THE OUTCAST
The white-hot sky was a sheet of molten glass. Wind breathed out fire in delirious fits. Horizons vanished in the shimmering mirage. The earth suffered silently as ever. And there stood i, alone and stark naked, daring the ruthless sun.
Every day, at the cruelest hour, i walked to the outskirts of the city, to the barren wasteland. Daring the ruthless sun, bared my body, and cried my soul out.
I hated my coarse voice. I hated my indeterminate body. The squalor, the poverty, crime, drugs- the crudity all around. The perverted preoccupations. The grotesque dancing. The masquerading merry-making. Above all, i hated the god who condemned me to this life.
I was ever an odd person out- even in my outcast community. I really never belonged to anyone. My mates hated me. The society had long rejected me.
I roamed alone in the streets. Alone in the crowd. I never begged. Nobody had ever heard me speak. The day i became aware of my own strange voice, i became mute. The voice returned to me only by accident...
That day too i was treading the barren wasteland at that cruelest hour, when i saw a tiny pink flutter in that arid, hostile landscape- a flower! Obstinately alive.
My soul swelled with sublime bliss. My eyes could not contain my tears. How i longed to sing! To share the subtle joy with someone! Alas! Not even a cloud in the sky, not a bird around, nor a butterfly, nor a grass-blade. What loneliness! I had spent a lifetime in isolation, almost by choice. But now this burden of sublime joy was too much for me to bear all alone.
My heart wrenched out a cry of agony- my lost voice had come back to me. I hated it, and i turned that impotent hatred to the tiny pink flower. The crushed flower left behind a faint fragrance on my fingers.
Strange dreams, almost nightmares, haunted me. I loved my nightmares. My only companions of lonely nights. How i looked forward to them!
I saw myself buried under fathoms of earth. In finely embroidered coffins, lined with rope-thick cobwebs. On waking up, i could almost smell the moist, macabre soil. Could feel moss growing on my limbs, and bugs crawling inside my entrails.
I saw myself precariously hanging from a cliff, with a yawning abyss beneath. Stepping out of sleep, drenched in sweat, was the only escape.
I saw phantoms of men and women- with mutilated cocks and cunts. Mermaids wormed across the fog of my dreams- buxom babes with a topless torso, the lower half fishlike, scaly and slimy. I woke up, and did not know what to do with my body and mind. Was i a woman trapped in a male body, or was it otherwise?
Once i saw myself lying on the road, and a speeding truck come to a screeching halt just a foot away from me. On waking up with a start, i wished the dream continued and the truck-brakes failed.
Sometimes i saw myself back in my mother’s womb. Translucent reddish darkness, moist and warm, throbbing with life, insulated me from the real harsh world. I wished time froze, and i was never born. Or, may be, i could start life anew? A well-defined existence in a well-determinate body? Even dogs and cats have it!

So, that day, at the cruelest hour, i walked to the outskirts of the city to the barren wasteland, bared my  body, and, as usual, cried my soul out.
‘What is this obscene, sexless existence? What is this curse, that wipes out every possibility of a human and humane life? Of a decent and honest living? Of self-respect? Of all that is lyrical and delicate? C’mon Master, what the hell is your problem with me? Say something, O cruel heavens, say something!’
Heavens gave me no answer. The sun gave me nausea, and migraine, made me giddy.
I collapsed. Dust covered me tenderly. The mellowed wind hummed lullaby to me. First time in my life, i slept. Soundly, unhaunted by dreams. Like a well-fed baby in mother’s lap.
In my sleep, God spoke to me.
‘Forgive me, my child. Don’t torture yourself with unanswerable questions. Your pain is my wound. All misery in the world is my burden. Help me bear it; be my comrade.
‘And do this for me- never let the lyrical and humane in you wither away. Preserve it. It is the bond between you and me...’
Hours passed by.
Peacefully, i opened my eyes.
God's word, distinct in dream, faded away, away, and soon were lost in the clutter of conscious moments.

The omniscient heavens never answered my cry. The humble, loving dust did.

