Tomorrow I Will Wear Black

I find myself in a macabre dream

An emptiness where reigns supreme

Echoing in passages labyrinthine

Muffled shrieks in the layers of grime.

And in the passages, strewn on earth

Resonant in their spectral mirth

They lie neglected- dying and rotten

Lingering vestiges of a life forgotten.

Of companions and shared quests

Of gallows humour and murderous jests

Memories wreathed in misty frames

Of their tall tales and their black games.

I wake up perturbed, perplexed

My mind voodooed, my reality hexed

I glance at my sword, I see out of door

I remember sweat, I remember gore.

The blade of steel tempered, hardened

Cleaned before the massacre, sharpened

None shall escape, I’ll cut no slack

Tomorrow I will wear black.

One Road Trip and Three Phone Calls

Sometime in March in 2011, on a lazy sunny Shillong day.

8:30 AM.

First call-

Kay- Hey dude, whassup?

Me- Nnnggggghhhh...

Kay- Hey perv, wake up, you sound like you're coming in your sleep.

Me- Nnnnnwhy? Whattimeisit?

Kay- Its past eight, you ass. And a topping good day it is too. I have plans for today- me and A are going for a road trip, I think we'll go to Mawphlong and Mylliem.

Me- Who is Mawphlong? Why is Mylliem?

Kay- They are villages nearby, sleepyhead. We'll ride there. We thought we'll take you along but you're asleep and anyway there's only room enough for two on the bike. So basically I just called to disrupt your morning sleep and let you know how much fun we'll have and you sir, will not. Now please resume rotting in bed. See ya!

Me- You rasc-Click!

01:30 PM

Second Call-

Kay- You won't, repeat won't, believe what I am having right now.

Me- Lemme guess- how about getting your ass kicked for being such a nuisance?

Kay- You are in OPD seeing some sad smelly soul, probably on a catheter that is two-months old and for you to change now, right?

Me- You can't imagine how much I hate your guts right now, but yes, you are essentially correct in the details. You are in a highway accident, I hope?

Kay- Oh, we crossed that one, yes, but my, you're a sore hater. Listen, I am sitting in this badass shady hotel in Mylliem right now and man, is the food awesome.

Me- Err...awesome, as in you can't even guess what it is, right?

Kay- You know me so well. But as matter of fact, I know exactly what I am having. There's is rice- jadoh rice and dried smoked pork cooked the Khasi way.

Me- Big deal, yeah.

Kay- And there's this local brew....

Me- So happy for you..

Kay- And to top it, there's this thing whatsitsname, which is made from fermented soyabean and pork extract and some other things which I forgot, it looks like some messy gooey stuff and me and A have just come to the consensus after a prolong intellectual discussion that it smells and tastes, just like- drumroll- the freshest of female genitalia. Yessir, thats what its like!

Me- Ha! I'm sure you're hogging it.

Kay- Yeah, you bet we are. Very..... strong taste though. Man, its almost like public muffdiving.

Me- You're a sick dick, oh sorry- a pussy rather.

Kay- Ha ha! That was almost as funny as the car accident we passed on the way, but hey, I know the grapes would look sour to you. Have fun with the sick dicks yourself, doc!

Me- You complete ars- Click!

10:15 PM

Third Call.

Kay- Oh, man, can you do me a favor?

Me- No, I can't. Anything else?

Kay- Hey! You didn't even ask me what it is!

Me- Mm-hm.

Kay- Dude, please go to the hospital pharmacy and get me ten packs of ORS and a course of Norflox-Tinidazole and a strip of Lomofen and some probiotics.

Me- Whoa whoa! What happened, dude?

Kay- My arse is a faucet right now, dude. And so is A's.

Me- Oh, is it very bad?

Kay- Fuck your fake concern, but yes, if it makes you happy, I am calling from the pot. There, happy now?

Me- Very. Lemme get the meds for you then.

Kay- That darned shack in Mylliem, dude... it did us in.

Me- Wow, that fermented thingy really got you eh? Cat got your tongue- or ass rather!

