Queen of Spades and the Faint of Hearts

“And he hated himself and hated her,too, for the ruin they'd made of each other.” 

- Dennis Lehane

"Phileas. Mr. Phileas Rodriguez? Can you hear me, sir?"

He woke up with a start. Looked around the room like it was the first time he was seeing it. He was not. He had been visiting Dr. Sharma for the past four years now, ever since his first blackout. Though now he was just plain asleep and not blacked out. He sat up straight and rubbed his eyes and face to wake them up. He had a week’s beard on his face, peppered with white here and there. It did give him a sophisticated look, but itched like a flea-ridden mutt’s crotch.

Blackouts were nothing new to him; he knew very well what it felt like. They started a couple of years ago. It was very scary in the beginning. He checked himself into a clinic at his third incident and did all the tests they had there. No one actually came to any conclusion as what was wrong with him. They all wrote it off as a prodrome to something else and just decided to wait and see. So he waited, until a few weeks from his first incident he blacked out behind the wheel while driving back from work. Luckily no was hurt, but it sure did put the fear for his life into him and he started looking out for every possible avenues for help.

A friend suggested he try yoga, didn't help except his back never felt so good thanks to all the stretching. Another suggested him to drink a lot of liquids, that didn't help much either except that he had to get up from his desk more often to visit the restroom earning him a lot of catcalls from his coworkers. Then his younger sister, a physical therapist, suggested maybe his ailment wasn’t anything physical at all. Maybe it was all in his mind. That's how he had ended up in this place where he was presently sprawled on a sofa in the lobby of the shrink’s office.

"I'm sorry. Was working late last night, didn't get enough sleep", he replied to the receptionist who was looking over his computer screen to him smoothing over his flannel shirt and plaid pants. She never understood why this guy had to wear so proper all the time. It's been years she’s been watching him now, and she had never seen him in casual Tees and denims. He was very tall and lanky, would look great in jeans. Anyways, she kept her thoughts to herself and returned back to the social network site she was surfing on while pretending to work on her boss’s letters.

He walked past the receptionist's desk and opened the door to the good doctor's cabin. And as always, he was hit with the strong scent of roses. The room seemed to brimmed with it, there were pictures of rose gardens on the back wall, there were two pots filled with roses near the window, and there was always vase with a few more rose stems on the doctor's desk. His guess was she even doused herself in rose perfume before she leaves for work.

Right now, Dr. Sharma was seated behind her desk writing hurriedly in her diary. She kept one for every patient. She looked up and gave the very slightest of smile and signaled him to take a seat.

Phileas took his usual seat at the corner of the couch, closest to the doctor's chair. He was soft on her, and she knew it. Obviously she did, a woman didn't need a double degree in psychiatry to know if a guy is into her or not. But she was not one to break a doctor-patient relationship. And he was not her type anyway.

She was soon done with her notes, pushed the diary away and stretched while seated in her chair. Sitting all day in a chair all day listening to people’s problems takes its toll on a person’s vertebrae.

She turned to the stack of hardbound diaries kept at one end of his desk and shuffled through them to get to her patient's notes. Now she asked, "So Phileas, how are we doing today?"

"I am well, Ms. Sharma. This has been a good week. The trip to the capital was a much needed break from all the stress." He could never bring himself to call her Dr. Sharma. She looked so young to be called that.

"That's nice. Yes, I remember, you were going to attend an ex colleague’s wedding in Noida. How was function? Was there a lot of people present?" she asked, mildly bringing up Phileas's fear of crowds.

Phileas didn't take the bait, "No no, it was actually a small affair. Got to meet with a few old friends from my time in Amazon and also there was a band and a trip around old Delhi. It was really quite exciting."

"That sounds good. Hope you did not stress yourself out too much, sometimes a rush of old memories and emotions might become too heavy on one's psyche."

"No it really was nothing like that. I actually had a good time...”

Phileas started to fidget in his seat. The doctor could see that he was not saying the whole thing; he was hiding something from her. The fidgeting was his tell; he would be very lousy at poker.  She looked at him for a moment and spoke softly looking down at her dairy writing something, "Take your time, Phileas. There is no hurry."