Nothing around changed. The squalor, the crudity, crime, perversions, the dancing, the merry-making, the absurdity of existence - nothing changed.
But now i didn’t judge anything. I understood. I could not hate anyone. I loved. I forgave. Now i laughed away faults of others; i could not see any sin that did not lie dormant deep down in my own mind; any imperfection that subtly did not manifest in me.
I never plucked a flower. I never punished myself. Never ever i had nightmares since then. Neither i missed them.
The delicate and the humane in me, more than compensated for my physical void.
My body grew old. Obese. Ugly. Diseased. I did not move. Just sat there quietly. People placed edibles before me. Stray dogs took them away. I didn’t mind. Whatever remained, was enough for me.
My body grew older. Weak. Now, nobody knew my past. I was only too happy to forget it. I sat there, a kind, well-mannered, and somehow an odd  oldie. Who never spoke. Just looked at the heavens, at the dust, at everything, at everyone, with a loving smile.
One day i died. Nobody noticed my absence.

FUGUE
Gggosh!..at last, one more of those painful lucid intervals is over, and here i am back to my original self – unpredictable, unreliable, irrelevant, and irresponsible. Disconnected from family, profession, society, culture, everything – and happy at it!
Lucid intervals are painful. I feel like a square drawn on a spherical surface. Stretched, pulled distorted. Square, ok; but never a normal, respectable square. Always painfully stretched and pulled. Always wondering what would happen to me if the sphere decides to straighten itself. Thankfully, all that’s over now.
My old friend, fugue revisits me. I board the first available train, with ticket to some remote, unheard-of destination. Comfortably lonely in the crowded compartment.
As abruptly as i board, i get down. Some unknown station. Steel and concrete stretching interminably beyond eye-reach. Uncomfortably clean. Mute clocks, frozen in different time-positions. Like people following death-trail in an epidemic. Erie silence ringing in ears, almost stabbing. The dimly lit, deserted structure gives me déjà vu..a somnambulant schizophrenic..wandering all alone in the deserted asylum corridors. Distant dusty, dim fluorescent lamps tingeing the midnight gloom gloomier blue. Cold, clinic-clean corridors stinking of antiseptic. Or is it the preservative that lends immortality to cadavers? Or is it just one of those haunting hallucinations?
‘Uncle, please help me...’ Somebody startles me. I look around. Oh! i have rambled to the street. Equally cold, deserted. Lined with closed, forgotten shops. Eroded, rusty shutters. Air thick with unknown, unnamable fear..and here a ten-year-old tugging at my shirt.
Where did the boy crop up from? Is he real, or an apparition? Dried up tear tracks on muddy emaciated cheeks. Barely clad body shivering with fear. Exhausted voice, hardly audible, punctuated with loud panting.
’I have lost my parents..would you please help me sir..please?’
‘Don’t you worry, boy. We’ll find them out.’
Then an unending stream of queries and refusals. ‘Do you know the boy’s parents.. by any chance?’
‘No’
‘Sir, did you see the boy’s parents..’
,No.’
‘Sir, did you..?’
‘Who the hell is he?’
‘Dunno..’
‘Then why bother yourself..and others?’
The boy is real embarrassed.
‘Uncle..forget it. Leave me alone’
‘No my child.. be patient.’ Say i. Unusual for me to get involved like this in anybody.
There sits a queer fellow in a tin-shade. Lost in morose trance. Rather uncertain, i repeat my question.
‘Yonder find a defunct mill. Ask there. Perhaps..there are many of them..who have lost their way..in life.’, says he with a mournful grin, and lapses in his peaceful morose trance. Queer fellows interest me. Talking to them, I always learn something about me. But now the boy is restless with expectation.
The mill is a huge truncated structure. A massive cadaver, gnawed by ants and rodents, torn apart by beasts and birds of prey. Imposing chimneys, too dead even to emit smoke. The otherwise blaring sirens dumb. Sooty, mourning sky hanging like dirty rag. Colorful oil-whirls floating, twisting in stagnant gutters. Poisonous bubbles erupting and bursting like pustules through the green-black scum. Blood red graffiti clotted over walls. Filthy slogans and slander smeared all over. Abusive impotent rage. Real questions. Vague assurances. All loud, scary, and hollow. Like eunuchs clapping.
Before we reach the mill, there is a sudden frenzied furore of terror and confusion. Thousands of furious men, women, youth storming out of the mill-gate. Gushing stench of tobacco, alcohol, starving and dehydrated breaths. Convulsive inarticulate cries. Hysterically hostile. And then, an unabating shower of stones, bricks, glass, sticks, acid-bulbs.
‘Run..run..angry, jobless laborers running amok..run for shelter..stoop down ya fools..save yourselves..’
By now, the terror tide is already on the street. Swallowing whatever, whoever in its sway.
Everyone for himself. The boy panics. So do I. ‘don’t worry..’ I mutter. Senselessly. Like drowning man bringing out froth. ’Ha..! there’s a police-station there..let’s go..’
The police-station is a single, tall-roofed, huge room. Dull peeling paint. Windows plastered shut. Strangulated. Stuffy. Grotesque giant printing-press-like machines everywhere. A single table-and-chair in a distant corner..some hope. We rush forward. Nobody there.
What next?
Again the sudden gush of angry, hungry swarm. Trampling. Screaming. Shouting. Blindfolded rabid beasts let loose. Barking, growling, clawing, biting at each other. Unguided rage, violent out of senses.
Clueless, sweating and shaking, we hide behind the giant machines. And once again the unabating shower of stones, bricks, glass, sticks, acid-bulbs..
I don’t remember how i escaped. Who brought me here? What happened to the boy? To the mob? To the queer guy with his mournful grin? What were those grotesque machines? Faint images getting fainter. . .Dull nebulous memory lingering like smog. Swaying cobwebs holding on crumbling walls of an abandoned house.
And now. . what..what’s this, dragging me again to that cursed normalcy? Back to that painful square one?
Oh no! Where are my migraine pills?

