A Place not for Grown Ups

(Dedicating this post to Vanity Moments, which completed 5 years on 24th July 2012)

Contest Entry for Indian Bloggers League
Genre: Fantasy Fiction
Topic: A City That Vanishes
Result: Third Prize
I habitually compel myself to stop looking back at my olden days, and concentrate on the present instead. But, I can’t deny the fact that the memories about my past had given me flashes of inspiration for writing. Childhood days are sweet and the memories are awe inspiring; but we couldn't be so sure that if we were enjoying childhood to the fullest when we were children. Only when we surpass the childhood days, with numbness in hearts, we come to think about the beauty that we missed so cruelly, by becoming grownups. 

During my childhood, I hardly found kids of my age in my neighborhood, and even if there were a few, my conquering shyness hadn’t permitted me to mingle with them freely. Being senior to me by many years, my elder sister found herself more comfortable in the company of the elderly kind than the kiddos. Her neglectfulness left my younger sister and me alone as the mutual resort to build friendship. I don’t know to what extent the zodiac signs say truth; however, possibly due to the incompatible zodiac signs we had, my younger sister and myself remained foes more time than we stayed friends. 

Often imaginary friends are created when you are alone and lonely. Guess I was an aberration for I had siblings, still our infantile imaginations went fertile and we both had imaginary friends. My sister found her accomplice in a male character with traits assimilated from the people whom she found around us.  She had named him- ‘He’.  And finally the day had arrived when I discovered ‘He’.

She, ‘Him’ and I became friends. We played, quarreled, and even climbed the tree together. And then I brought my “special” friend too. So we were a lousy gang of four. From four, we became fourteen and more. This is the story of our virtual world, where we would often escape in sans computers sans artificial Intelligence. Just like my sister and me, our characters also followed a similar friendship tradition and they assisted us often in our childhood adventures. Though most often remained truthful, there were instances during our games when these characters went into hiding and got themselves involved in some mischievous activities. We both embarked on journeys through foreign countries, jungles, oceans and even through alien lands, in search of our characters and found them at last. They apologized for their mistakes and became virtuous again.

Kids, who involve in such dramatic games, naturally require more characters. So, that was how our next characters took birth. Some were very robust people, who could have fought with elephants. Others were really able to make themselves bigger by just the intake of fresh air. Our next characters included elderly people and little kids. Some parents needed someone to look after their kids because of their routine jobs. Though we were the creators of all these people, we decided to nurse those little kids, giving due respect to their parenthood.

Our place was turning into an enormous metropolitan. We were flabbergasted seeing our imagination setting up a large city with lots of queer looking buildings, sightseeing places, rivers and rivulets, mountains and hill sides, along with lot of harmless wild animals who were able to communicate in human language. Regardless of our position as the rulers, we both decided to undertake a regular job. Policing was most preferred through which, we could have fought against the criminals in our place. We set our police station below the mango tree in our homestead. Sitting on top of our rock made seats, we both attended telephone calls from our spies. As soon as we received secret information about ongoing criminal activities, we prepared our police force, and attacked those lurking enemies in ambush, and killed many of them through hours’ long gunfight and bombing. . 

I can present a picture in words, if you require a layout of the city. Occupied by buildings, houses, streets, parks, offices, bridges, and all such things that could contribute to its autonomy, the city was dispersed over a huge valley surrounded by deep-blue mountains. In the suburbs, a small community of hapless people lived called ‘The Poor’. These poor people always were under the threat of the ‘Burglars’, who lived in the hiding of the mountains. ‘The Poor’ always needed our help to save themselves from the Burglars. Apart from punishing the burglars, we helped ‘The Poors’ financially also, as our city was brimming with riches. 

In the middle of everything, there situated our house. A protection house in actuality, properly named ‘The Fire House’. An outsider could see the house all the time surrounded by fire. We designed our house for the thieves to always view it as burning in fire, at the same time, the affable see a normal house. I still do not know the science behind such an innovative concept. 

That was how we lived. Visiting the elderly in the city, attending the classes conducted by teachers invented by us with funny names, and sometimes fighting the ‘Burglars’. As we grew older, new characters originated in our city and new buildings were constructed. 

But, we were becoming really busy with our real life affairs. When we were matured enough, we both went out of that world, finding new friends of our kind. When the sparks of memories regarding our secret friends and the city flashed in my thoughts, I used to murmur to my sister those funny names of our characters with a smile. If we were sitting amidst the elder ones in our family, we exchanged glances with a hidden smile communicating that “don’t-tell-it” message in sign language.