"I don't think I have been completely honest with you, Ms. Sharma. About my reason, my incessant need to attend this wedding even though I hate public transport... I, um, the bride... Well, we used to be very close for a while. I mean. Uh. We were in love." He shifted his eyes from her and started looking at anywhere but in her direction. The doctor didn't seem to notice the change. She just waited there bowed down to her book pretending to read, waiting for him to continue.

He took a moment of quite, and continued.

"We met in an office party. She was a HR person dealing with recruitment. She was the one who had assisted me during my induction process when I joined the company. I'd never met her since in my nine months of working in the there, until that New Year's Eve bash. I still remember her wearing the beige pantsuit, with a tiny chain made of silver hanging around her neck. She looked beautiful. She was also the biggest klutz, you’ll see. So she was always tumbling over something or shoving to somebody else while passing. Still I liked her all the same, she was cute." Phileas was by now looking absently out the window behind the doctor's chair. His gaze was looking towards a different place a different time. He was opening up far more than he had ever done in the four years he had been her patient, Dr. Sharma was beginning to sense they were at the verge of a breakthrough.

"Somehow when dinner was announced we ended up at the same table; call it what you may, destiny or sub-conscious plotting by my side. But I've never had a better first time conversation with any woman ever. We sat there and spoke for hours, she told me about her life, her aspirations, about her work with a local NGO, and I shared my dreams and troubles with my sister. It was great. Soon it was past midnight and the party was dying. People were starting to leave with their spouses or friends. We both didn't have any so we decided to leave together and share a cab.

“Well one thing led to another, we kissed on the ride back to her place. I was 23, and that was the first kiss I've ever had. I was a very sickly kid when I was younger you see, no girl would come close to me by a ten meter radius. And it showed I think, because soon she was taking the lead in the whole activity. I was naive, and even I could sense that this wasn't her first time snogging in the back of a cab. But I was not complaining anyway, it felt too good to be true as it was."

Say What You Need To Say

“The most important things are the hardest to say. They are the things you get ashamed of, because words diminish them -- words shrink things that seemed limitless when they were in your head to no more than living size when they're brought out. But it's more than that, isn't it? The most important things lie too close to wherever your secret heart is buried, like landmarks to a treasure your enemies would love to steal away. And you may make revelations that cost you dearly only to have people look at you in a funny way, not understanding what you've said at all, or why you thought it was so important that you almost cried while you were saying it. That's the worst, I think. When the secret stays locked within not for want of a teller but for want of an understanding ear.”

-    Stephen King

     'Different Seasons'

Mrinal was having a yucky day. And cleaning bedpans the old age home where he worked was not helping brightening his day by any measure.

It's been almost a year of him working here, and it still baffled him how the whole place constantly reeked of urine no matter how many people were hired cleaning and scrubbing the place all day. Every nook and corner of the place stank, even the dinning hall. People were only expected to eat there for pete's sake! He and eight other orderlies were by their job description responsible for keeping the 'inmates' comfortable, how were they supposed to that if they themselves didn't know how to be so. Dr. Gupta had banished that word being used within the compound (so let's just keep this as our secret for Mrinal's sake, shall we?)

Why shouldn't these people be called by their real title anyway? Is this place any better than Tihar jail or Sing Sing? Sure this place is more colorful and has lots of comfy sofas and beds, lush landscaped lawns, people hanging around you all day to keep you in prompt accordance of your medication and all. You don't need to worry about a thing. Well, that's what they'd want you to think anyway.

In many ways this place is much worse than either of those establishments. In that place at least you'd know why you are there. Rape, murder, armed robbery, arson, burglary, jay-walking, anything. You do something, the courts sentence you to a period of time, you go to prison, spend your time in your cell with your cellmates who very well could be like the overly friendly T-Bag in Prison Break. But you knew your cause and its effect, and more importantly you knew that all of this had a deadline, either the one the courts sentenced you for or the one till your master plan to jump the prison walls gets materialized.

