Reflections

It was a bright summer (already?) day and I was in high spirits. And why not? I’d woken up early and on a Monday no less! Surely that was a sign of a good day? I left home to go to work at 8.45 AM as intended (but seldom carried out. Not today though. Another good sign). I got my vehicle out and was greeted by the familiar sound of the woman who comes everyday to take out the trash. This person who has no need to be on time has more sense of punctuality than the so-called skilled workers that we’re dubbed to be. I greeted her in the usual fashion as I do on the days that I’m able to match her time. The ride to the Metro station was uneventful and that in itself was pleasant. I saw the usual sights - vegetable peddlers idly pedalling away on their cycles to get to their usual circuits, no doubt. Shopkeepers chatting with each other as they opened the shutters to their shops ; some early birds had begun their ritual of praying to their gods for a good day of business. Familiar, pleasant sights. I smiled to myself as I continued riding leisurely. I was on time, there was no need to rush. ...

A post on a book club group on Facebook about the book “Bhagavad Gita As it Is” triggered this memory and I wanted to “pen” it down while I still remembered it - I don’t care much for religious scriptures anymore except for the mythological offerings that are still very interesting (pardon the harsh tone and read on 😅 ) but I have one memory associated with this book that stands out. We had a quiz contest in school that I was a part of (because my teacher no doubt thought - “This guy is good in Spoken English. Must be good at interpreting scriptures as well.”) . Anyway, I turned out to be surprisingly decently smart about it and learnt enough for the quiz and our team made it to the semi finals (?) where we got weeded out but were sitting in the audience like sheep on a farm looking at birds flying in the sky. 😕 ...

“Trrrrring”, the alarm went off and he woke up groggily. " Uthishtothishta Govinda Uthishta Garuda dwaja Uthishta Kamalakantha trilokyam mangalam kuru” , MS Subbulakshmi’s voice rang through the air even as his parents were yelling at each other over what he was sure would be trivialities like who’d let the milk boil a little too long or who forgot to put out food for the crow. He frowned. So much noise. And his day hadn’t even started yet. He got out of bed and let out a sharp yelp as his right foot touched the ground. He had stepped on a pin he’d told himself he wouldn’t step on when he saw it fall from the bed the previous night. He examined his foot and rubbed it where the pin had poked him. No blood. That was good. It was a Saturday, but he hadn’t the leisure of a typical weekend. There was to be a function at home and a lot of guests were expected. So he had to get ready quickly and appear presentable to greet (ugh) people. Normally he would have vehemently rejected this order from his parents and gone off to Venkatraman’s house to play cricket for the whole day, but this time there were bigger things at stake. No sooner had he gotten ready and dressed up when his mom called out, “Subbuuuuu!! Poi paal vaangindu vaa da” (Subbu, go and buy milk!). Subramani had just made up his mind to catch up on the latest cricket highlights on Star Sports before the day’s chaotic scene would set in. This milk-buying very much cut into that scenario. He chose a plastic bag from the bunch of plastic bags at the end of the kitchen and walked out, muttering all the way about God and his plans to thwart his plans in life. As he got to the end of the road, he looked out of the corner of his eye for the dog that was his sworn nemesis on this road. This dog (“Veerappan”, he had christened it), had only one mission in life. To bark at Subbu every time he crossed “his area” and on days that he felt not-so-lazy, chase him down the road to the corner where 3rd main ended and Murali Stores began. Today however, Veerappan seemed to be contently sleeping on the mat someone had laid out for him. “Lucky dog. No dog functions that he has to wake up early for”, Subbu thought and continued walking past. He greeted Murali uncle, bought the milk and made his way back. Out of habit, he looked for Veerappan again. This time, the dog was missing. Subbu’s heart skipped a beat. He looked around and sure enough, Veeru was standing right behind him, growling. Subbu , without a second thought ran with Veeru close behind his heels, or so he imagined. When he no longer felt chased, he looked back, only to see Veeru in the distance, sleeping, solemnly. “WHAT. Argh.”, Subbu walked the rest of the distance wondering what had just happened. By now, there were a few vehicles already outside the gate and he warily walked in, not wanting to chit-chat with anyone right then. “Subbuuuuuu”, a voice called out. He closed his eyes, rearranged his face into a pleasant smile and turned around to face a rotund, elderly woman, with a glint in her eye and a wide smile that was accentuated by badly applied lipstick. It was Shyamala aunty, his mom’s second cousin. “You’ve become so big!!!”, she exclaimed. “Yes, well the Earth did revolve around the Sun multiple times”, he wanted to say, but he settled for just continuing to awkwardly smile and wonder if 10 seconds was sufficient time to start backing away slowly like Michael Jackson or if he was supposed to actually say something to her. He decided on the former and backed away successfully into the house and into the kitchen where he disposed of the milk packets. His first mission now complete, he thought he’d close the door to his room and relax for a few minutes before the poojai started, when his dad called “Subbuuu, yaar vandhurkaa paaru” (Subbu, see who’s at the door). He groaned and ambled to the door. It was Murali mama and Co. The fake smile again in place on his face, he greeted the family in and told them to sit on the chairs that had been neatly arranged in the hall for people who arrived to be seated on. He mentally bid the cricket highlights goodbye and waited obediently on the guests that continued to pour in. His face, ever the picture of cheeriness, Subbu flitted around the house, giving people glasses of water when they asked for it or even just looked like they wanted it, serving pongal for breakfast and later lunch. He even went along with the Poojari’s requests to go and buy bananas for the homam offering, braving Veerappan again. By the time it was 5 PM, Subbu was thoroughly exhausted. But the fake smile as he bid all his relatives goodbye did not fade. ...

