MY DAD

• If today, I can write English, am confident, have made sense out of my life and stay cool when things get sizzling hot, it's all because of my dad.
• Can't remember when he shouted at me, or anybody else for that matter.
• He introduced me to the world of words, giving me comics first, then Enid Blyton, James Hadley Chase and then Arthur Hailey and Sidney Sheldon. He too was an avid reader.
• Lost in the realm of imagination, I lived among created characters and always had a ready word for all situations.
• Shy and recluse, but still I let my hair down only in front of close ones. And my dad would always laugh at whatever I did and was proud of me. This was a great encouragement and made me sure of myself.
• More than everything, he introduced me to the world through various books. Such an experience still stands me in good stead.
• I thank him, though he is among those enjoying eternal life.

WHY I BLOG

• As a boy, I read a lot and watched films. I lived a lot in imagination. Everything has to be put in words or picturised mentally. I used to talk a lot to myself, even now I do. I would rewrite mentally a situation or dialgoue in real life or a scene in a film. Hence, my blog is helpful and a great companion.
• When we know someone is going to read, we become conscious of it. Maybe, we start colouring it so that others would accept it. We argue with ourselves as we would with others. But when I started a blog, I never knew who was going to read it. So it was more a personal diary or a jotting pad to give myself a pep talk.
• Sometimes I don't react in reality, but do so in the blog. It is like living inside a confined space, yet it horizons might expand with sudden reactions from some unknown person.
• Life means words for me or cinematic narration, that's the only way I can relate to actual life. Anything put well in words sounds appealing to me.
• I speak to myself and you are welcome to listen in.

SAAR AGAIN

• Poor Pope Benedict XVI. He got called 'Sir' by George Bush. I don't know how His Holiness reacted. Good thing he did not read my blog. Had he, he would have seen red. Anyway, I am sure the U.S. President has not read it. Hence the goof-up.

A COWARD'S RETREAT

• I had a friend in college. We used to together on his bicycle to evening college. We would discuss poetry and he used to write much.
• Suddenly one day, he told me that he had mental problems. It shook me, but I said "not to worry."
• After sometime he stopped coming to college. When I went to his home, his father told me he would relapse into strange behaviour and after medication he would be normal.
• I went to see him often. His father was grateful if I went to see him, as giving him drugs was easier in my presence.
• Then he would come to college and then stay away. This continued till I finished college.
• When I finished college, one day his father came with him to see me. His behaviour was strange. He imitated the train when he told me he went to his village by train.
• His father asked me to tell him we are going to a movie and to take him to his doctor. I agreed. And I took him in an auto with his father following.
• Once inside the hospital, his father told me "see now he'll scream." I asked why and he said "shock treatment". I had no hint of this.
• Later, when we met him, he was inside a cell. He looked me and said: "you said you would take me to a movie, you let me down." The look on his face was enough to kill my sleep for months.
• When he was discharged, he came to my house and said crows and chameleon were talking to him.
• After that I lost touch with him as we shifted residence. It must be about 25 years since then.
• I don't have the courage to find out what happemed to him. And like a coward, I write about him.

FRIENDSHIP ON ETHER

• I would like to acknowledge the frequent visit of three friends to my blog.
• Prabhakar is a friend who started visiting on invitation. The other two _ Valli and Anonymous _ must have stumbled on my blog.
• In many ways these three deserve mention. Appreciation, however small it may be, is well deserved and expected. Sometimes at least being noticed is just great, an acknowledgment that you are alive and that somebody does know and care that you can think.
• The daily mundane things we see and think find a shape here. Wrapped in words they do sound different _ the heart beat in vocabulary, the ECG of the mind.
• When I just read one word from these three, I feel alive and immediately I want to write one more.
• I could write more on this, but some other time.
• Thanks to this friendship on ether (web world can be called thus?).
  
  

LOST AND LOOKING

• it is dark
  the darkness and void of death,
  cannot see what lies ahead
  staring into nothing,
  fear colours and contaminates
  the air.
  where am i going?
  suddenly a strange hand touches
  my shoulder
  and that's relief
  it is nothing, being of no help,
  like me, lost and looking,
  a co-seeker
  but its doubtful, uncertain touch
  gives me strength
  to go on.
  

NAIL IN THE WALL

• Recently we went to our Uncle's village in Palakkad. Nice quiet place, looks hidden from the prying eyes of the crowd. Has its equal share of development (cable TVs, cars etc) and antiquity.
• Mom always wanted to go there were she was born (also my brother) and grew up. As we went, she showed me the school where she and her brother studied. As soon as she reached the house, she went inside and then later told us: "I went inside to see whether there was the nail on which I used to hang the school bag. It is still there."
  It evoked similar feelings in me; my school and college days came back to me.
• I think there is always a nail in the wall in all our lives. An old friend or enemy, a school teacher, a tree, a street, whatnot. Something we would like to visit really or in thoughts.
• How many of us have left our villages or shifted within a city or moved out?
• Oftentimes I have felt strange moments of sentimental silence when I visit villages where I have been as a boy.
• Before a person dies he/she feels like visiting the place where they spent their childhood. Coming a full circle.

SAAR EVERYWHERE

• Saaaar. One word that is omnipresent on all tongues. Tea maker and drinker, bus conductors and government officials.
• A typical conversation at a tea shop goes like this.
  Tea drinker: Saaar, 1 tea
  Shop owner: Aee, 1 tea for Saaar.
  SAME TD: Saaar, light tea
  SO: Aee light tea for Saaar
  STD: Saaar without Sugar
  Aeee without for Sugar.
• It goes on like this till you faint. (Then someone will say Saaar has fainted)
• Once I called a man Sir and he made a face and said "never use that cheap word.' That was 20 year ago.
• Now "Madam" has joined "Saaar". At least madam is restricted to some women unlike saar, which has percolated to all sections of society. Great leveller.
• If for one day I avoid using that word.... that's a big IF, YES SIR.