Days, weeks, months, and years long separation from the secret place and our secret friends made us forget them almost. Initially when thoughts about them occurred in my mind, I used to smile at my nonage stupidity. But later, when I felt the growing maturity and the characteristics of adulthood as a curse, I seriously began to miss those places and characters. 

“Ah, I am not remembering even the names of some of my characters,” painfully, I thought.

Fearing the loss of our old city, one day I confessed to my sister.

“We let slip memory of our place. Our friends will be missing us. Don’t you want to go back there and see how do those little kids now look like? What if the ‘Burglars’ are still torturing those poor people? The granny who stays alone in her two storied building would scold us!”

She agreed. So, we both visited our old city once again after a long gap. But everything was in a diminishing state. In our imagination, the buildings appeared as if they were in the edge of wipeout. Still we wandered through the streets, chatting with everyone whom we met on the streets, visiting old people, and making friends with ‘Burglars’ and ‘The Poor’ alike. We visited our old classrooms where we once made fun of our teachers, supported by the liberty of our ruler ship. Our first characters rejoiced on our return, though they were disappointed with our absence. Moreover, we were not able to visualize them as vividly as we had done during the former days. And the most painful part was that we couldn’t find that place as funny as we had envisioned them before. 

“We need to revamp the city”, I told her.

“Yes”, she admitted.

We agreed upon the decision to be frequent there from the next day onwards. 

“We have to rebuild the place, brother”, she asserted, “with more beautiful buildings”.  She said and continued, “We need to plant forests in the middle of it, so that animals can walk through it freely and don’t you think we need to set up more swings in the park for the kids?,” She said before leaving the place. But, we knew that we wouldn’t be returning back to our old hangout as we both had worldly ambitions, and dreams. 

We never returned to that place. Today, whenever I go back to my home, I wish to imagine the old places again, though with a secret smile. I crave for talking to those old characters in that casual manner, and chase away one more time the Burglars and fantasy creatures from attacking the city. But, being a matured one, all those nonage plays are a taboo now. My helplessness is aggravating but there is no way around to the land where my distant memories reside.

"This post has been published by me as a part of IBL; the Battle of Blogs, sponsored by WriteupCafe.com. Join us at our official website and Facebook page.www.indianbloggersleague.com, www.facebook.com/IndianBloggersLeague“

Cat Story

(I am very much embarrassed to write on such an insignificant topic. But as of now, I have no other topics currently running in my mind)

Let me start with those usual lamentations about my nearly forgotten days from the past. But hopefully, nowadays I think I don’t need to invoke the attention of muses of my olden days to get written a chapter of my life. Unlike my old day posts, majority of which dealt with memories of past years, my recent posts have started brimming with exciting and remarkable memories of my present day life. 

For instance, today what I have in mind to offer you is some memorable moments that I spent with a cat, and the story does not end there simply, but it gets built up only when you come to know that those moments are the ones neatly stolen from my office time. Office and cat? Doesn’t sound like a nice combination, does it? But, I had already told you about a detective story in which a mouse played the role of the main protagonist. That too happened at my office. So, a story in which cat plays the bigger part can also be considered for the plot of another story, especially since cats are the favorite pets of humans.

When my colleague informed us about a cat that was caught trapped alone on a parapet of the second story of our four storied office building, we first mocked her by citing the well known saying about cats. As per the proverb in Malayalam, a cat would always land on its four legs, irrespective of the way it falls. Cat’s this innate ability to orient itself while falling is known among the zoologists by the term Cat Righting Reflex. But the next day also when she reported the pathetic plight of the cat with no one to rescue, we felt also sympathy. Science and Proverbs could make mistakes at times, we thought.

“I put some biscuits on the parapet to feed it. Or the poor thing will starve to death. No idea about how it got trapped on there!”, she said.

We decided to have a look at it. “If I can stand on my feet on the parapet, I will make a try to rescue it,” Saying so I headed to the balcony of the second floor to have a peep. We saw the cat on the parapet eating the biscuits. There was a small room close to balcony. I entered into the room and there was a window through which one could have climbed down to land safely on the parapet.

I thought about my childhood days. My elder sister used to criticize me for behaving cruelly to our domestic cat. Though I don’t remember exactly those incidents, as she had tried to recollect me, I used to throw our cat whenever I felt angry at her, because it was she who brought the cat from our ancestral home. 

Seeing the trapped cat on the parapet, I thought about rescuing it, if it could give me salvation from the sins that I might have committed to our pet cat. With the support of my colleagues I climbed down through the window and finally landed on the parapet safely. 

