Story.

i wake up in the middle of a room to find that there is no window

it's dark but i know it's almost noon and there is light out there but none of it is coming inside

i am not chained

i do hear voices not muffled - real conversations
either unaware of me inside or maybe aware but didn't care

i smell fresh grass

rain - maybe

i get up, open the door, go outside, take a piss and come back inside and start sleeping again; but not before I lock the door shut

that's my story.

Caged.

There is a shop near Commercial street, which sells exotic birds. I go there to look at those beautiful creatures, once in a while. I look at them, and I think - 'If I ever have enough money to throw away, then maybe I will come here and buy all of these birds and set them free!'

Splendide Mendax!

Man at home, no power. Thunderstorm. People start shouting outside his door, telling him that they knew he was inside; and a door wasn't good enough to keep them out for long.

He slowly gets up and wears his shoes which were in the room. Then he goes to the next room, where he knew that a broken glass is on the window sill. He picks it up and takes it near the door and scatters it there. And he waits. Pounding began. The door breaks soon.

They run into the living room and are immediately scathed by the glass pieces. He takes advantage of the chaos and knocks one down; though it wasn't good enough to keep him down. Then he sees the guns and that was when he knew that he was done. But still he runs into the next room and waits. He grabs the first guy's hand, takes his gun and shoots him down. He had his flashlight; he flashes it, shoots one. He lies down on the ground and flashes again; shoot another down. Only one now. He foolishly walks into the room, aims and shoots - only to find that he is out of bullets. He runs into the remaining thug and in the scuffle gets shot in the shoulder. Yet, he manages to overpower him. He gets out, locks the door from outside; padlocks it. He gets into his car and drives away. It was still raining.

Epilogue:

Later when he came back home he finds no trace of the shooting. Everything is clean. No corpses, no blood stains. He goes and complains to the police. They find nothing. Tells him he is hallucinating. He asks about the wound he has on his shoulder. They find an answer for that too - they find the gun which was used to shoot him, under his bed; and it was licensed under his name, for the last four years.

Existential crisis.

Existential crisis.
Again!
I am a dog with existential crisis.
In a cage. Born into domestication.
Even my younger dreams had me in cages.
I hadn't met a wild born stray dog yet, then.
Now I see them a lot. Some of their visions have swept into my dreams.
I can now dream things I haven't experienced yet.
I am a caged dog with existential crisis.

The best slice of the mango.

There is something strangely mystic about mango trees. Before you completely laugh me off, let me tell you that it is totally a personal feeling. For me, the tree which should be in my backyard should be a mango tree. The tree which should cast a shadow on my balcony should be a mango tree. And after a rain, when I occasionally clean my terrace, the leaves I should sweep out should be of a mango tree. It has nothing to do with the heavenly fruits that grow on them. It has nothing to do with the sweet smell a mango tree in full bloom evokes. Mango trees for me has nothing to do with sweet and shine. It has to do with the shade, the shadows and the feeling of lost love and lovers who ignored me and the lovers I have ignored. It has to do with loss, it has to do with nostalgia, it has to do with Hemingway, it has to do with the alleys that are always dark even in the noon sun, it has to do with all that is there to be taken and yet not taken.

Of forks in the road and not finding them.

They say everything comes with a price; they say everything happens for a reason - that everything is relative. But, is it really so? The choices exist only in the minds of the confused. For the ones who truly know what they want, everything is absolute. There are no choices. There is no need for a choice. The fork in the road does not exist for them. For, when they pounce upon the road, they never see any forks; they move ahead through the one and only path that exists before them. A vagabond seldom needs a map; neither does he bother about the signboards.

I started reading this book 'Chasing the monsoon' by Alexander Frater. The author travels with and along the path of the monsoon, in the Indian sub-continent; sometimes ahead, sometimes with and sometimes behind it. To embark on such a journey one must not just love the rains, one must truly belong to the rains.

As long as I remain confused, I will never be able to find the path. I will have to look for signboards. I will have to read the maps. I will have to follow. I shall never tread the absolute. I shall never be complete.

A Man, must not do what he must do; rather a Man must do what he wants to do.

Sea sand breeze moon (and some ants and a few crabs)!

Sleeping in the sand till ants and crabs started crawling near and on our body; running from one cliff to another, trying to find out a secluded but so so beautiful Paradise beach; sitting in a shack trying to figure out if to stay at this crowded but safe beach - there goes the flashback on my first morning in Paradise beach, near Gokarna.
A couple of weeks back, a friend of mine said, he is going to Gokarna with a couple of his friends. That they are planning to hike and trek from Om beach to some beach which is not accessible by road. I said, heck, I can't take so much running and climbing on a holiday. However, a week later I joined them in the trip.
We reach Gokarna in the morning, roamed around the small village centre, then started to Kudle beach around noon. We reached the beach, had a swim and then proceeded to the next stop - Om beach.I was getting tired, indeed.
Om beach was a short stop and personally I so did not want to go to the next place. But didn't want to be a spoilsport. We started hiking trekking (again) - all short treks, but I am no fan of physical labour!
We reach a small cove, the half moon beach as it is called. Didn't stop, we proceeded to our ultimate stop - Paradise beach. We jumped from one cliff to the other, it was getting dark and there was no beach to be found. At one point we reached a high cliff with no way forward. I said, dudes there is no way forward, we can put up our tent here. No, we back-tracked, found some trails and carried forward.
And, hey, we reached the Paradise beach. But what we found was the remains of couple or more shacks and no way forward and it's already dark. While we were pondering over what to do now, we saw someone flashing a torch light in our direction. We found that was the owner of one of those erstwhile shacks and his friends.
So we camped some where on the remains of a shack - when the other dudes ordered food, they brought some for us too.
We had a bon-fire, we had songs, we had the beach and we had the moon. 
(And we had the ants and the crabs, which I had mentioned before.)

Wanderlust.

Gypsy girl longed for a settled life. She had enough of the wanderings. She wanted a warm bed and a nice roof over her head. She started a liking towards dark clothes.

She found herself a house; she bought a bed; started setting it all up. And it was only the third day evening that she got it all settled. Tired, she went to sleep. She slept for ages. She woke up and took her bag and walked out. After a while, she remembered she had decided to settle down in a house. But she was already two or three towns away from her house.

The Kite.

“The higher you fly, the more you see. The more you see, the more you wanna travel; it’s the same for men as well as kites - Keep that in mind. Also, know that you loose only the best kites, because it takes a very good kite to soar so high that it’s ambition wins over our strength.

The boy bought the new kite and started walking back home. The kite-seller’s advice though was supposed to make him feel better about loosing his favourite kite, he was still sullen. He cherished his kites. He loved flying kites and thought of them as his friends. When the kite is flying high, he feels connected to it, he is exhilarated. It is like the kite is his eye and the string is the nerve connecting him to it .It is not just the kite that is soaring high, it’s himself.

That day he went to the terrace early and took out his new kite. Since it was new he didn’t know its name. He loosened the string and let the kite out. It took to wind amazingly fast. It soared higher and higher. The kid flew it for hours and hours. He finally understood what the kite-maker said. But this time he didn’t wait for the string to break - he let it go.