Kay- That doesn't even make sense. Now, will you please hurry.

Me- Wait, I'm coming. And I'll say- sit tight on your ass till then.

Kay- You sono- Click!

Epilogue- It took ten days for Kay and A's diarrhea to subside. They have not sampled any of the local delicacies ever since. A few days ago, I and Kay were sitting in the cafeteria looking at an old man spicing up his cafeteria meal with some fermented soyabean pickle (they call it Tungrymbai, we came to know later). I could swear I saw Kay shiver slightly at the sight of that stuff.

The Dream

PPS- Yes, I AM a stubborn bastard.

Just Another Day

On a rainy day, a calf is hit by a speeding vehicle.

The vehicle is a ramshackle contraption of rusted metal, held together by welded bonds. There are twelve people crammed into the vehicle, all curled up against the rain that beats on it. The man driving the vehicle is not a man, but just a bit more than a boy. He has three pimples on his face, an amulet on his right arm and a cheap mobile phone in his pocket full of the latest chartbusters. The boy whistles a cheery tune, an upbeat jingle from the new movie in town, as he drives; but the whistle is drowned in the rain and the noxious sound of the sick metallic beast he is driving. He whistles on nonetheless. Tunelessly. Softly.

Then he hits the calf.

The calf is white. With bits of ochre on its back. It isn't instantly killed when its hit. It lies sprawled on the wet asphalt (newly laid) on its side. Its legs are bent in an unnatural position. A small pool of blood forms around its back. It lies there and whimpers soundlessly in the rain, in the middle of the road. Like a white joke. It looks at cars drive past it on both ways, slowing down just a little bit. Nobody else hits it. It looks at the cars that don't hit it as it dies. Slowly. Softly.

When the cow ambles to the calf, its already cold. And getting colder. The cow is almost hit by a bike when it trudges its way toward the dead calf. It reaches the calf and smells it. It sticks out its tongue and slowly licks the water off the face of the dead calf. It keeps licking till the owner comes and takes her away, whom she follows obediently.

The rider drives past a lot of vehicles. He's doing the max speed he can on his rickety bike on the highway. The rain slithers over his helmet. He spots the cow and the calf a long distance away. He slows down the bike as he nears. He looks at the dead calf. He looks at the bent legs. He looks at the pool of blood. And then he sees the cow lick the calf. The dead calf. In its dead face. And he is terrified suddenly. He looks away, scrunches his eyes hard to narrow slits and speeds away. He speeds away and he keeps saying the same words again and again as he flees. He says "Oh damn! Damn! Damn! Damn! Damn! Damn!...". Breathlessly.

The nurse sets the table. The clinic is in shambles- four crumbling walls and a crazy tin roof. But the nurse carries on unmindful of the ruins. She puts rows of medicine strips by the two sides of the table. She keeps the sphygmomanometer nearby. She keeps the out-patient register opened neatly to the current date. She adjusts the pens on the table. She goes in to check up on the patient lying on the only in-patient bed in the clinic. She looks at the drip going into his arm. She inspects the bed to check whether he has soiled himself again. The patient's mother sits by him. She looks like an old piece of parchment. Two flies settle down on her right cheek but she does not shoo them away. The nurse suddenly realizes that the patient hasn't moved even one bit while she was there. She checks his pulse. She sighs. Softly.

The doctor gets down from his bike. He is soaked despite the raincoat. He flings the helmet on the table. The nurse wishes him a very good morning and he grunts back. She tells him about the patient inside. He shakes the water off his hair and picks up his stetho. He checks the pulse- first the wrist, then the neck. Then the heartbeat with his stetho. The nurse looks at him. He looks at the nurse and shrugs. He goes back to his room and sits down on his table. He smiles.

The doctor looks outside the window as he writes the death certificate. The rain has stopped and a patch of brilliant gold shines through the clouds. And beyond is the bluest sky he has seen in days. The doctor smiles again and starts whistling a tune. Its the upbeat jingle from the new movie in town. He whistles and writes the cause of death and the time of death and the circumstances of death. He starts feeling better already.