Terrified by seeing me, the cat tried to move away. There were two condensers on the corner of the parapet. The cat tried to hide itself behind those condensers. But when I tried to catch it, it tried to jump from there. I planned to play nice to the cat. Picking up two biscuits from the ground, and sitting down, I tried to attract the attention of the cat imitating the sound of the common house hold lizard by twisting my tongue and letting air pass out through mouth.

When I patted on its head, it tried to attack me by raising its hind leg. My colleagues and some more people who followed them were watching the entire activity by standing on the balcony. They tried to prevent me from getting cat scratches. So, I stopped my attempt to rescue it and climbed up back through the window. We also reported about the trapped cat to the supervisor and hoped that he would do something for the rescue of the cat.

After lunch, the supervisor came to our section and told us that the cat was not trapped there. It had given birth to some kitten and was living with them peacefully under the condenser till they find a better place to stay.

My Hairy Ambitions

Tresses, curls, love locks, braids, or plaits; every language has more words than enough to help you become poetic about your hair. If I say that the stories about long hair are mostly associated with females, I guess I will be finding only a negotiable number of counter arguments.  If you look at ‘his’tory’, you could see that most number of stories portraying hair are her stories. Well, there you could see some exceptions as well, like Samson the Jew in Bible, whose long hair had attributed greater strength to his physique which helped him to fight the Philistines successfully. 

Long-haired Samson fighting a Lion

 But when I start to write about hair, I can envision some brilliant faces in front of their computer screens pose that ‘how come he also gets licensed to write about hair’ kind of frowns. Well, in this scenario, what I can do is only to make you informed about the fact that my hair too is getting longer, of course with my complete knowledge. It is true that I had never thought about myself as a kind of guy who grows his hair, or the one who loves to flaunt an ‘I don’t care’ wry smile. But somehow it happened. Finding me in a kind of quandary with my disobedient hair, the guy of that chic beauty salon, during one of my occasional visits suggested me to grow hair till a 'something-is-doable' stage. I hesitated a bit, and tried to put forward some counter arguments; but he insisted me to keep my hair uncut for at least a few months.

I returned home with a mixed emotion. Actually, I was happy with his suggestion to grow hair, but since I am a corporate guy, means a guy who earns his livelihood by working for corporates, I was a bit doubtful about the resistances that my decision could have brought forward. However, I decided to go on with my instincts, rather than the emotions.

When I said long hair, I didn't mean 'very' long

But as my hair started to grow, I began to face some problems also. The foremost of them was its lack of flexibility. If I tried to adjust it with comb, some upright hair made my head appear very awkward with their dispersed and unshapely nature. I solved this problem with a deviated hair style, the curly one, which I adopted after giving my ears to the suggestion of the guy at the salon one more time, and after becoming a consumer of a pack of his three products, a specially prepared oil (as he claimed), a protector and a shampoo. Even though, initially my colleagues and friends had difficulty in accepting my new style, my unchanged nature, decisiveness had made them accept me the way I was. So, with growing the hair, I tried different styles, like curling up, curling down, combing back, flaunting the forehead, etc.. But the second problem had some gruesome effects, which made me reconsider my decision to grow hair.

A proud owner of curls

The second problem started with the hair-fall. As the hair was growing old and longer, I happened to notice some single curly hairs scattered all across the thinking corner in my room. With the passing of the days, I witnessed the number of hairs falling a day is getting increased. That was horrible! A kind of scare I had never experienced at least for the last two or three years! I woke up during my sleeps seeing a hairless me posing a threatening grin. My unskilled knowledge in psychology told me that I was seeing such dreams only because my subconscious mind tried to block my conscious attempts to go beyond the permitted limit of stylishness as per the conservative norms. My scientific reasoning helped me to stop seeing such awful dreams, but the problem of hair-fall continued with the same threatening degree.

I was afraid of becoming hairless. And I thought about retreating from my ambition of becoming a free-spirited man with long hair. Moreover, the young chap at the nearby hairdressing centre warned me of the difficulties of long hair. Hair-fall is the main thing, but he prescribed 'henna' treatments once in a month as a remedy, which is his area of expertise. However, I tried to adopt a different method. I happened to see a commercial of an oil product in TV, in which a young gent shows more aggressiveness and confidence only because of his long hair. The commercial ends with a note to become confident with grown hair. So, I tried it and awaited results. But, destiny played another brilliant part. Through a friend, it got me acquainted with Doves Style+Care Nourishing Curls Whipped Cream Mousse, and which was the best thing ever happened in the history of my hair. Now it protects my hair from hair fall, and gives my curls acceptance and appeal everywhere.

