Ta-da, ta-da, ta-da :-)

And the next issue of Alvibest is warming up to be served with your beverages and biscuits one fine morning in the 1st week of November (and its nice that a week, nowadays, has 20 days ;-)

Some excerpts (and more shall arrive later) have been put up on Alvibest's official blog
Subscribers have been notified and some addresses have turned out to be invalid. We would request all those subscribers who haven't received a mail from the Editor to provide a valid email address to subscribe.alvibest@gmail.com

Looking forward to an interesting issue... :-)

Clockwork

They stared at him as he walked towards the private ward with a familiar mantelpiece clock in his hands. Her mother rose to her feet and shook her head as she held back tears behind a strained and convoluted visage. He kept walking towards them.
"Vijay, don't go in there. You know..."
He knocked on the door and walked in. She was lying there on the bed with the only coloured garment on her body being the bandages around her wrist. She seemed to be sleeping but he wasn't sure. She was often lost to this world while her eyes watched nothing and was in its midst with them shut. He placed the clock on the metal trolley and the slight clanging of metal against metal and the pendulum against the inner walls, bounced off all the hard surfaces,which now seemed to include her heart, in the room. She slowly opened her eyes and saw him. He gave her a brief smile before turning to key the clock. She pursed her lips and let it stretch into the most helpless smile she could ever conjure. He checked his watch and moved the hands on the clock. 5 minutes to 12.
He sat down beside her and breathed in deeply before letting his reluctant eyes slide down her arm. He had coined the word Marblesque for her skin.... and now it was stained, and so was her skin. He shuddered visibly before reaching out to touch her scars. Before he could touch them she let out an "Aaaaaah" and he recoiled, only to find her laughing softly before crystallising them into coughs and spasms. When he shot up to get her water,
she shook her head vigorously throwing coughs on either side.
"Why the clock, Vijay? You want to show me some new act in your play?"
He shook his head and said, "I can't write plays till you are back on stage."
Her face darkened under the clouds of untold memories, looming and rolling all around her, threatening to strike with the searing white streaks of passion best forgotten and drummed to the deafening beats of soft whispers that faceless mouths shout down hesitant, defeated hearts.
"Vijay, I cannot return to the stage. Never..."
And as the clock went BING---BANG for each hour that had passed, the conversed without moving their lips...
Why? ............................................................... Love
Why this? ............................................................... Hurts less
Than what? ............................................................... Life without him
But Life... ............................................................... Is him
Life is more ............................................................... Painful without him
Why hurt yourself? ............................................................... I can't feel it
Not worth it ............................................................... Nothing is
Living is ............................................................... Not anymore
People are ............................................................... Not anymore
Family is ............................................................... Not anymore
He isn't ............................................................... Always will be
Why? ............................................................... Love

tick-tock... tick-tock... tick-tock... tick-tock

A Journey Begins...

He thought it would be an ordinary journey. Standing behind the pillar he watched the train snort arrogantly into the station. With each snort he was reminded of his grandfather's words "You will fail in the city and return penniless"; with every heavenward whistle, he heard his cousin, "Don't worry. Come here and I will get you a job at the construction site." Now he had a 34-hour journey to prove one of them wrong, and he expected the excitement at the end of the journey. He looked at his ticket once again: compartment S9 berth 23.
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(Everything below the dashed line above should be copied and pasted with every accepted tag)

This is a Story Tree and is best nurtured as follows:
1. A blogger can add only 90-100 words (not more or less) at a time
2. All previous snippets of 90-100 words need to be copied before the new set of 90-100 words are appended.
3. Each entire snippet should be linked to the respective author (and not just the first sentence or so)
4. Characters, scenes, etc. can be introduced by an author
5. Bizarre twists, sci-fi, fantasy sequences are best avoided.
6. A tag must be accepted within 7 days else the branch is a dead branch
7. After appending 90-100, the Story Tree can be passed on to at most 3 bloggers.
8. If more than 1 branch leads to a blogger, s/he is free to choose any one of them but cannot mix the snippets of the individual branches.
9. The Story Tree is best left to grow than concluded
10. Please attach the image of the Story Tree below with each accepted tag (the link address can be copied and used).


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I would like to pass on the Story Tree to Meera, Anupama and Prabha.

Now they tell me....

Ever since kids made me realise it, I have been saying this for years and now they come up with this piece of information.
If you really want to learn something vital, go back to the early days!! :-D
Or better still spend a good amount of time with kids. They have so much to teach us... so much!

A verse: Lost and found

Another day of cleaning gave me a sly sheet of paper slipping out of my notebook. In the bottom right corner of the sheet I found this:

As unfortunate as it may seem,
As unfortunate as it may be.
I think of days of yester,
Of days with you and me.