It is just another day.

News Noose

I tried reading the local newspapers, I really did. But every time I did so, I burnt my fingers so badly that I've decided to shun them for good.

Picture this

You've settled down to read the paper, with a cookie and a cupful of the steaming stuff in your hands probably, your mind ready to receive the fresh streams of data. You open the paper and, of course, it is full of delightful news and items like

-people dying /killing /committing suicide for money /religion /'honour' et cetera, et cetera,

-the umpteenth neta being accused of the umpteenth scam,

-the notice for the next highly useful and productive general strike/bandh called by some political party/student organization/the neighborhood goonda,

-full-page government ads with half-page pictures of the netas in power, paid for happily by the exchequer

-ads that tell me that I can clear my life of all the shit it has accumulated by changing my car/phone/shampoo

-daily horoscopes telling me how many times I'd fart that day and Feng-Shui experts telling me which corner of the house I should fart in to channel the most positive energies

But this is actually nothing. Reading all these things with the morning cuppa is just that- a cup of tea, and a small cookie- for me. Its easy, give them to me any damn morning, and I'll read the paper cover-to-cover. I haven't grown up in this chicken-neck attached part of India to feel like a chicken reading all this crap. I can take it- and then some more.

What gets my goat

What gets not just my goat, but my cow, sheep, horse and the whole damn chicken coop is not the news (usually)- I mean the crazy things that we do to ourselves and to each other and that become 'news' can hardly be helped by the guys that serve the news, given the general stupidity of the human race. Its the way that the news is presented in the local newspapers- that gets the goat and all my farm animals.

I don't know what journalism school these guys writing for these 'news'papers attend, if they do so at all. they usually present everything but news. The news items they publish read more like pieces out of some cheap wannabe thriller where the writer already has highly intelligent opinions on everything under the sun and he/she spares no effort to incorporate them in the 'news' story.

For instance, a news story about a politician accused of a scam may read something like this (its difficult to do it the exact way they write, Assamese has its own tone, like every other language; this is not a real report, just an indication how things are written, usually. )-

'When the whole state is reeling under the effect of unprecedented high prices and poor people are dying of starvation, ministers in our state are reaping the benefits of their illegal and unholy spoils that they have siphoned off the exchequer...... The tainted *minister* is reported to have purchased two decadently luxurious villas in the heart of the city and........ his children are in the habit of driving their expensive merc and were spotted outside the pub called XYZ at the wee hours of morning in skimpy, revealing dresses visibly drunk......'

The italicized parts are the kind of stuff that makes me see red.

Let me explain how.

The Difference

I don't have any problems with them exposing corrupt officials/ministers/saints. I don't have problems with their having a journalistic stance, a viewpoint on these matters (and on everything else they write about). However, I do have a problem when they publish highly opinionated pieces on the front page of their little mouthpiece and call it 'news'.

I haven't been to any school of journalism, and know next to nothing about it. But I do know the difference between opinion and news.

A news story, I guess, is about the presentation of the facts of the matter/incident. It should be straightforward, factually correct, un-speculative (unless the news itself is about speculations), unbiased and most of all- devoid of any extra ornamentations that make it look more like somebody's opinion about the news than the news.

An opinion piece on the other hand, is all about an individual's interpretations and views of a specific news. That's what we have the opinion and editorial pages for in the newspapers.

The problem with the said newspapers is that they treat the whole newspaper- from the front-page to the sports section- as one whole continuous wall to plaster with the nauseous graffiti of their crummy little opinions.

(Surprisingly, the papers in English, both the national and local dailies, fare better in this respect, their reporting being more factual and less opinionated.)

So you morons think I'm a moron?