Padma sat by the window reading “Harry Potter and The Order of The Phoenix” for what was probably the fifteenth time. She’d already binged through Goblet of Fire. When she reached the chapter “Silver and Opals”, she looked up for the first time in three hours and out the window. The road outside was empty save for a cat that was scratching the neighbor’s door on the other side. “What if that were Minerva McGonagall?”, Padma thought to herself and chuckled, amused. She decided to give herself a break, leaned against the wall adjoining the window and closed her eyes, her mind buzzing with thoughts of Voldemort taking over Harry’s dreams and wondering if she might fall victim to that too, if she fell asleep just then. She’d just closed her eyes when the doorbell rang. “Now? Really?”, she muttered and made her way unwillingly to the front door. She peered through the peephole cautiously, but there was no one in sight. She slowly opened the door and heard a shuffling noise at her feet. It was the cat she’d seen, trying to nudge past her legs and into the house. Before she could make sense of the situation, it had already made a dash for the living room and paused at the edge of a straw mat by the poojai room. Padma, still bewildered looked outside one last time before she closed the door and wondered who had rung the doorbell. Surely, it wasn’t the cat?! She shook her head. The doorbell mystery could wait. There was a stray cat in her living room. She frowned and stared at her intruder who had by then decided that the mat was an enemy and must be destroyed. Padma meanwhile, had gathered her wits and gently started tiptoeing towards the cat; although what she would do once she approached it, she hadn’t thought about just yet. The cat was still pawing away at the mat, its concentration unwavering. Padma was now within petting distance from it. Now came the almighty question. What was she going to do? What could she do? Shooing it would only drive it deeper inside her house. She couldn’t just pick it up and take it outside her house.. could she? No, that was out of the question. For starters, she had no idea How to lift a cat. What if it scratched her face? No. That was out of the question. As she pondered, she slowly sat down behind the cat. Now she was level with its tail and just looking at it with a vacant expression, head tilted to a side, unable to decide what to do next. Meanwhile, the cat, who had evidently felt an alien presence around it, stiffened and looked around and with a loud and startled miaow backed a couple of steps away from Padma, who was equally startled by the feline shriek. Both looked at each other, the cat with its paws slightly lifted, ready to flee and the human with her hands behind her on the floor, a confused expression across her face. The human acted first. She raised her hands , in an expression of resignment and surrender and mouthed, “Okay, calm down. I am not going to hurt you”, even as a voice in her head said “You are talking…to a cat.”. Another voice in her head said “Yeah, what if it doesn’t know English?”. Padma chuckled for the second time that day having amused herself again. She shook her head again. “This is not the time, Padma.”, she thought and began inching away from the cat. Slowly, she got up and walkedto the kitchen, all the while watching the cat through the corner of her eye. “I might as well get you some milk”, she called out, still aware that her visitor probably didn’t understand the noise that the owner of the house was making. She heated up a bowl of milk to a moderate temperature, took the bowl and placed it cautiously at the edge of the now-somewhat-worse-for-the-wear mat. The cat looked up at Padma with wide eyes and then at the bowl of milk still not moving from its position. She took the cue and backed away. This prompted it to approach the bowl and sniff its contents. Satisfied, it dipped its tongue into the milk and started lapping it up, its eyes initially on Padma and eventually on the contents of the bowl. It must have been really hungry, for it finished drinking within a matter of minutes and placed a foot on the bowl when it found that there was no more milk to drink. It looked up at a smiling Padma, who was glad that her offering had been so well accepted. “Do you want more?”, she enquired, not really expecting a response. Those expectant eyes were answer enough and she went back to the kitchen area to heat up some more milk. This time however, the cat followed her and began poking at the slippers she had left at the entrance of the kitchen. She refilled the bowl and placed it again, this time closer to the cat that did not inch away, but was looking intently as the bowl moved from human to floor. The pace at which the bowl was emptied this time was even quicker, but it evidently sated the cat’s hunger, for it did not look up again at Padma, but moved towards its favorite torn-up mat and lay down. She heated up a glass of milk, this time for herself, picked up the Harry Potter book from near the window and sat next to the cat. She took a sip of milk and opened the page to Silver and Opals and started reading out loud, a gentle palm on the cat’s head - “Where was Dumbledore, and what was he doing?…”. She paused. “What was Dumbledore doing, Minerva?”, she addressed the cat, took another sip of milk and smiled. ...