THE OTHER DAY
It happened the other day.
They stopped our bus. Made us get down, politely. ‘This way sir.’ ‘Easy, ma’am. Thank you’
They did not rob us. They were not highway robbers.
They separated us in groups. Not gender-wise. They were not sex-maniacs.
They were decent folks. Soft spoken. Well mannered. Smart. Savvy. Not noisy hooligans. They worked calmly. Corporate-like efficiency. Well defined objectives.
So, they made our groups. Ethnic groups. “Us”, this side, “they”, that side. Things were easy for people with clear cut, obvious identities. Names, costumes, symbols and stigmata on their person. Fine.
The ambiguous were searched thoroughly. Inspected, palpated meticulously. In open, in broad day light. Overt dealings. Those who loved dear life were only too willing to cooperate.
The segregation was complete. Business like. Corporate efficiency. Zero error. Great.
Next, with the same cool corporate efficiency they shoot the “they” group. And walk away as quietly as they came. No fuss. No noisy commotion. No slogan shouting. Clean job. Victims too, too stunned to utter a cry.
They leave, and the death scene comes to life.
Survivors, all of them “us”, thank "our" Almighty, and walk into the bus. Noiselessly. Mute shadows moving like ghosts.
I lingered outside. There, in the gory pile of flesh, i noticed a movement. A moan. Some survivor?. Perhaps “he”?
I knew him. Rather, a close friend. Actually an inadvertent victim. The killers were not to be blamed. It was “his” own fault. Didn’t answer them. Didn’cooperate them... Anyway, now too late to analyze.
Yes, it was he. Bleeding heavily. Gasping.
‘Why did you do this, my friend? Why did you lose your life?..They, the killers were “our” people. You could have easily saved your life! Why didn’t you reveal your identity, dear?’
Struggling for breath, barely audible, he answered- ‘All throughout my life, i denied all discrimination. I am of course religious..but to capitalize on religious or ethnic identity.. even for saving my own life..i feel, it’s blasphemy. Cooperating bigots..even for survival..is joining them..No, let me speak out… rarely, if ever, in a lifetime comes a moment..that puts to test how well you stand up..for your principles, your values..i think, i stood the test fairly well.. eh? No regrets!’
He died. i boarded the bus.
A lively debate was going on in the bus. On politics. On religion. On culture. On history. And terrorism. And tolerance.
Suddenly all of us remember that our bus driver was last seen lined up in the "they" group. Shit!