I find such opinionated reporting and such news pieces-

a) Irritating- Its bad enough reading about the usual quota of deaths and celebrity shit without a running commentary about if its good/bad and how good/bad. Just quit your babbling and let me read the unadorned news.

b) Insulting- I regard myself as a person of average intelligence, and that's enough for me to form my own opinions about any news that is published. If some cocky journalist adds his/her opinion to every crummy little news piece he types, I take that to mean that he/she is an arrogant egoistic pretentious bastard who thinks the reader (yours truly) is a stupid sod who needs to be spoon-fed a dose of opinion with every news story.

c) Biased- Since the pieces are opinionated they usually tend to be biased to favor the opinions of the writer; these news stories distort facts to suit their stories. It doesn't remain news anymore.

The Bottomline

Why don't you bright, hyper-intelligent, newspaper guys give me plain, un-embellished, straightforward news instead of your sorry little opinions, for a change.

Just tell me what the hell happened, leave it to me to theorize/dramatize/fictionalize it.

Of course you too have the right to do it- use the op-page, and keep your slimy opinionated fingers off the other pages.

P.S.- The bottomline is also applicable for news channels who have taken to showing news in the soap-opera and K-serial formats. Just because it gets you TRPs doesn't mean its good- its still as retarded.

Un-belonging

I’m sitting in a badly lit room. Its 5:05 PM and I’ve just had some very sweet tea and inane desultory conversation with a man called A.H.who has recently joined as a pharmacist in the block primary health centre (P.H.C.) I work in.

Earlier in the afternoon, I was subjected to an hour long discourse on the proud ancestry of my boss, all because I made the fatal error of telling her that I had no idea and was not really interested in knowing about my ancestry when she had enquired what community, sub-community and sect did I exactly belong to.

“Is it so?”, she frowned and her fat brows darkened.

My boss then turned to a pompous old fart sitting in the chair nearby (who had been introduced to me as the ‘president’ of the village panchayat or something, and who behaved as if he was a day away from being nominated the President of India).

She continued in a highly dissatisfied tone, “You see, Presidentji, the young people of today do not know about their past and ancestry. Now this is an Ahom boy and he doesn’t know exactly what kind of Ahom he is! (Ahoms are the dominant ethnic community in Assam and half of my genes are Ahom, probably).”

The president made suitable noises of horrified derision and looked sadly at me the way doctors sometimes look at patients of inoperable last-stage cancer, and said, “What to say, madam, these young people of today..” trying not to sound rude to me- which made me even more furious.

He wanted to add more reasons for his dissatisfaction with me but the verbose lady in front cut in again, “You know when I was a girl, we had to know the names of seven generations of ancestors to get married in the traditional way.”

I felt like politely letting her know that

1. my seven generations had nothing to do with my marriage (in fact, they have nothing to do with anything as they are all dead, except my father),

2. that I despised all things traditional in general and marriages in particular,

3. anyway, I didn’t wish to marry- not anytime soon at any rate, and not ever, preferably, and,

4. I didn’t care two hoots about what things were like when she was a girl- I mean, who really cares about those flowery shirts, sideburns and bell-bottom trousers today, except some gay designer on a retro trip (not that I have anything against gays or designers on retro trips).

I didn’t tell her so because-

1. I wanted to ask for leave after a few days

2. Also because I didn’t want to do more duties living in the dingy quarter allotted to me in this godforsaken hellhole- something she may be inclined to award me for being so cavalierly candid (that’s where I’m furiously typing away this rant right now) and

3. Actually because you don’t say such things to your boss unless you’ve your resignation letter clutched in your sweaty hand and a better job awaiting you elsewhere.

I merely tried to string up my facial features into a slightly politely apologetic look as suitable compensation for my ignorance.

But the boss was in a relentless mood today. She first told me, and the presidentji, which branch of Ahom king’s family she was descended from. She then went on to enumerate the whole of her family ancestry with all the branches and wherever the people migrated, stopping just short of providing me the phone numbers of all the people who were in her family that, I was beginning to doubt, contained half the state’s population.

By the end of it, I was truly regretting my ignorance of my family tree.

I silently cursed my parents who never thought it important enough to tell me because had I known, I’d not have had to suffer this taxonomic torture and I’d have had such a potent weapon of aural agony to inflict on people while telling them about my family tree.

