Implications of a dark evening

            Strange things happen after dark. I had heard this being said a thousand times before, and had probably even experienced it on my own in a mild form, so far. But the dark evening of the 29th of January, 2012 brought me to the realm of the experienced ones, those who have legitimate and rightful reasons to preach this wisdom. Now that I have raised the bar of expectations high and exposed my story to the poor light of a possibly low climactic judgement, let me narrate it out loud to provoke some disappointment and lead the way to the lighter observations that came to me like the great flash of enlightenment, documenting which, by the way, was the main purpose of this blog tonight.



           While coming back from a friend’s house in Haldwani at the after dark phase of this Sunday evening, I could not find a rickshaw. Having waited for a few minutes I decided to walk my way to Kaladhungi Chauraha, a place where I could easily find a rickshaw back home. Soon enough I got bored of walking alone in the bustle of the crowded city and decided to talk to mother back in Almora. I dialled her number and started talking to her. She told me about this and that and so did I. Then I came to the topic which brings us quite close to the climax of this story. Before the climax a little background is of immediate requirement. I had got a phone last year from Surat and I had being meaning to buy myself a memory card ever since. Now that I had misplaced my iPod I decided to finally bring this plan to action and actually buy one. So I told Ma to send my phone earphones to me in Haldwani. She asked me where I had kept them. As I was about to tell her that they were in the front pocket of my small sports bag that contained my old history notes, I felt a cursory but firm slap on my hand that was at my right ear holding the phone. For a minute I was excited to think that some old friend was probably in town and wanted to surprise me like this. But I was also afraid that my phone might have fallen on the ground and had possibly broken as I could no longer feel it at my hand. But there was no sound of plastic meeting concrete.


            This, now, is the climax of the story; the main part. As I was looking at my left side for my phone I heard the familiar sound of an engine of Yamaha RX100 at my right, shifting forward with great speed. Busy as I was in the thoughts of my earphones and searching for the exact words to say to Ma in order to help her locate them, it took me a few seconds to realize that I had just been robbed. The biker had snatched my phone with an impressive dexterity and was now holding it between his teeth as he continued to increase the speed. For a second he turned his head back to check whether I was following, and I am sure I saw him smile with my phone in his mouth compelling him to turn that theft into a pleasant grinning experience, of course exclusively for him. I was too dumbstruck to run after him and in a second or two he had already disappeared. My immediate reaction is going to be considered a fake affectation for the sake of gaining some respect after thus losing my mobile, but I swear on all my lost contacts that it is true. I thought I had to buy a new one anyway. Even the vibrator in this one was not working properly. What followed was some formality in the police station et al, and is drag and boring, and moreover only a stupid ending to an exciting incident, so I am not writing about it.


            Later in the evening after dinner as I was watching some TV with Kucki da a funny thought came to me. How many adapters like mine are left all alone in the world without their respective mobile phones to attach themselves to? They might feel somewhat like the war-widows who were courageous enough to send their men to the war front with high hopes, but unfortunate to receive the news of them having being captured by the enemy with no hope of return. They, then, spend their lives always dangling from the switchboard, like split ended hair strands, waiting to be detached from the head one fine day. I felt pleasure at this sadistic comparison.


            They don’t end here, my observations. I missed a lump in the front pocket of my jeans that I continued to check after intervals, and every time I found it not there I got worried for a second and then relieved that it was actually stolen and that I hadn’t forgotten it anywhere. Few labels have been attached to me for some time now and only partly for the right reason; one, that I am always on phone and the other that I am very careless. I am on phone, but not always and who isn’t careless sometimes! Just that I am caught at the wrong place, at the wrong time. Anyway, today my phone took away both these customary accusations with it, though only for the time being. But I do have a reason to rejoice. No distractions and a temporary holiday from the albatross round my neck. I could concentrate more on the TV and once back in my room I could read some Turkish poetry in translation, something that had lately found it difficult for itself to squeeze some time out, because of a stupid but addictive game in the phone.


Thank you thief, however may you rot in hell!

What's going on!!!

Today, like many other days at home in the hills I woke up in the designed, fraudulent, deceitful morning of early January. There was no sun in the vicinity, despite it being a Sunday and the sky was covered in a sludge of dark clouds, so dark that the only light from the window in my room gave me an impression that there’d been a snowfall early in the morning. It was quiet; not even the birds chirped that chirped always, the stillness that only followed a snowfall. I threw my fur filled quilt at one side of my bed and jumped at the window, hoping to see the landscape outside covered in white moss: trees, mountains, flower pots, the old wooden bench, everything covered in pure pashmina. But as I ogled at it from the wiry mesh of my window I saw the old adulterated version of this fairy tale--- hills without snow!


So much frustration over a trifle, you must think, but my occasioning pain only doubles as I break to you that the undeserving, unchosen land of abject aesthetics, writhing under its confused etymology, Pathankot, has witnessed a snowfall last night. What is going on?!?