“Are you ready?”, the voice on the phone asked Subbu. Subbu didn’t feel remotely ready. But his response didn’t matter either way. It was 7.30 AM - time to leave for school. The dreaded exam week was to commence that day. He mumbled something incoherently and placed the receiver on the telephone. “Subbuuuuu, late aachu da. Breakfast saapdu!” [Subbuu, it’s late already. Finish your breakfast!]. He wasn’t hungry. In fact his stomach felt like they were full of polymers of isoprene. Why was he thinking about rubber now though? He should be mentally wading through the rivers of the world and jogging through the various farms of India. Geography had never been Subbu’s strong suit and yet, that was the mountain he had to scale that day. He sat at the table obediently though and looked at his plate. Rice and Chapati.. Rice and wheat.. Bihar? Chattisgarh? No no.. The maximum production of rice was in West Bengal and wheat, in Uttar Pradesh. He tried to come up with mnemonics to avoid forgetting that as he poked at a chapati. His mum yelled at him again and he hastened to finish it. His mind was still buzzing with random keywords he had associated with lengthy paragraphs as he tied his shoe laces and noticed that he had worn mismatched socks. Well, it was too late to do anything about that now. He prayed that the class monitor would accept his offering of one Yummies packet and overlook this error during routine assembly checks. The school bus arrived and the driver honked rhythmically as usual. Subbu got on and waved absently to his mum. Was K2 the tallest mountain in the world or did that honor belong to Everest? What was Kanchenjunga then? Wait, were K2 and Kanchenjunga synonymous? Aaah! He didn’t know anything! He moved to the back of the bus and squeezed in between two bulkier boys. Then he picked out a textbook with a slightly worn out cover and opened it to a page at random. Anything was worth revising. Itanagar was the capital of Arunchal Pradesh. “Itanagar - AP, Itanagar - AP , Itanagar - AP”, he chanted in a low voice. He remembered talking about capitals with his dad the previous evening. He had asked the old man what the capital of Telengana was, confident that he wouldn’t know what it was. Subbu’s dad had disappointed him by not only telling him the correct answer, but supplementing it with more historical information - “When we were studying, Andhra Pradesh was one state. Ippo daan kanna pinna nu state mela state pannindirrukange” ["It’s only now that they’re creating new states left, right and center"]. Subbu didn’t care for this new bit of information. Actually, he felt cheated that he was having to consume more nonsensical facts than his dad. He resumed memorizing the rest of the capitals of states and moved on to a chapter titled “Weather - seasons and their importance”. Subbu groaned. In Bangalore, it was summer but it had just rained heavily the previous evening. This completely contradicted what this - he flipped to the first page - this Veena Bhargava was telling him about Karnataka’s weather. She would have him believe that climate change was periodic and that there were months beyond which Summer would not last or months in which there would be no rain. He made a note to word a strong box-format letter to her after he got home. Maybe she would discard it though. He wasn’t sure if adults were in the habit of receiving letters from 14 year olds. He shook his head and continued reading about how Cherrapunji had the highest amount of rainfall in the country. What was the capital of Cherrapunji again? Wait. Cherrapunji wasn’t a state. He gave the page a distasteful stare and looked around at everyone else. Their peaceful expressions agitated him even further and he started flipping pages at random. He shook his head and decided he wouldn’t let this faze him any further. He leaned further into the book in an act of increased focus and started reading about soils and their significance in the plantation of different types of crops, about earthquakes and tsunamis and their places of likely occurrence. Mental images of everything he had read blazed through in his mind, and at that point, he seemed unstoppable, when the bus came to a slow halt. They had reached school. He hurriedly closed his book, suddenly feeling more unprepared than ever and got down from the bus following the long file of students ahead of him. He walked into the classroom and saw huddled groups of students everywhere, no doubt trying to cram in one last satellite’s name before the call for assembly. He wasn’t going to try anymore though. He quietly sat at a desk closest to the door and waited with his head on the desk, trying to recall any fact he could. ...