The patients I’ve been seeing at my new workplace too haven’t yet stopped asking me when I’ve joined here and where I’m from. It’s a small place where everyone knows everyone else and I think I’ll have to keep answering this question till everyone gets to know me.

They also ask another question- what I am.

Here the ‘what’ usually implies my caste or community. The question isn’t always direct, it is couched in different forms- some ask what my ‘full’ name is (“Phukon? Ok, so it’s the Ahom Phukon, isn’t it?”), some ask what my parents are (somehow I find this even more irritating than asking me what I am).

Though they don’t say so, I can see the signs of relief on their faces (their thoughts probably go like- OK, Assamese- Hindu- Ahom- mmm…from snooty Dibrugarh, but otherwise OK, isn’t he?) when they hear my answers and somehow that makes me even angrier.

Now, why do I get angry?

Why I get angry about when questioned about my ethnicity and religious leanings can be summed up in one sentence-“Why do you care what I am? And what will you do if I’m not like you?” (that became two sentences, actually, but hell, its my blog, so I'll allow you to make allowances for me)

What if I’m not Ahom?

What if I’m not Assamese?

What if I do not “originally” hail from the state of Assam?

What if I’m not Hindu?

What if I’m not Indian?

What?

Would that make me less or more of a human in your eyes somehow? Does belonging to the same ethnicity /caste /religion /region/ whatever- the- fuck- social- geographical- division guarantee some sort of magical connection between two people by virtue of which they can reach an instant high of shared interests?

Well, I beg to differ. I may also add, with utmost politeness, that if somebody thinks otherwise, it is highly moronic.

(This post was written, as one can easily guess, in a fit of anger after a particularly tedious exchange with my superiors at the workplace back in February or so, I guess. In keeping with the mood, the writing is mostly shitty here. If it looks unfinished and unpolished, it actually is- I never got around to edit it again. It never turned out the way I wanted it to sound and over time, I forgot how exactly I wanted it to sound. So we end up with this crap.)

Gladiator

Simranjeet's 'Asterix the Gladiator' had no cover. So I did this.

Miss Messy Hair In Fishtail City

Well, for once I'll cut the crap and let the picture do the talking.

Just for the record, I met Miss Messy Hair (especially messy in the morning) in Pokhara. She wasn't very happy with the pic though- said it wasn't raamro.

Happiness For Thirty Rupees (Phuchkas And Coffee For Free); And A Phone Call To Round Things Off.

Happiness

Another evening all by myself and the blues got the better of me today. Flat mate off to meet his parents who’re back from holiday so he left me alone- well, can’t blame him and I do deserve this for leaving him all by himself and going home a few days ago when we got the study leave for PG entrance exams (in which I didn’t study at all).

I didn’t crack the state PGs.

Wasn’t meant to, with my level of non-preparation, anyway.

It is depressing.

Of course, one would say.

But its not so because I wanted a seat in Assam PG entrance exams (oh, come on, sour grapes, one would exclaim). No, really, I didn’t. because I’d supposedly have had to spend five years after the PG in some godforsaken rural hellhole, had I got through and did PG in Assam. I don’t want to do that, not now, while I still have other options left and am not desperate enough.

Not yet.

I’m depressed because it’d have been fun to crack it and refuse a seat.

The only way I can explain this apparent nonsense is by taking the analogy of a girl you don’t want to date but are crushed when she says its she who doesn’t want to date you.

Totally smashes your ego.

Anyway, so I was trying to fend off the blues dragging my feet around town (with the weight of a night-journey and a night-duty tied to my shoes) and caught myself staring at the neon-sign of a wine-shop.

A beer¹ would be fine, said a part of my brain, very soberly.

Two would be better, said a even more sober voice from another part.

Three… started another very very sober soul , when a firmer voice interrupted the sober voices. Drinking all by oneself, it screamed inside my head, is the first sign of your severe depression. Stop it right there, you unhappy moron, it barked at me from inside my own head (being called a moron by someone inside your head feels very weird and very annoying).

So I stopped.