Why doubt?

               Why do we
       doubt so much? So much
   that what remains of a relationship
is nothing more          than discordant threads
of suspicion and             remote possibilities heard
or read in a book.              Of people with many hidden
motives, shrewd                  designs and cunning wants.
But is that                       it?  Is the world full of
   only                             cunning motives and devious
                                      people? Is every strange
                                       smile on the road, every
                                       purposeless act of reaching
                                       out to someone, filled with
                                       ulterior motives? If I wish
                                       to help someone, must I have
                                       something to want in return
                                      of that service? Is it silly
                                     to do something without much
                                    to want in return? Is it so
                                   that flirting is the only
                                  reason for a girl to say
                                "Hi" to a guy or smile at
                              him? Or for a guy to call
                           upon a plan of a
                       casual meeting with
                     a girl? Whatever
                  happened to
               innocence?
             Is it a
             lost
             virtue?
             Or is
             it now
         
             simply
           impossible
         to be innocent?
          To reach out
            without
             wile?

Busy?

It is amazing how one can be so busy. No really. I have the great privilege of knowing so many busy people. They are always in a hurry, always rushing towards something, always working, always achieving, always running, always seeking, always faced with deadlines and rush hour traffic.... and I wonder whether I am doing something wrong. Whether I am the one who is doing something funny and missing the bigger picture, and I really ought to be busy when I am not. One tends to feel like one is talking to the passengers in a speeding train rushing through the station.
"Hey...whoosh... How....clackety-clack....are.....zooom.....you?.....eeeyyyaaaaaaaaaaaaaannnnn!!!

How long does it take to reply to an email?
How long does it take to stop by someone's desk and ask about their root canal surgery?
How long does it take to simply call someone and ask whether the honeymoon was great? (and then embarrass them with a hundred questions ;-)
How long does it take to call home and ask your family whether they had lunch/dinner?
How long does it take to make all that money again?
How long does it take to help your wife/mom clean after meals?
How long does it take to smile when you pass by?

I really don't know. It amazes me to watch people rushing through life and then complain that the end is too near. It is sad to watch people buy gifts and stuff but hardly have time to watch their loved ones wear/use those gifts. It makes me draw a deep breath when people talk such great things like empathy and compassion and all that bull-crap, but hardly seem to live it.
Things are invented to take the stress off people remembering things. Automated e-greetings, birthday reminders, alerts, Outlook scheduler... and we don't have time. I really think I am stupid. If everyone around me is so busy, then I am definitely stupid not to be busy, even when I am truly busy. Well, my busy-ness is surely my business... :-)
And you know what really gets me? When people around me try to convince me about how they are really packed and how that deadline is so vital and how pushing an elephant through the needle's eye is easier than squeezing an extra minute.
I wish someone would simply bend over and turn off the machine... a large scale power failure, a kid playing Lego in the middle of the road, a puppy sitting right in your line of view of the TV, credit cards not working, all business deals charged doubly to the parties who get it (now lets see who wants to clinch that one!), a straight 50 no-petrol days.... Hmmm. :-|

I am reminded of this song called Vienna...

Slow down you crazy child
You're so ambitious for a juvenile
But then if you're so smart tell me why
You are still so afraid?

Where's the fire, what's the hurry about?
You better cool it off before you burn it out
You got so much to do and only
so many hours in a day

But you know that when the truth is told
That you can get what you want
Or you can just get old
You're gonna kick off before you even get halfway through
When will you realize...Vienna waits for you

Slow down you're doing fine
You can't be everything you want to be
Before your time
Although it's so romantic on the borderline tonight
Too bad but it's the life you lead
You're so ahead of yourself
That you forfeit what you need
Though you can see when you're wrong
But you know you can't always see when you're right

You got your passion you got your pride
But don't you know only fools are satisfied?
Dream on but don't imagine they'll all come true
When will you realize
Vienna waits for you

Slow down you crazy child
Take the phone off the hook
And disappear for a while
It's alright you can afford to lose a day or two
When will you realize...
Vienna waits for you.

A little Urdu poetry...

This was a post I had put up a long time ago. Suddenly its relevance struck me and I decided to post it afresh. I am still looking for the rest of the ghazal! This is the problem with writing on grocery bills and Pizza Hut paper napkins!! :-(
Autumn was recently in the discussion I had with a friend, and love is always in the air!! ;-)

Yoon hi hasta rahta hoon,
Is dard ki koi dava na mili.
Fitrat ko pat-jhar jaise,
Dil ko woh aashiqui mili.

I laugh away my days, now,
No salve to assuage the pain.
Like Nature begot Autumn,
This heart bore a lover's name.