That irresistible smile of hers. Before she could ask him anything, before she had a chance to say anything, before she broke his resolve with her smile, he knelt down before her. The same way she had made him do those many years ago. Then he had whispered to her the question in his own clumsy way - "errr... will u marry me?" Now he whispered to her his goodbye. "I am leaving". She, innocent and unaware, asked him, "Where to, baby?" "Away from your life. To save you from myself". Before she had a chance to recover, he left in her hands a long note that threw his veil away and left through the door that he had left open.

Foreword: I don't find this a continuation of this. Yet in some way it is!

Five years had passed by, unsung and unthought about. The day he realised the loss of the one true friend he had, Vish had given up on life the way people lived it. Without a thought, Vish had gotten down from the bus in the middle of nowhere. The sleeping bag did just fine.

That night began his journey through unknown villages and towns. The nights were mostly spent away from civilisation, alone in his sleeping bag. The stars were his friends, the moon his guide. Rains were kept at bay with makeshift tents made out of polythene bags. He had become a nomad; one among the thousands that inhabited the nooks and crannies of the towns. Unsurprisingly, he was unlike the others. He was not disgusted by his ways nor would anyone have been. Inspite of all his hatred for society and everything to do with it, Vish made sure he did not offend the senses of people around him. His makeshift tent and his ever-changing homes always carried a remarkable dignity. It was a home!

During the day Vish worked on odd jobs. Enough to keep him well fed and clean. He would have loved to be a true nomad, a child of the earth eating out of what the earth had to offer. He was as much practical as he was idealistic and knew that such a life was not impossible but took more effort than was necessary. He was a subdued man. Though the ideals still lurked around in him, they assumed a state of indifference.

Vish met a lot of people in the five years. Each person impressed by the unexposed depth that they could feel in Vish. More than one person was concerned that such a good man was wasting away his life. Vish knew that it wasn't him that was wasting his life. He didn't, however, express this opinion to anyone.

"What are you watching, son?", the old man's trembling voice tore through the silence. Vish turned around to look at the old man. Slow enough to bring his thoughts together to the present. The old man was one of Vish's acquaintances in his then current location. He stood beneath the rock that Vish stood upon. It was his favourite place - Vish's. He liked to stand up on the slightly big rock at night and stare across the plains, across the lights at something only he seemed to perceive. He saw his life being played upon the dark canvas of the sky.

"Nothing, sir! I was merely lost in the calmness of the night, in the beauty of the sleeping town". The old man smiled his two-toothed smile. "I know, son. I know how it feels to see your past from a third person perspective." Vish was not surprised that the man had known his thoughts and he did not even attempt to hide them. Vish knew there was something about the old man that set him apart from the rest. His name was Karma and was one of the regular vagabonds - shabby and unkempt as they were expected to be. But he surely was different. Vish could feel it everytime he spoke to the man.

They were about 20 men and women, who lived in the open ground a few kilometres away from the town's boundary. The place had once upon a time borne lush green fields, not anymore. It was now no man's land; a refuge for temporary residents like Karma and Vish. Karma had lived there for five months. That was the longest time he had stayed in a single place. He had been tempted a few times to move on. Something had stopped him everytime he packed his bag. Vish had joined him only a month back and Karma had immediately taken a liking for the young man. He seemed to bear the same idealistic attitude that Karma had unsuccessfully tried to make people accept.

In his younger days, Karma had believed in his ideals and thought he could change the world through them. He had been bitterly diasppointed and disillusioned when people not only disagreed with him but also cast him out like a disease. He had joined the ranks of the vagabonds, who he thought shared some of his ideals of an ungreedy world. He was, ofcourse, incorrect in his assumption and resigned to the fact that the world was beyond salvage. Karma chose to continue living as an outcast; an outcast among the outcasts.

"Do you think it is not right to dwell upon the past, sir?", asked Vish.

"Son. I cannot answer a question of right or wrong. Nobody can. What I think is right will be wrong for another."

Vish smiled at the answer. "Do you think about your past when you are alone and have nothing else to do?"

Karma did think about his past often. He remembered the passions that he had carried on his back. "I remember the roads I traversed. I don't analyze my past, I only read through its pages. Sometimes it amazes me with the wonderful things that have happened to me. The world is not a bad place. It is our sense of good and bad that makes it appear either way. I did not realise this until it was too late. I lived with my ideals. I am not sure if I'll die with them."