My memories go back to my good old college days when I successfully encountered a similar kind of hair problem. I was in a traumatic kind of feeling regarding my hair at that time. Since my hair was not adaptive to any of those trendy styles, I had to think about keeping my hair shorter as long as possible. Being a boy who never had a habit of approaching hair specialists, I was not lucky enough at that time to acquaint with Dove's specialised therapies. The local hair dresser was not helpful enough to make my hairy wishes come true. Finally I asked him to cut it maximum short so that my head would look like an egg (teenage craziness). He did not! So I went home and practiced on my head using a shaving set. The result was something shocking, and was enough to shake my mental stability. I lost the complete hair on a circular shaped part on my head where I applied the shaving set. Now, I had only one option, and I did it with complete interest and excitement which made me a local eye candy for some days. You want to know what I did? Well, I simply went to the same hair dresser, uncovered my head by removing the kerchief, and showed him the pathetic situation of my head. Seeing this, he agreed to shave off all the hair on my head, and that was the end of my hair problems.

This is written as my entry to the 'My Beautiful Hair Story' contest organised by Dove and Indiblogger

A Sleepy Investigation, Passion-filled

When someone who writes about his own (well, I’m using ‘he’ in the coming sentences, hope my female readers won’t mind) personal experiences suddenly happens to stop writing one day, readers ask, why? Because, either he feels his experiences as no more enjoyable, or he might have finished telling every story or experience that he knows. If so, he can start a literary journey through the narratives of his friends and familiar persons. What if that portion also is empty? One option is to imagine things, and start writing about made up characters and experiences that you want to happen in your own life, and that is what you call fiction. But my opinion is different. If you are not mature enough to write fiction, deep look into your own dreams, and start writing about the mesmerizing world that you see in them. By the term ‘dream’, I don’t mean the more generic idea pertaining to your hopes or ambitions about your future. But, I mean what you see in your sleep; yes, the wonderful world of dreams.

So, today I also have a dream to narrate, which I had seen some years back, during the end of my school days or on the beginning of my college days. In my dream, you won’t believe, I was investigating a crime. Yes, I was a detective, a matured, muscular and charming sleuth, just like James Bond. Why James Bond? Well, I won’t compare that character with Sherlock Holmes, because I was more like a romantic guy in my dream.

A series of murders took place in a village, and I was on a secret mission to identify the murderer. Nobody in the village knew about my mission. But, somehow they accepted me and trusted me as one among them. Many of the occupants of the place were my acquaintances from the real life. That too might have helped me to find them in my dream with full of acceptance for me.

I met a girl there and we became friends very soon. During the progress of our friendship, I revealed her the real intention of my visit. Knowing my mission and secrets, she assured me that she would help me, and associated with me during various phases of my investigation, supplying valuable information and clues.

Gradually, we found ourselves falling in love mutually. We began to mingle freely, when we were alone, without any inhibition. I had touched her, and had experienced her soothing touch, her womanly feel, and that sense and scent of womanhood, physically and mentally. I still remember that exciting ecstatic experience which I felt when she put her beautifully curved bosom close to my chest.  Well, let us stop it here; I don’t want to sound like an adult writer.

My allotted time for the mission was closing to its end. I was slowly uncovering the secrets behind the serial murders. But, when I dug deeper and deeper, some shocking truths surfaced. I identified the real murderer. When I collected and grouped all the clues together, all of the evidences pointed to one person, yes, it was her, my companion girl. That was a really shocking finding. The love, and the passion which I had in my mind for her began to put on a very different attire, it was slightly transforming into hatred, disgust, fear, or some other emotion which I couldn’t explain. I recollected the private moments which I had shared with her. The moments when our hearts touched each other, when my chest felt the beats of her curvaceous bosom! Memories about those moments were terror filled, and horrific. But still touched by her love, and by the sweet memories with her, I had fallen in a deep pit of hesitation regarding what stand should I take about the findings.

The dream ends here. But, later, when I happened to see a regional movie titled ‘Avano Atho Avalo?’, (My translation, ‘He or She?’) on the TV, I was surprised. It had the same plot of my dream. Don’t think the film makers were inspired from my dream. Because, that film was made quite earlier even before I was born. And the actor who portrayed the lead role, named Jayan, the first action hero of Malayalam, who fascinated the audience with his charming spirit and excellence in action scenes, had died while shooting a stunt scene for a film, in an air crash; that too happened prior to my birth. And you can’t also blame me for stealing the themes for my dreams from films. Because, I hadn’t seen the movie, during the time when this dream took place.

In Pictures:

Picture 1: Pierce Brosnan as James Bond - A promotional still from Golden Eye (1995)

Picture 2: Yesteryears' Malayalam Action Hero, Jayan.