AND THE RAT RUNS ON..
..and then i felt a warm, strong breath engulfing me. I realized i was not alone in this cage. Yea, there he was..
OK, let me start right from the beginning.
Even before i opened my eyes and looked around, i learnt my alphabets: A for ambition, B for benchmark, C for competition, D for deadline..through J for jealousy, S for speed.. to Z for zing.
I topped my class. Everytime. I had to. Or else, relatives would have ridiculed me. Friends, forsaken me. And my parents, died heart-broken. After all, they had hired the best school for me. The best teachers. The best coaching classes. Sometimes I feel I too was hired by them to fulfill their ambitions.
In short, i had to be the best. I was programmed to succeed. Just as pigs are programmed for pork. Or like human bombs to blast.
Competition increased. Rapidly. Rabidly. It was no longer neck and neck; it was throat and throat. Either i cut the next guy’s throat, or he does it to me. I began to metamorphose. Principle of the competitive evolution. Adaptation for survival. My body streamlined. Became aerodynamic to run faster. I grew a long tail. Longer than my body, to facilitate speed, to balance me at top speed. I grew claws. My teeth nibbled day and night on every bit of info, and became keener. I could get easily at the competitor’s throat.. I became a rat. A fierce, smart, talented rat for one.
Rats have narrow vision. (They call it focused.) Rats see better in darkness; that way they can burrow their short-cuts to success better.
Rats don’t have color vision. They have nothing to do with flowers and rainbows.
Rats have small brains. Efficient like microchips. Zeroed down to the strictly utilitarian.
I became a rat. The race track grew narrower. Straiter. No longer possible to overtake a competitor without finishing him. So I ran along to run a bloody trail. Couldn’t help.
And at long last, there it was..the coveted gold cup. I could actually see it. Its brightness blinded me. Moments of uneasy uncertainty. Anxiety. But I had not learnt my alphabets for nothing. I summoned my courage, my cunning, my spirit..and took the giant leap. Across all the dead competitors. Across the bloody trail. Yes, the gold cup was mine! (or was it the other way round?)
I was successful. Only this mattered in the market. I had a halo. The end justified the means. Nobody questioned me. Market understands cost, not values.
I paused. First time in my life. Still panting. Heart still beating hard. Blood still turbulent. But success was mine. I did pause a while. I did need a break badly... and then it was: a cage materialized around me. Spacious and well furnished. Studded with gold. Bright. Decorated. Cozy. Comfortable... but where was my gold cup?
Anyway I fell in love with the cage. So spacious was the cage that it almost felt like being free. No constraints, just perform and earn. Perks. Benefits. Paid vacations. International renown. Prestige. Status. Viagra for the success libido was aplenty. Enlisted in the world’s top rich. Top powerful. Top 100. Top 50. Top 20. Top 5.... but where was my gold cup?
And then i sensed it. I felt a warm, strong breath engulfing me, and realized that I was not the only one in the cage. Ya, there he was..
There he was. Thick. Huge. Coils sluggishly moving. Staring me with its unblinking, lashless gaze. His moist, glittering, bifurcated, purple black tongue sticking. Like thought of uncertain future.
‘C’mon my child..run..run..keep running..’, hissed a voice, as heavy as the body. ‘so, here are we. You and me. Made for each other. The inevitable rendezvous. Your cage, my home. I host, you the honored guest. But excuse me my dear sir, I don’t like anyone just sitting there. Let’s play a game. Of course on my terms. ‘Coz, your cage, my home. I host, you guest. No.. your consent is irrelevant now.’
‘Cheating..cent per cent cheating this!..’ cried I. Panicked at being cornered.
‘Ya, I know, it’s cheating’ hissed the cool voice. Well, you asked for it.’
‘But where..where is my gold-cup?’ mumbled i.
‘Well, I am your gold-cup. Let me put it the other way. The gold-cup was illusion, I am the reality. OK, as I said, I don’t like anyone just sitting there quietly. I don’t attack the moving target, however. So, be on the move my child, move. Run. Rush for your life.’
‘?...’
‘My dear child, in this situation, in this given situation, you have two options. Run.. non-stop.. without pause..run out of breath. Run out of sense. Endlessly. Unceasingly. Without ever looking back, without looking around, without looking inward. Just run..till your breast bursts, puke blood, and collapse.
‘Or else, pause for a moment, a moment of relaxation, diversion, exhaustion, or introspection..pause for a moment, and perish. Pause, and find yourself within me..in my entrails.. dissolving in my acidic, acrid juices. With all your flesh, your bones, your brains. With all your success, your ambitions, your whatever..’
I am still running. Exhausted to death, still but running. Success no longer excites me. Actually, it bores me.
How i remember my lesser colleagues not obliged to succeed ! Still humans. Men and women, still boys and girls, dancing in the rain. Chasing butterflies in flowery meadows.
The race had already made me a rat; now I feel like an experimental rat. How long can a rat run before popping off? How much cage-space does a rat require – no, not after death, during life?
..But hey! what’s happening to me? What’s that warmth chasing me? No, I mustn’t allow any thought, any nostalgia, any day-dream slow down my speed. Rats are not supposed to become senti. Rats must continue top speed. Top possible speed. Further. Further. Further...So the rat runs on and on and o n a n d o n. . . .