The two sat down upon the rock looking across the town lights. The old, fragile looking man in his rags and the young man in a more presentable form. Two individuals that looked as different as a home from a pigsty, yet there was an invisible connection that they shared. They had been through similar experiences. They had turned out the same but in different ways. They had become what they chose to be. It was the choice that had differed. They looked upon the sleeping world and smiled at the ignorant bliss the world lived in.

Vish thought to himself, "I have found myself a new friend. A friend that is almost like me."

Foreword: From the time I was a kid, I had this itch to write. Ofcourse I knew I wasn't good at it; yet the literary world held a strange fascination. What if I could churn out a book like the authors I so adored? What if people would actually read a book that I wrote? Childhood fantasies, I guess. I did make attempts to write. Everything begun but never finished. Heck, none moved beyond 10 pages of hand-written material. When Itried to analyze my writing, one thing was clear - anything I wrote was too concise to become a story. I would narrate the entire story in a single paragraph. That was a big handicap, but it was my greatest asset in English class - I could write gists of stories that covered every nook and cranny yet did not exceed the word limit. Ofcourse I did fancy becoming an essayist, but I was lost for a subject to write about. Irony!
Here's one of my recent attempts. Once again begun but might never go anywhere...


He watched the moon shining placidly down upon the earth. The bus rumbled on, swaying through the undulations of the road, rocking the passengers to sleep. It was a pleasant night, not too cold, just right. His mind was unravelling a thousand different thoughts, each fighting to break out of the surface. The silent night cajoled him to pick, look at and admire the streaks that his mind held encased. It was not a night for soul-searching beacuse he did not believe that he had any need for searching. He knew his soul as well as he needed to and he had no inspiration to want to delve deeper into the mysteries of life, thoughts and the universe.

Vish merely wished to bring out and inspect his soul, the way a child would take his toys out of the box and line them up on the floor for inspection. It did not serve any significant purpose, it never would and that suited his line of belief.He never had understood life or what it served. He did not believe in the framework that society sought to establish. The concepts of ambition, career, money and relationships were as alien to him as anything could be. As a child, he did not have too many questions. He did what was expected of him, but never believed in the need for those actions.

Vish was not a disturbed child. He knew happiness. He knew how to laugh and he knew how to cry. His parents adored him and so did everyone that knew him. His grades were above average, but he never stood out. He chose not to stand out. Even when he was merely a ten year old boy, such competition held no fancy. Though nobody had the chance to notice it, Vish was a very silent child. He did not speak unless there was a real need for words.

Now at the age of twenty, he had a degree in engineering and a fancy job awaiting him in Bangalore. Everything had fallen into place and the bus was speeding him on his way to becoming another sacrifice at the altar society had created. He would soon be lost in the masses - irrelevant, one of many fighting for a foot-hold. Vish did not make an attempt to fight the current because he did not see the purpose in it. He did not want to stand-out as a rebel.

Vish had a constant companion in Arya. She listened to everything Vish had to say and Vish always felt at ease talking to Arya about the things that he thought. Thoughts that nobody knew could exist within such a calm and unassuming soul. Arya never pretended to understand the line of thought that Vish had nurtured through his life. She did not pretend to accept what Vish had to say. She would always tell him,"Vish, I don't know if you are right, but I know ideals are not for me. I don't think it can mean anything to anybody". He had immense respect for her because of this and it helped him open up to her.

The two spent hours together, doing nothing in particular. They fit each other like perfectly cut gloves. This was not affected by the truth that the duo were very different from each other. Arya, unlike Vish, was completely earthy and did not carry any of Vish's idealistic outlook. She liked to have her share of fun. To her there was no point in changing the way the world was. It sometimes surprised them that they were such close friends.

Arya was in love with a young man she knew from college. She met him through the cultural club at college. David, like Arya, loved to have fun and the two came across each other at many a party. As time passed by, they began seeing each other and soon enough they fell for each other. It was a perfect pair both fun-loving, both party animals. "We groove together", Arya liked to say.

David respected Vish's friendship with Arya and never made a fuss. This was all that Vish wanted. He couldn't have borne to lose his only friend and the only person that accepted the real him. They were never great pals, but they were at ease. Everything was well in this part of the world.