And tried to gather my wits about myself.

That’s when I spotted the phuchkawallah. And had the phuchkas². Ten of them and I already felt my nerves jerked halfway back to normality with the sour-hot aftertaste of the junk I’d had. Feeling the chili burn my tongue, I looked around for something to drink, refusing the water offered by the phuchkawallah (greedily gobbling up the phuchkas despite the dirt but refusing the water because it may be dirty- quite an example of health hypocrisy on my part).

Saikia Sweets was nearby and I went in and asked for a hot cup of creamy coffee (their specialty). Sipping the coffee and feeling the thing warmly soothe my innards and kick start my dazed brain, I looked at the yellow and white lights of the bazaar and mused over my luck- another nine months in the block PHC seeing hick hypochondriacs (yes, I do shamelessly generalize, so?)- battling loneliness. At least I didn’t have to make the hard choice to take up or leave a PG seat now- my measly marks did that for me³.

I looked around the serving kids (damn! -they are always kids who serve) in their colorful graffiti-ed t-shirts, at the traffic and life moving outside the shop, going about their works and lives as if the world depended on it.

Ants in an anthill.

So pointless.

So pointless.

And suddenly I started laughing inwardly at the absurdity of it all- almost choking on the caffeine. I shook my head. The way a cat tries to shake off water from its ears after coming out of water it’s accidentally fallen into⁴. I smiled, ignoring the rather ponted stares if the kid serving coffee (-always a frigging kid-). The coffee slowly did away the blues and by the last sip the yellow lamps around looked almost moderately cheerful- like a newlywed bride married off to a stranger who she doesn’t know but who looks good.

I paid for the coffee and picked up some hot buns, and a pack of almond chocolate. On the walk back to my bike, I smiled at the approaching traffic policeman, looking fat and greasy with the day’s bribes. He stopped and smiled back. And didn’t ask me to show my bike’s documents⁵, perhaps he was too full with bribes for the day, or maybe I looked to cheerful to ask for a bribe.

I laughed at the neon-signs at the wine-shop as I drove past them. Some other time, the many sober voices inside me ruefully agreed amongst themselves. But I rode on, smiling broadly, and peacefully.

I’d heard a song somewhere once, it went something like ‘Money for nothing and chicken for free’ or something similar. I felt close to that.

Happiness for thirty rupees. And phuchkas and coffee for free.

The Phone Call

Back at the room, I turned on all the lights, switched on the laptop and hummed a tune⁶ untying my shoelaces as the machine took its time booting up. The phone rang.

Blackgames calling.

“Hello,” I said, cheering up more.

“Ho ho ho. What the rank, man?”, he asked, doing his usual bit to mongrelize the Queen’s language (our regular pastime⁷).

“Ho ho ho”, I replied in like, not to be outdone, “rank’s five hundred something something”.

“Ah-ha!!”, he gloated, “See, you get no seat, and I’m gloating at that,” he gloated on, a trifle self-evidently (rather direct, he is, subtlety is not one of Black’s vices).

“Ah-ha”, I retorted, still not outcooled, “I get no seat and save five years of my youth from rural service.”

“Oh,” he said, sobering up a little, “hadn’t thought of that”.

“Yeah,’ I said, “you bet”.

“Awright! Lucky bastard ye, then! Whatsup?”

“Nothing much, undoing laces.”

“Of some chick’s pants?” (aw, Black, he’s incorrigible.)

“No, of my dirty shoes.”

“Dirty shoes? Dirty boy.” (really incorrigible.)

“Check out my blog,” I said, adding a bit of shameless self-publicity in the conversation, “another stale post⁸.”

“All right, will do. Keep the things moving till then (I could almost see him wink and give his Wicked Blackgames Smile^TM at me with this innuendo of his). Cheerio!” he signed off.

Cheerio. Yeah…

I smiled and put on my pajamas.

And then typed this.

(I wrote this on 2nd of February but was unable to post because of a glitch in the server, so its a bit stale. Its also a bit personal, but I'm publishing it anyway.