UNTITLED

At last, someone assassinated him.
At last, the uneasy, perpetually punctuated sentence, ended with a gory full stop.
But it was no full stop. The journey stopped, but the road continued endlessly- with query marks all along it. The road still travels.
His childhood was commonplace. As a child he ate forbidden food. Visited forbidden places. Stole. Lied. But one day his soul spoke to him and he confessed it all before the world. Confession was his first experiment with truth. Truth was always a double edged weapon. Pointing finger at himself, he quarreled with himself in public.
He experimented with diet, with silence, with control of palate, with lifestyle. He experimented with education, with vocations, with social reforms, with transformation of hearts. The scientist in him was eternally patient. The artist in him, impatient.
His experiments failed. He slipped. Recovered. He didn’t hide his wounds. He didn’t hide his scars. The highbrow called him shameless.
He had a wife. All the world knew him. Some laughed at him. Some adored him. Others scorned him. But everyone knew him. But she preferred backstage. Took care of her old man. She became his mother. Caring, correcting, chastising. Actually, mother to everyone around. She passed away, and he wept. Alone. After the crowd around him went away.
Some say he had a girl friend- may be more than one. Actually, that does not make anyone lesser or greater. People did not like him this way. They decided what his image should be. They wanted a pious icon. They deified him. And deities are no longer allowed to be normal human beings. Later in his life he experimented with self-control. Stayed in company of young women. As gold stands the ordeal by fire. Puritans called him hypocrite; embarrassed admirers, an eccentric.
He had children. But his eccentricity was not hereditary. It was contagious. It was overwhelming. But not binding. He did not ask anyone to be his follower. Let each one walk in her or his own light. He insisted only on one thing. Truth. And purity. Purity of ends. Purity of means.
He reached out unto the last. He lighted the spark within those condemned to darkness. Held a mirror to them. He gave voice to the womenfolk, hitherto confined to mute submission within the four walls of domestic life. He gave them a sight that would look any power in its eyes. He enlisted them, and marched his way to dethrone despotism- domestic, social, or political. The firebrand called him dreamer.
He liked to touch the earth. He liked to clean toilets. He liked to care for the cattle. He liked to work on farms. He also liked to be one with kids. To laugh with them. To play with them. He laughed like frolicking stream. The dignified called him childish.
The respectable quarreled and came to him for conciliation, and went away angrily. He was frighteningly impartial. So everyone saw him partial to the opposite party. He punished only himself. For the lapses of others. He bore on himself all the arrows that the quarreling brothers shot at each other.
Nobody was happy. He too was sad like a bird with broken wings. The broken wings still hoped to reach out someone wounded worse. The wise called him indiscrete.
He prayed for help. Prayer was not asking. It was longing of his soul. Earlier his god spoke to him. Guided him in crises. From the depths of his own being. Innumerable thorny paths he had trodden after the beacon of this inner voice. The conservative called him mad.