But now as he twisted and turned through the tunnels that his mind held, there was an apparent kink. A small jigsaw piece that did not belong to the puzzle, for it seemed to have no place at all. Vish did not understand the sense of hollowness that he felt within. The piece had to have a place somewhere, though he could not determine how or where. It had Arya's face etched onto it, her face turned up towards the breeze as they sat on the water tank talking. She was listening to him and nodding her head. She shone underneath the moon-light with a radiance that made his heart stop for just a moment. That moment held the key to his current thoughts, that moment was the root to the pain he now experienced growing in his heart.

A chill gust of wind washed the truth across his face. The only person he could think of as a friend would be miles away from him. "It is not just the distance. Time has a way of changing things. She would be married to David soon and things will never be the same between us. I've just lost my friend", Vish thought to himself. The finality of that thought frightened him. Arya was the only worldly thing that Vish ever cherished and she would now be lost to him. With nothing connecting him from his abode of ideals to society and its underlying foundations, there was no purpose in allowing himself to be driven through the undulating terrain that society imposed.

He suddenly stood up from his seat and walked towards the front of the bus. He did not notice the sleeping passengers. He was not bothered by the baggage strewn across the floor. He knew he had to do what he was about to do and he would do it.

Just a couple of stamps (the ink type), a scrawled signature and some writing. That's ECNR. It took me four hours in a queue, 5 minutes to collect the passport later and more than 2 hours of riding in traffic, to get the ECNR clearance.

Inspite of warnings from friend Debu, I left home only at 7 am. I couldn't have left earlier as it was freezing cold even then. Well, got to the Passport office, 45 minutes later, only to face a snaking queue of people. Better than 75 people already ahead of me. The office opens at 9:30 am, a good 1 hour 45 minutes from then. Got in line and cursed my not carrying some reading material.

Ahead of me a family was discussing some "family" matters. Didn't exactly hear what they spoke, but the tone and the few words I caught, showed a small tussle going on. That was fun. Like watching a movie where you don't understand the accent but get the general drift. Interesting way to spend the morning. A little while later, my attention caught a hawk (?) shredding apart his morning meal (a mouse I think). Watched the hawk until the mouse lost all its skin. The scene was turning too bloody for me. Just then a mother-monkey walked up to the wall, by the side of which our queue stretched. Did I mention that the gates weren't yet open? Anyway mother-monkey solemnly watched her oddly-shaped cousins standing there waiting for the gates to open. Mother-monkey's look read complete lack of interest. After some relative watching mother-monkey decided to get back to work and left us.

I noticed that some birds were hopping around on the trees around. They were right over our heads and we looked easy target for their droppings. That made me uneasy. I couldn't wait in the queue with bird poop on me. I just kept praying that the birds were all done with their morning chores. Fortunately, lady luck was with me!

A few minutes later, the gates opened to let us folks in. To form another queue inside the compound. God, this was crazy. Well, we had more entertainment waiting for us. This time, a lady and her husband were in the queue. The lady found a spot to sit. But it was a little behind her position in the queue. She left the hubby in the queue and sat down at the spot. The people standing and sitting in the queue around that position mistook this. They thought she was gate-crashing and began to make a hue and cry. The lady tried to explain to those crazy people that she was ahead in the queue and that her husband was keeping her place in the line. Crazy people are crazy because they are tired of the waiting. Her explanation goes unheard and the crazy people just keep bickering. Somehow the lady keeps her cool and continues undettered. I really admired that.

After that show was over, I switched to watching this very cute little kid. The kid must have been only a few months into walking. The kid danced, ran, fell and ran a lot. It was quite amusing to watch its antics. Every now and then, the kid would try to run off to the outside and the dad had to run after it. Children know how to bring some fun to the most tiring place.

Finally, the officials streamed in and we were let into the building for some more waiting. We had chairs to sit on this time. Cool. Slowly our procession of people moved to the head of the line and were attended to. The whole lousiness here was that there were no instructions or check lists to be found anywhere. People were sent away to get this and that after they reached the counter and tried to put in their application. This was frustrating both for the staff as well as the applicants. To me, it looked completely ridiculous. Some people had to return to the counter five or six times, to get everything in place. One simple check list along with the application form would have saved all the misery.

Lo! It was my turn. While in the queue, I had run out to the nearest copier to get copies of everything i needed and didn't need. In duplicate. Turned out that I didn't need most of the copies. Well, success never tasted bitter. Phew! End of ordeal.

P.S: I went in the evening to pick up the passport with the stamp. My name was called out just as I enetered. I was in and out in a matter of five minutes. Thank god for such big mercies.