In an old age home, you don't have that option. There is a deadline yes, but when you reach it there's is no loved ones or fellow gang-members standing there on the other side of the gate to take you home. Once you reach the deadline to get out of here, well, that means you are dead. Any sane, and most of the insane ones also probably, would want to avoid that by any means possible. Even if that means you have to spend those last years of your life on this planet confined to a wheel chair or a bed, and you need other people to do your basic human functions for you, or that you need someone to remember where your things are and when you are to take your next diabetes pills, even if you don't recall the name of your great-granddaughter when she comes to visit you once an year on your birthday.

The life here could be tough on anyone. Both kaidis/retirees and their guards/caretakers equally. Mrinal knew what he was getting into when he started here; at least he thought he did. This was to be a temporary thing till his scriptwriting gig kicks off, which is yet to happen and by the look of things may very well never happen at all. When you look at Mumbai from outside in, it looks so fast, happening and brimming with possibilities especially when you look at all those big name studios and you dream of being on their payroll for doing something that you like doing the most in life, writing. But this past year has been an eye-opener; Mumbai had lost all its charm that it held in the eyes of an innocent recent English graduate from Gujarat. This city is tough, unkind and too-fast-for-its-own-good. This place once might've been really quite something, but now it is anything but that.

In the past one year here, he had met some really wonderful people in this compound though. Some of these old-timers have lived, by that we mean really lived. Not the kind of nine-to-five existence that most of us do now. There is a circus manager, ex-army vet, ex-politician, ex-IAS, ex-tech guru. There is a whole bunch of ex-some bodies here. Each with their own histories. Each with their own treasure chests brimming with memories of the bygone golden era. They all have done something that they have proud of. They have all seen some really exciting time. Mrinal was part of the Hazare fuss too; he thought that was going to be 'the happening time' of his generation, he is not now too confident about that either.

The new generation has missed out on lot things. Maybe the most that he thinks we've lost is our capability to empathize. And this place really drives that emotion home. Especially on that day in July where it rained all day...

The (Only One?) True Love Predicament

“This is not a goodbye, my darling, this is a thank you. Thank you for coming into my life and giving me joy, thank you for loving me and receiving my love in return. Thank you for the memories I will cherish forever. I love you, T.”

- Nicholas Sparks,

  'Message in a Bottle'

  

As the title obviously suggests this post is going to be a very soppy self-indulgent one, well at any rate more than my usual ones are anyway. So you very well should know what you are getting into.

Actually, sometimes I think life would be so much simpler if everything came with such a warning.

Right at the beginning of some important chapter in your life there comes a disclaimer - like those before the movies or on the cigarette cases.

("smoking is injurious to health" - really? I had no idea!)

These warnings seems to crop up everywhere. At the violent movies, that most impressionable children are inevitably going to watch; and at the boxes of cigarettes, that most smokers are going to puff out no matter what!

But then I think, just as futile as these disclaimers are in either scenarios; they might prove just as pointless if they were to be placed at some really landmark turning points of our life. Would we change our paths if there were anything that warns us of the dangers or the hurt and pain ahead of you? Would we dare not to have known/had those wonderful experiences that most of these moments bring into our lives?

Suppose at the precise moment that you get out of college and sit for your very first job interview, just before you answer their first question a pop up video blurb appears (like the one in that show in MTV) saying:

"Fun Fact: The moment you answer this question the interviewer would be impressed and immediately decide to hire you. You will agree to work here for considerably lower pay that what they would have easily agreed to pay had you negotiated a little more. They will squeeze your brain and blood for the next four years, robbing you off of all the zeal and innovative ideas you've ever had throughout your college life turning you into just like the pompous vegetable they themselves have turned into!"

Now after seeing that, would you in your right senses ever accept such a job offer?

Obviously no.

But since there wasn't any such pop up prediction available for you at that time, you take up that job and end up being miserable for the next four years of your life just as it had said. You sell your soul to the devil in return for four years of work experience in something that you never had any real interest in. And with people that you don't care lived or evaporated.