1. The sober voice suggested a Haywards 500.

2. Phuchkas (for those unacquainted with Indian street food) are a kind of small hollow fries stuffed with a masala made of chickpeas, potato-mash and other things I don’t exactly know about. Its then served filled with a spicy tamarind-chili water. Its considered rather unhygienic by some, but loved by most (including some who consider it unhygienic and so have to have it with dollops of guilt pangs).

3. That is, they decided that I wouldn’t be doing it at the moment.

4. You have to own a cat and see it to know how funny it is. I do it to my cat sometimes- pretty mean, I know, but then I do warm it up afterwards and feed it the choicest fish bits in penance.

5. Which I wasn’t carrying, by the way.

6. Tequila Sunrise by Eagles. I think I may become a dipsomaniac one day, if I’m not too careful.

7. Black and I once exchanged messages which went something like this:-

Black- "We are doing mother-sister same of this English language, no?"

Me- "Yes, we doing that only, and trying to beat the language’s backside, no?"

(I would have told you exactly what we meant, but its rather unprintable stuff and so you’ll have to work it out yourself.)

8. Police Baazar Irregulars.

Children, Love and Two Deaths

"You need a license to drive, you need a license to fish, but any lousy arsehole can be a father."

-Keanu Reeves in the movie Parenthood.

I recently read in the papers about the kidnapping and murder of a young girl and the subsequent death of her father, when he heard the news of her death, by heart attack (myocardial infarction, in doc-speak). I'd spare you the gory details, the papers, and news channels too (probably, I don't know for sure 'cause I don't watch them), are full of them.

This got me thinking.

I have never contemplated having children (those of you sniggering at that remark and saying things like- "Kids? Hey, you're a kid yourself!", kindly shut your mouths). I have actually given some thought to it, thanks to the images of a happy family in the future put forward to me by my lover. They never fail to evoke horror on my part. For me, having, and rearing children sounds an ordeal so great that I don't really think I'll ever be ready for it.

I mean just consider the facts.

Having them is a great ordeal in the first place (except for those few minutes of hormone fuelled frenzied activity at the start, maybe). Starting from that Pregcolor card test to endless check-ups, examinations, tests, worries, morning sickness, food fetishes, (also, on a minor point, the loss of further frenzied, hormone-fuelled activity, maybe for ever)- the list only ends in that seriously scary moments of delivery of the baby (funny, I never felt really scared while delivering all those babies, but when I think of myself in the parents' place- I just don't want to be there somehow).

Then starts the other lists- baby food, baby care, diapers, the works. I wonder how parents survive, despite all the love they may have for their newborn.

Then comes rearing the kid up, making a human out of him from a complete animal (come on, the newborn is an animal- it's just as capable (maybe lesser) in helping itself as a newborn puppy). This is the part which really gives me the creeps. How can I make it a responsible, sensible, caring, intelligent individual with my measly man-managing skills. And if I make a mistake or many mistakes rather, as I sure will, what if I make a complete hash of that human being, who I (and another) were solely responsible for bringing in this earth?

I don't think I'll ever have it in me to be a good parent, and I think those who cannot be good parents shouldn't be parents at all. I think it'll certainly do away with more than half of what's wrong in this world.

(Do I hear howls of protest? Or a lynch mob approaching me? Well, you can always differ, this is what I think, you're welcome to your opinion.)

So back to the girl. The incident made me think- how much would one have to love one's child to drop dead at the news of her getting hurt or killed. I read in the reports that the father, a liquor baron down south, had offered to do anything- anything- to secure the safety of his girl.

Call me selfish and heartless for saying so, but it made me marvel at the amount of love one can have for one's child.

I'm not sure if that man was a good father or if he would have made the child grow up into a sensible, loving and intelligent human being (something tells me he would have), but I was deeply moved by the news of this twin murder.

I just hope that no father, however incompetent as a parent) has to endure what he endured.

And that someone shoots the bastards who did it, and does it fast.

With all due respect to the justice system in India, some people do not deserve to live after a certain limit.