Now the inner voice too became mute. Now no one really needed him. Now no one was comfortable with him. He became superfluous. Rather, a nuisance. A problem, perhaps asking for a drastic solution.
So at last, someone did take the inevitable step. Faced him. Bowed before him. And pulled the trigger. Thrice. Finished him. May be, politicians around too sighed relief.
That was the end of the restless sentence. Even its echo is lost in wilderness.
The sentence was silenced. Echo faded out. Slogans lingered, then got lost. His name ceased to be a political currency.
C'mon, something really wasn’t ok with the guy who said I am a Hindu, Christian, Moslem, Jew, Buddhist, AND Confucian. Pooh! Separatism is cool sexy. Chauvinism sells: my religion, my race, my blood, my lingo, my shit, my piss. Mob-monger's market mantra!
He said, there was enough in the world for man’s need but not for his greed. Surely, greed begat violence. Greed begat falsehood. Greed begat stealing, stealth, and possessiveness. Today, greed begets ecocide.
He had fads. Strict veg-ism. Abstinence for birth-control. Fasts. Silence. No to medicine and surgery. No to hi-tech. Perhaps there was a constant struggle deep down: willing spirit vs. weak flesh. His fads were great. What he did despite of them was much greater.
May be, he would have blessed the technology that saved life, harnessed solar energy, or gave pest-resistant crop.
He would have been appalled at the tech that a maniac could program to eliminate life on the planet @ 1000 gigalives/sec. He would have been equally horrified at the tech that gave us “the-morning-after pill.”
And he would have just shrugged off the tech that took you to the north pole, or the moon, or the Mars – just as he had shrugged off the Eiffel Tower!

The uneasy, perpetually punctuated sentence, forever unfolds new contexts and fresh meanings as you ponder over it.

RAINBOWPure Luminescence flooded me. Overwhelmed, i fell on my knees, bowed my head, and folded my hands in speechless prayer.
Then it rained. Fine raindrops filtered the Pure Luminescence into a splendid rainbow. My heart leapt. I rejoiced. I danced. I wrote poetry. I sang. My soul marveled at the Pure Luminescence now gently expressing Itself through the soft hues of the rainbow, and then again I was speechless.
Then came the ominous moment. I lifted my hand. Grabbed the rainbow. Shattered it. Dissected the hues..and erected a red flag. And a saffron flag. And a yellow flag. And a green flag. And blue, indigo, and violet flags. Then I started shouting slogans.
That’s how I committed suicide.

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(Translated by the author from his original Marathi “Indradhanu”)

BOOK

Once I lost my way, and found myself in a herd.
Joining the herd, I continued to crawl and grope in darkness for ages along with others.
Then one day, one of us saw the Sun.
But the Sun dazzled the rest of us, blinded us, and we turned our back on It.
Time passed, and the soul of that “one of us” took wings and became one with the Sun.
We continued to cling to the shadow of his perished body, and built an elaborate fence along it. Strong stones and sharp barbed wire ensured that the fence was sound, exclusive, and inpenetrable. Within it our generations flourished.
Years later, we wrote a Book. The Book defined the Sun as “Giant Firefly”

Then again we lost ourselves in darkness and perished.

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(Translated by the author from his original Marathi “kaajavaa”)