That's obviously disheartening, isn't it? But still, this office was the place you discovered your affinity to Beatles and Zappa. This is the place where you will meet a senior manager who will become one of your favorite mentor and stay so even after you leave the company. Also, this could also be the place where you make acquaintance with a girl with whose roommate you fall head over heels in love. Would you dare miss out on all that??

Now, imagine if there were to be such a disclaimer when it came to matters of the heart. But for obvious reasons it should be different from the one above.

After all matters of the heart supersedes in importance over anything else in one’s life, right?

I suppose it must be like the one in the music video of Savin' Me by Nickelback. Just like in the video, here there is a countdown on top every prospective mate in your vicinity, stating the amount of time they are going to stay in your life.

But that’s not enough now is it? There are many other equally crucial and decisive criteria that you will tick off when it comes to choosing someone to fall in love with.

Most often I have heard people, men and women alike, bring up this make-or-break requirement that their prospects just have gotta to fulfill: ”He/she has got to be my soul mate."

Perdóname, senor. What does soul mate mean exactly?

Oxford says, "Soul mate : a person ideally suited to another as a close friend or romantic partner."

Now, tell me what/when/how has any man/woman/others in all of the history of mankind on this planet ever, been able to find anything that has been remotely deemed fit to be described as 'ideal'?

There has always been a compromise. At some level or the other no matter good or desirable that object might be, you always have to adjust with something. Some might argue that this specific defect/quirk is probably what that makes this person all the more dear to them, their One True Love.

When you had imagined your ideal partner in the first place, did you imagine them with all these elfin eccentricities?

Probably not. By definition, these quirks and fancy traits that they have are for the most part their own creations. Unique and very hard to imagine on any person before you happen to come across somebody actually having them. How could one possibly envision them any earlier?

 Another thing that has always baffled me:

Suppose you are married to wonderful person, you love him and soon have a couple of amazing children with this person that you love very dearly. Then many years down the line you come by another guy/gal who seems to be that perfect mate you have always dreamed of. You acquaint with this person and you start a terrific rapport just to find that you and he/she have more in common with you than you and your spouse has ever had in all of your time together.

Let's just assume that you go crazy in love/infatuation/lust/emotion/whatever and leave behind the house that you have built with your spouse of so many years to go live with this person.

Do you imagine a happily-ever-after ending to this tale in every situation ahead?

Might work, might not. This person that you are riding off into the sunset with, could turn out to be the sweetest of souls ever to be born, or just another Axe Murderer or the next Josef Fritzl.

In any case. Could you help me understand what was the fault of your child or of the husband/wife you leave behind?

See where this baffles me?

Their Balls Against His Bat!

“The bowler approached the wicket at a lope, a trot, and then a run. He suddenly exploded in a flurry of arms and legs, out of which flew a ball.”

- Douglas Adams
  'Life, the Universe and Everything'

 Another curve ball comes his way, a googly, a yorker, a killer bouncer right to his head.

What is going on inside the head of the guy with the bat, is it about how or why or what slieght of hand the bowler did to put this challenge in front of him?

Where are the spectators watching right now, is it at the bowler who is standing right the huffing and panting close to the umpire sweating like a pig and out of breath?

Who is the bowler and the fielders gawking at wide-eyed, expecting some action next? Is it at each other, in their shifty restless glorious squinted faces that has been standing there under the sun since God-knows-how-long?

Why is the time standing still?

Why are they all looking at him like that? What are they expecting of him?

4 more runs with 1 ball to go.

The odds are against him, yes. But do they think that all this pressure they are crushing him with, is going to help his case in any way at all?

Don't they understand the import of this fraction of second in his life?

A Long Time Coming

"I am using the truth, Master Wayne. Maybe it's time we all stop trying to outsmart the truth and let it have its day. I'm sorry."

- Alfred Pennyworth

  'The Dark Knight Rises'

Truth.

Such a fearsome idea, isn't it. A gigantic magnificent elephant in the room; that we all know about but never come out in the open and acknowledge. We see it, sense it, register it inside our brains, and even decipher the outcome of it all. But we never really seem capable to accept it as a fact of life and take in the guts, by sheer sportsmanship.

