One of those days...

They call it "one of those days" (though I'm not too sure who 'they' are, since nobody seems to have the guts to say anything important anymore) and I was faced with a sheer prototype of it today. I made my first big mistake at my new workplace, not out of negligence, but simply by following procedure. The most important of all jobs could not be completed because there were other little things to be taken care of all the time. The peons delayed every single request of mine by at least half an hour, due to the supposed power-struggle of new inducts (which I don't quite understand yet). Later, my only hope in a not so ordinary day,the happiness of shopping, and leaving the store in new clothes, was dampened by half hearted showers of a nervous young monsoon. And the worse was yet to come!

I should have known, when I crossed a traffic light that everybody was blatantly overlooking in plain view of half a dozen policemen who were busy chit-chatting, that I would be in for some traffic-trouble for the sole crime of cursing at them under my breath. The universe has its way of getting back at law abiding citizens with a dirty mouth doesn't it? So, when I saw all the two wheeler parking spaces of the busiest market in my little city over crowded, and decided to park in a not so crowded no parking area, lady luck laughed her guts out. When I returned after 2 hours of my own chit-chatting session, my vehicle had been towed away. The guy on the truck said he had been driving around with it for an hour, and had now dumped it in the control room.

Now the thing with control rooms is that when a towed vehicle reaches there, even the most seasoned officers in the art of corruption cannot let it go without completing official formalities (i.e. with a bribe and no other hassles). There were surely hassles abound because I being the utterly lost person I am did not even remember the registration number of my vehicle. I was blessed to have a smooth talker assisting me there or they would have taken my embarrassment at being stupid for guilt, and robbed me off every penny I had (and I did have a few too many).

The point I'm not so successfully making here is that 'they' also say every cloud has a silver lining (still not sure who this refers to), and mine was the fact that I did pay fine. I did not give money to be stowed away loosely in a thol's back pocket. I made a mistake and duly paid the authorities the amount of money I owed them for making it, and I'm glad. The last time my vehicle was towed away, my darling friends intervened and did not let me bask in the glory of being punished for breaking the law. They talked the eagerly lenient traffic policemen into letting me go without burning a hole in my pocket. What they didn't realize was not that I didn't try to haggle. But that I didn't WANT to.

It was one of those days where everything goes wrong for the sole purpose of making the good seem even better. Sometimes we don't realize the value of the good coming our way, and a few things have to be made absolutely horrible to make us see the brighter side. And when wee do see the brighter side, we learn a little more about ourselves, because it is only by personal preferences that you can tell what you like from what you don't. What I learnt is that I like to be punished when I am wrong. It is my way of settling the score. And the score should always be settled.

Creativity cries...

I am a blank space. Empty and unaltered. You and I have come a long way. We met in your empty notebooks, your freshly painted walls, your tabletops and paper napkins, your drawing books and A4 sheets, the white of your uniform, the margins of all the books you've ever read, the document on your computer screen, the empty message on your phone. And you have never let me down in my life and yours. I have been colored with your ideas and brought to life with your words. The least, I have been there to hold your gaze when your mind wandered the endlessly beautiful world of your imagination.

Being as humbled as I am by our solemn relationship, I have never placed any demands on you. But I can't lie still anymore. This time there is in me, more than the responsibility to make you think. This time you have to act.

For the sake of all the years I gave you the space to run your mind about, do this. Make me your canvas and give me a name. I want to show the world what you are really capable of. Color me with your ideas and bring me to life with your words once again. For I am all that you can call truly yours, and hold on to for all eternity.

Rainy Day

He yawned and looked out of the window, it was a dull gloomy morning. It was raining continuously for the past few days, so he had little time to go out and get some fresh air. He hated the touch of rain to his skin. But he longed for the wind to rustle his grey air. He longed for it to throw a stray leaf at him that made him blink. So he stretched, went out and sat by Sheila on the veranda. Away from the reach of the spatter. She looked at him with love in her ginger eyes. The look that still gave him shivers from head to toe. They had been together for the past eight years. Since she separated from her husband, to be precise. They had a loving coexistence. He couldn’t believe someone could love him as much as she did. It felt like she was a different person when she was with him.

He knew because he had followed her unnoticed to her shop a few times. He had seen her sit there alone, her head resting on her palm. Waiting for the next customer to walk in. He had seen her with her customers, trying to look cheery and make small talk, with an ounce of sadness still hanging in her eyes and making her look older than she really was. He had seen her checking the time over and over again for hours till it was finally time to close shop. But when she got back home, it seemed that all the love in her consumed her and became the person she was. She would smile, she would talk, she would be a different person altogether. She was wonderful.

He inched closer to her and nestled next to her chair. She rested her palm on his back. They both sat together and looked at the rain in silence. There used to be a time when she would talk her heart out to him, and he would just listen. He prided himself at being a good listener. And when she talked, he could feel the comfort it gave her to let out like that. She didn’t talk much nowadays. Just the occasional you-know-what-happened-todays. But he knew that didn’t matter. It was just age.

She had been married 36 years when her husband met a younger woman and decided to give his hormones a second chance. Their only child had long grown up and settled down in a far off land. He never visited her. Her man left her with her little boutique, money enough to buy a new house, and plenty of humiliation. That was all she had now, apart from her grey haired fellow.

She met him outside the grocery store one morning, a month after her divorce. He used to idle there in the morning when people came to get their daily supplies of milk. It was she who first came and talked to him that day. Within an hour they became friends. And then she started seeing him there every morning, without fail. A few weeks later he started visiting her at her place, and then eventually moved in with her. Time flew by, and they became the most important part of each other’s lives. He liked both owning her this way and being owned by her. They were inseparable. She might have grown old, but to him, she was just as beautiful now as she was when he first laid eyes on her.

It was almost lunch time. She was already inside, setting the table, while he took a few more minutes to laze by himself. He inhaled the air, spiced with the smell of her delicious chicken curry and felt pleased. She was an incredible cook. He would have lunch and then catch a few winks. There wasn’t much for him to do. After all, there’s hardly much to do for an old cat when it’s raining outside.

Inspired by Geetanjali Rao's Printed Rainbow