And she was gone…

My brother’s words were fast disappearing into a haze. I was finding it tough to reply even in monosyllables. I knew I should have stayed. I wanted to go back. I asked him if we should. I knew I wasn’t asking but letting him know I wanted to go back. And we turned back. But, we were late for she had left already.

                But her charming smile and exuberant words did not.  My brother continued licking the melting ice cream and I sipped another ounce of lassi. There were still a few customers in the shop we bought our delicacy from. My searching eyes were still surveying for the angel who had stopped me when we came out with the ice-cream from the shop.  “Anna” said the little one, her height barely touching my hips, gesturing at my brother’s chocolate ice-cream asked “ Yeshtu anna ee ice-creamu?”. While I did pay the cash myself, which in itself is a rare occurrence as my friends and parents would testify willingly I did not know the exact price of frozen beauty. I hunted for the price of my modest lassi in the packet to deduce the price of the ice cream. Sherlockesque Rahul, you might say.  As I struggled to locate the price of lassi, perhaps impatience got the better of her. Or she thought my ears were of an old man. “Adhu alla anna, ice-cream yeshtu antha keludhe? “, said she with the brightest of smiles I have ever seen. There was something smart about her. In a green coloured gown, and a black bag resting on her shoulders her smiling face refuses to desert me yet. Even the grumpiest of birds ought to smile back. And so I did and with an extra sense of urgency, I did the calculations. “Adhe adhe, eepathondhu ruppay” (Twenty one rupees) I said. And she smiled again. I did too.

               Barely had I managed to cross the road, there was a bigger thought that crossed my head, did I walk away soon? Was she a little girl who had fifteen rupees and wanted the ice-cream badly? And my brother asked, why did she ask you da? Yes, why did she ask me? Should I have waited to see what she did? Were her parents waiting nearby in a car who would buy her, her coveted dream?  Her bag suggested she was alone.  Rarely does regret fill in you in such unexpected circumstances. I knew were late. Yet, we turned back. My worst fears came true. The little princess had walked away with a broken heart perhaps. She was not to be seen in the shop.

               Of what use were the thousands in the bank if I could not make a little girl’s day? Very seldom, do we have chances to make such a difference in a day of people’s lives. I had a chance today. And I missed it.  How I regret it! And with my brother, we trundled along back home. The ice-cream in his hands had not yet melted, my heart had.

B grade

-->

As a child, when I was asked to write an essay on “Myself”, I could fill up sheets, or atleast lines about myself with ease. However, yesterday when I was trying to fill my bio in a popular so called social networking site, I could not manage a word. And I thought, maybe a couple of lines were not enough to describle someone as dynamic, as charming, as smart, as witty as me!

Or did I? A little more introspection, a couple of cups of coffee later, another long ride without the phone disturbing me I realized, perhaps my life was drowned in the large ocean of medioricity that the most apt bio would be “Just another guy!”. Back when I was a kid, my world was too small to realize it. My world was amma, appa and me. My cousins were yet to be born. I was my parent's world too. That was when I thought I was maybe, different and even better than others. Learning to write “A” would have made my parents so proud of me.

A couple of years later, when I learnt to read faster than others, I wondered if I was perhaps a little different, or even better than others! Those were the days, when in a film I only saw the hero and the villian. Romance made no sense to me. Comedy only understood in parts. And immediately, I could put myself into the hero's shoes.I could see myself coming out victorious in every battle that I fought. Only the villians changed. When I saw cricket, I imagined myself as Sachin pounding bowlers all over the park.When I saw Cartoons, I was Mowgli. I was the hero.

As time passes by, you realize not everyone is a hero in life. Some of the characters just make up a movie. The hero's brother, the villian's sidekick who goes to fight with the hero only to land up in a fruit stall with a broken nose, the friendly shop owner in the film, the doctor, the onlooker on the street. It is only now I realize, I am one of these characters. And am sure, there are many others who too play similar roles. Infact, most people in this world play these characters. We live for those two minutes in a three hour film when we get our friends to the theatre to excitedly show them our role which never altered the script of the movie. Far later, when the lights are off and we can listen to our voice carefully, there is a slow voice telling, You cannot rest my boy! Yes, your role does not alter the movie and that is why you should not rest. There is always someone else to play yours! The hero can rest.

In a college, the A graders are the cynosure of teacher's eyes, subjects of envious glances from peers and well respected. There is also a another group which sits in the last row usually bunking classes and make their presence felt in the only way that they know when they are present. While the intended target of their paper rockets might be the lecturer, they actually hit the girl's hearts with undiluted precision. Most of them are also good in all matters outside classroom. But there is the overwhelming majority like me who lay trapped somewhere in middle. Not the best in studying. There is always this cousin who is better than you in Math, the friend whose English speech is notches above your writing skill, the neighbour who codes stuff for which you took ages and the batchmate who makes you look a fool on the football ground.

But, as I write this, I seem to have found a new found identity for myself. I am the B grader, and a perennial one at it. That guy with spectacles, who makes his way into the class five minutes before it starts, understands a little, goes to play only to concede a stupid goal, that guy whose code you can bet never is the most efficient. That guy, who is omnipresent in every class., I am the B grade boy. After all, for every Sachin Tendulkar, that are nine Sanjay Bangars toiling away in a nondescript ground somewhere in Rajkot.

To love or to not to.

"Any intelligent fool can make things bigger and more complex... It takes a touch of genius --- and a lot of courage to move in the opposite direction." - Albert Einstein

If Noah Webster could browse the blogosphere today, the tubes in his thought machine would have probably suggested him to erase words, whose meanings have been thoroughly abused by the folks who sound English when their lips move and the fingers press. And probably, he would have had to stress himself to love love. Infinite reams of paper later, thousands of routers away, cultures which have heard of others only through the idiot speak, love is still spoken by all, understood by none.

Neither am I going to try to define love,even if you let me do it. Yet, love to me is belief. A belief which transcends the boundaries of logic and rationality, a belief more powerful than the mersmising words which teach you love. And belief in a human is a curve which wants to hug the ground every passing day.

I am a cricket fan. Long ago, when the only thoughts that disturbed the dance of cricket in my mind was the stick of my Hindi maam, when girls were “other” students in class, I loved cricket. Back then, when I didnt know what was form or class, I believed Srinath would hit a century every match. I loved Sachin off course, but that was not due to the majestic cover drive or the other worldly pulls. A reason for which I did not know the answer.Never, felt why I had to justify why i loved Sachin.

Sometimes, when we are drowning in the sea of pessimism, which we so easily mistake it to be the river of statistics, logic and common sense, to see the day is refreshing. Makes you feel, there is life outside the sea too, where you can mistakes and still live. One such day was 72 hours ago. Down under, dusted, obituaries written, the bodies of the once revered Indian superstars were waiting to be recieved in the Indira Gandhi National airport New Delhi. To say,they rose like the phoenix from the ashes would be cliched. It was something else. I had to bribe myself to believe that this was the same team which was so pathetic.

While, the logicians and experts will formulate a theory to confine the Indian victory to their words, I am happy to believe. Love, i thought is similar. It was as simple as the game played on Hobart soil. Sometimes, its good to grow young. Throw a tantrum. Love someone. Tell her the same. Its a new sun that rises everyday. Forget the dark moon which engulfed you yesterday night.

To live, you have to love, to beleive.