The fan hung lazily and looked at the other occupants of the room - A lamp, a table, a chair and a human. The human seemed lost in thought. And he didn’t seem like he would be getting off the chair anytime soon. Which meant the fan wouldn’t have to move anytime soon either. That was a relief. It sighed noiselessly. As its eyes drifted from one wing to another looking at through its limited, yet relatively broad perspectives, it got a different angled view of the room everytime. It wondered what the human was thinking about. He didn’t seem to do much at all. He always sat there for most of the day, except to get up and look through a slit in the door and yell at a passerby (what what could be made out) - the fan had learnt a lot of what we humans take for granted, purely by observing and listening over the time it had hung around in the room since its time of installation. Two years . Had it only been that long? It had spun so much, that it felt a bit more woozy everytime. And maybe it was imagining things but it seemed to be descending a bit more of late. Oh well. The mind, even a metallic one can play tricks on you if you’re as dizzy as you were after tens of minutes of spinning. It jerked out of its reverie as the man got up from his chair. “Oh boy. Here we go again”, it thought to itself. He walked up to the only switch on the wall and turned it on. Slowly, the fan began to spin. 30 rpm….60 rpm…130 rpm…200 rpm..All the way upto its maximum set 350 rpm. The fan felt breathless at this point. It wasn’t a new sensation, but this time, it felt a bit more breathless than usual. It gave in and tried to become one with the spin. But something…something was wrong. The stem gave way and jerked away from the ceiling, tipping to one side first and within the fan could realize it, the cable connecting it to the ceiling Snapped and it spun at an angle, into the air, in an arc and towards the unsuspecting man. The fan closed its eyes as it unintentionally sliced the man’s head clean in two and crashed into the wall opposite his seat just above the table. It tried to open its eyes…No..eye..The other eye seemed to be missing. And it realized that it had no sensation anywhere else. But it didn’t matter. The spinning had stopped. ...

