For whom the bells toll

I’ve been told often that almost all that I put here for public viewing on the World Wide Web are recitals of incidents I’ve been through, of what I have done or been following, or blasts from the past where I explain the antecedents of my present characteristics. To that I say every human is shaped by the incidents they go through, that the nature of man today bears a causal relationship to what he has done or gone through before. But I get replies ranging from “You can talk about it- wait- you do talk about it!” to “Where’re your thoughts, sonny?” To that I ask them to peruse the link to this webpage and its title, and on other occasions, I paraphrase Eric Cartman and say “Oi! This is my blog and you don’t have a say, jackass. Respect my authoritah, or I’ll do a Screw you guys, I’m going home”, followed by the requisite finger movements.

On that note, I’d go on and recall another incident that happened what-seems-like way back in Class IV. I’d just disembarked from the school bus after another enlightening conversation with the driver about my double-roti-enriched breakfast, and a lightning-quick game of Country, city, continent, kuch bhi (which finished when I got stuck on Y after Yugoslavia and Yemen were done, and Yorkshire wouldn’t count- reason being “Fir to main Services, Saurashtra bhi bol doon!”. I wasn’t aware of the existence of wonderful places like Yerevan, Ytterby and Yelamanchili back then). The cold winter breeze accelerated by the bus had frozen the generous layer of oil on my hair, and as the others playfully checked out my razor-sharp hair-do, I looked out of our first-floor class window to see an ominously dark, cloudy sky and the imminent rain that would ruin the morning assembly- Friday’s special assemblies almost always cut short the time for the first period, to our delight. The teacher had probably assumed that’d be the case for her cursed class, and not turned up on time that morning. When she did come in, she put out her umbrella by the door and immediately ran through the attendance. After our rapturous scream of delight on her announcement of not taking the day’s class, she went on to explain why she’d come late. “I’d been to the temple early this morning, children. Today was my younger son’s birthday (she either pretended not to hear or totally missed the shout of “Chocolates?” from a corner of the class). But, the rush and the sudden rain got me late. I see you’ve been to the temple, too, Abhishek”. The addressed roll number one, accordingly allotted the first bench, stood up to answer “Not exactly, Ma’am. I just apply the teeka every morning after I complete my Gayatri Mantra jap a hundred times”.

Later during the recess, I sped straight to the front of the class to ask him if he was kidding to impress Ma’am. He shook his head in shock at my accusation, and showed me a set of Rudraksha beads he was carrying as proof. My eight-year-old mind couldn’t easily believe this level of devotion- the idea of learning by heart a few lines and reciting them a few times, leave alone hundred, every single day seemed beyond me. When my countenance displayed the same feeling, Roll-Number-One proceeded to recite the verses before I deferred to him respectfully, and took my leave.

Back home in Visakhapatnam, a week back, I was switching on the laptop at eleven to work on a story, but even at the comparatively early time, I felt drowsy and shut Microsoft Word down. Clicking my fingers, I instinctively went to the videos folder to play Sultans of Swing (Mandela ’88 Concert Live version; in my opinion, the best of the lot), which elicited a quizzical look from Big B. “I’ve been observing for the past few weeks, that apart from the Kambakkht Ishq overdose on TV, you listen to just this one song. What is wrong with you?” I brusquely answered “Bhai, aaj ka jap nahi hua to neend kaise aayegi?” (How’d I be able to sleep without the daily recital?)

Good night, now it’s time to go home.

Makes it fast with one more thing-

We are the Sultans;

We are the Sultans of Swing.

No offence- but I guess I’ve found my Gayatri Mantra.