Not all men are born sporty. Not all men can live with their true faces out in the open for everyone to see.

We all are born capable of knowing and analyzing things that happen in our lives. If anyone says that they didn't see it coming. Pal, they are lying blatantly. Maybe they themselves not realizing that they are.

The Depressing One

“So in the end you try to think of someone else you're mad at, and the unavoidable answer pops into your little warped brain: everyone.”

- Ellen Hopkins

I used to have this friend (you will soon realize why the 'used to' usage here) who thought ill of almost everyone.

 

Except himself that is, obviously. He was always put himself in high regard and always thought he was right in doing so.

 

He was the most cynical, pessimistic, illogical soul probably in all of the worlds that all of the faiths that mankind has been yet been able to invent. You show him the picture of that firefighter who leapt into a burning building and saved a 10 year old girl, and he will point out how and where the guy's hands are in the poor semi-unconscious child's body and call him a pervert. You show him the story of a rich billionaire who has just started out another multi-million dollar campaign to eradicate polio in Africa; he will show you another article where this same techie billionaire had syphoned off billions from unsuspecting customers by forcing them to buy his products. You tell him about the 10th standard girl next door whose study room light was on all night, he will tell you about the time that he saw her riding on the backseat of a bike with some guy who looked to be of her own age.

 

You tell him just about anything that had for some extend a flimsy bit of positivity in it. This prick could come up with something to bring you back down and rub something completely different onto your sunny-eyed face proving to you that the world is simply not worth a single sliver of silver lining no matter what.

 

Well. That was until he happened to fall in love.

The Truth About Lies

“But better to get hurt by the truth than comforted with a lie.”
- Khaled Hosseini

I have always thought that truth and lies are always interlinked to each other. Each cannot survive without the other. They both are nothing but the two sides of the same old rusted coin. Truth is usually overrated, but then so are the lies. People think that the truth might liberate their soul, which is all nothing but a pile of rotten horsecrap. People want to always know everything. And hear nothing but the truth. What is the point anyways? More often than not we never like the truth any more than the lie. The truth only makes it all the more difficult. It’s so much easier sometimes to just say a lie and get it over with than bring out the whole big fiasco of a truth to light which needs a much longer explanation.

And explanations aren’t foolproof. There are times when the explanations get so complex and twisted and turned such a way that you yourself have got no idea what was it that got you into this mess you are in.

I think that the main reason for lying is our loss of the most precious human qualities, our ability to forgive. We are afraid of each other. We are scared witless that the other person might not understand our helplessness or the conditions and the pressures that we were under at that precise moment which led to the choices or actions we had undertaken. The choices and decisions that got us in the trouble we are in. If we knew that they would understand and forgive us. We would have no hesitation in plainly saying the truth as it was.

I am sure that our mistakes aren’t as grave as crucifying Christ. And even He asked for forgiveness to the culprits who did that to him. No, none of us are Christ. I don’t actually expect anyone to walk on water (would have been pretty cool though). And I probably don’t expect anyone to crucify anybody except their college profs may be (y'all know you want to). If He can manage to forgive at the last moment of his life. Why can not we do that? They say to walk on the path of the Almighty. Then why don’t they do the same. Why can’t they forgive? Why does everything have to be done according to their norm? Why can’t they forgive us if we stray from their path? Is it so unbearable for them to see us defy them? Why can’t they let us be? Judging us and condescending us is not going to help us in any way. When are they going to realize that?

We are young. We are meant to make mistakes. Loads of them. We are meant to learn from them. We have to fall first to learn how to walk straight. Humans did not learn to stand without falling for the first dozen hundreds of years. If you had patience then. Where is that patience now? If you could tolerate and forgive mistakes way back when you were just like a chimpanzee, why can’t you do that now when you are supposed to be the smartest living creature on this planet? May be if you could forgive, we wouldn’t be so darn scared of the truth.

So now that it is quite obvious that not forgiving is not helping much. Why not try forgiving?

Hope it doesn’t take another bunch of centuries to better ourselves this time…

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