It had been 2 days since the wedding fiasco had happened and Subbu had had to lie through his teeth that his Bio paper had gone well. However, school was not due to start for another 10 days however and this was the reason for his renewed exuberance, having already forgotten about how guilty he had felt for lying to Appa. “Today I am going to Venky’s place and we will ride our cycles near his house for the whole day”, he announced to Amma. She surveyed him and decided there was nothing violent or idiotic about his decision, but said nothing. Empowered by the lack of protest from Amma, who normally always poured a bucket of water on his well laid plans, he continued, “Who knows? Maybe we will stop by Venky’s appa’s bakery and have some veg puffs. “. Amma did not take kindly to this next plan of action and promptly said, “Dei, do you know what oil they are using? Don’t eat anything from outside.”. “Then we will have sponge cake and salt biscuits”, he bargained, confident that neither of his new objects of desire had any oil in them. When Amma had nothing to say to this argument, he felt victorious and strutted back to his room to read a novel. ...

“Good morning maaaaa’m”, the class bleated obediently like a herd of sheep, Subbu among them, as a stern looking Miss Prema entered the room with a thick book in her hand. She eyed the class suspiciously and dropped the book on the table where it landed with an resounding thud. The class fell silent and Prema ma’am spoke in her high pitched voice, “This quarter, we have a lot of History to cover. So, we will not waste any time and continue where we left from before the test - " Chapter 5: The Rise and Fall of Alexander the Great”. Subbu frowned. Why was she starting off on the first day? More importantly, had she corrected the papers yet? But he didn’t dare interrupt her as she read monotonously, “The land of Macedonia was already a great military power …”. He instead nudged Venky, his best friend who always sat next to him in class (or rather they’d grown close as a result of being made to sit next to each) and said “Hey, why don’t you ask Prema ma’am for the marks. You did well in History no?”. Venky looked at his friend with a mixture of pride and condescension that Subbu had not only assumed his prowess in the subject, but also entrusted him with a task that he was too cowardly to do himself. “Okay you chicken”, he commented as he cleared his throat in preparation, a little louder than he’d intended. “Venkatraman!”, the teacher yelled, “What is it? Why are you making sounds?”. The lion in him had shrunk into a kitten at the admonishing and he mewed incoherently. “What is it boy? Speak up!”, she yelled again. “Ma’am..Can you..Can I drink some water ma’am?”, he managed to squeak. He was disapprovingly given permission and had to make a show of going to the back of the class, fetching his water bottle from the array of baskets and drink it despite not being thirsty at all. Subbu looked back at his courageous friend, disappointed that the soldier had fallen without even getting a chance to yell a war-chant, let alone draw a spear. When he returned to his station sheepishly, Subbu had half a mind to taunt him, but seeing the ashen expression on his face, thought the better of it. He gave him one last look before shaking his head and looking to the other side for another chess piece to move. ...

“Whoaaaaaaa”, he yelled, a sound only he could hear. One second he saw the clear blue skies and in the very next, an expansive patch of brown mud and this pattern repeated as he rose into an arc and his ascent slowed to a halt and then he descended in the same topsy-turvy fashion with increasing velocity before crashing onto a rough surface that was immediately engulfed in darkness. He blinked. He could see nothing for what seemed like ages, but heard muffled voices in a tongue he’d come to understand in bits and pieces - some words more familiar than others. He’d learnt a lot of things over the years. He knew his name was what his handlers called “fifty paisa” , but he was always spoken about carelessly, it seemed, with lesser reverence than others of his kind. ...

A friend recently asked me what he should use if his usecase is that he just wants to pen down some thoughts on the Internet. I thought I’d list all the different ways I host my different websites that I have for different usecases. Maybe one of these will help someone else stumbling across this page as well - I initially started off with Static Site Generators and later adopted Medium, Wordpress and Substack over time. I’ve abandoned Medium now. ...