Kasab

Silence is a terrible thing. It gives time for the mind to rest. To walk back down those dark corridors, those crowded streets, those bloody hotel rooms.. It makes you remember faces you can never forget and voices you always missed. Silence is a terrible thing when you are lying down behind the closed doors of an ICU with your heart throbbing at each Beep of the machine.

The reflective glass doors showed the pale face of a dead man, the widening patch of blood on the forehead being the only sign of life. I felt the warm wetness on my forehead. There was no pain like apprehension. ’ What next?’ was too powerful a question. It won’t let me die in peace. 

“Who are you?”  - A lady kept asking. I mumbled through my tightly shut lips.. My brain couldn’t lie anymore.. The drugs had already taken effect.

 “Who are you.. Who sent you.. Why.. How? “  a thousand voices played riddles with my brain.

“Who are you..? You? I don’t know you.I hate you.. Who am I..? Me..? "

The machine was beeping loud and fast.

Ayisha came running from the corner, her long hair fluttering in the wind, her little steps making impressions on the hot desert sand. I felt her soft cheek press against my face.. “My sweet little Ayisha” Behind us Abu was holding his Mother’s hand and smiling as usual. A golden sun was setting behind our hut.

“Who sent you?"

Who?God.. I think.. But I am not sure.. I haven't seen him.. He never said anything to me.. But I know the priests..They know god..Do they? I am not sure.. I think they know.. Abba got the money..He can feed the children now..I want to see them smiling happily through their fully stuffed mouths..

Why did you do this?”

“Why did I do what?”
Aazad Kashmir.. But I am not sure..Abba got the money..

The girl in blue skirt lay beside her dead father’s feet.. She wasn’t dead. Her eyes stared at me..Questioning me. Soaking up her dead Dad’s blood, she didn’t look scared or defeated but destroyed-devastated. I aimed the gun at her head. We both closed eyes.

A sharp streak of pain passed through my head. I cant feel anything..I am floating in thin air.


The girl in blue skirt kept asking me the same questions over and over again.  Ayisha lay dead on the desert sand.Abu was holding a gun.The priests and Abba were having their supper. The golden sun was setting  forever. My name is Ajmal Ameer Kasab and I dont know why I did it. Please hang me

The English New Year

There are so many things that come to my mind when I think about my UK journey. The George Clooney look alike cab driver who picked me up at the airport with an Iphone in one hand and a placard reading “Barun” on the other, the friendly ,hot and beautiful single Mom landlady who reminds me of Julia Roberts in Erin Brockowich, the Indian hotel bearers with an accent as good as Shashi Tharoor, Chicken biriyani’s worth Rs 450, Relationships so complex that you would start thinking of B tree algorithms and Kirchhoff’s laws, Boyfriends and Girlfriends as old as your Grandparents and as young as any school kid that you know of, beautiful places , beautiful people and much more.. So when I thought of typing something here, I felt it difficult to choose anything in specific. So here goes some random thoughts..

Ever thought of England as the fortress of Victorian morality? Ever thought of girls with high necked attires and polite language? Well, thanks to my ignorance in world history, I never did and I was not wrong. Girls in England can be broadly classified as four. The teens (under 18), the young ones (under 30), the mature ones (under 60) and the old ones (under 120). You can call all of them as “Girls” for one reason. They are all someone’s girl friend or are waiting to be one. I looked up in google. There is no such term as Granny Friend or Mommy friend or Old lady friend. All are GIRL friends. I am intentionally ignoring the wives as they are very rare here and can’t be distinctly identified as one man’s wife is usually another man’s girl friend. And I don’t mean this in any bad way. This is how England lives. You live the way you find it convenient. It’s as simple as that.

What I have learned here over the past few months about English folks is that they are a complete different breed than ours. They look different and they live different. Almost any girl looks as good as a fashion model in India. You can stare at those lovely blue, brown or black eyes until you get slapped on both cheeks. Those silky flowing golden hair locks would remind you of waltzing angels from your childhood comics .Ofcourse, after a while you might have a slight illusion of the magic wand in her left hand turning into her middle finger. But that’s quite normal. And yea, the body follows the face.

But moving away from my obvious interests, England is definitely a place to be in. It’s a place of opportunities. As for me, it was an opportunity to take my first flight, see a whole new world, earn much more that what I used to, feel homesick at times and feel bad at doing night outs when the people whome I work for leave at 5 in the evening. As I take my walk to the office every morning, I pass a park full of flowering trees. I see an old guy clearing fallen leaves from the green lawn grass using some kind of an air blowing machine and I wonder how tranquil his life would be? To wake up in the morning, take a machine and walk through a beautiful lawn and blow away leaves and earn a living out of it should be wonderful. I look at the truck drivers who bring stuff to the warehouses of my office from far off. Wouldn’t that be a life to climb up a huge truck with a posh driving seat, switch on your radio and ride through all those beautiful country roads, passing snow clad mountains and clear blue streams on a road as smooth as glass?.And those young girls and boys riding their bikes or roller skates to schools and colleges might remind you of a lost childhood. Sometimes they ride cars too. You will know it when you see them wave at you in brotherly affection shouting “ F* You PAAKKEESS”. Well, I guess there’s only one place in the universe were Pakistanis and Indians live in unison claiming the same level of respect.. England !!

The Bar Code

Disclaimer:- This story is pure fiction. The characters in the story may have resemblance to some of my friends. So I have deliberately encrypted the names using the "Varun Mohan's first letter replace very complex algorithm" so that none of you will ever figure out.
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Epidose1 : Rubin Woke Up

Rubin woke up early and rushed to the mirror to check his new hairstyle. This has been the case for the past many weeks. He would have the same stupid dream every morning, wake up in a startle and run to the mirror to make sure everything is in place. Marriage was indeed an intimidating affair. He tried to remember the symptoms of thyroid deficiencies from his 10^th standard biology class. Sleeplessness,Dizzines,Palpitation.. What else?. Yea!, memory loss.

Anyways everything has been sealed now. Its like getting inside the general compartment of Parasuram express and wishing you hadn’t got in. There is no way out.

His father in law owns a bakery in Bangalore. He thought he should have kept that information to himself. That would have avoided those IDIOTS asking him the MRP of 1 Kg Laddoo and giggling like .. like..er.. idiots ofcourse. Idiots they are, but can’t ignore old friends can you?.Rubin checked his watch. 9 hours to 4.

Epidose2 : Gone is the purse

Shaggy loose low waist jeans and a full sleeve 44 size buy one get two free Excaliber checked shirt folded up at the wrist revealing the golden strap of a Timex watch!Two black bata shoes polished heavily to cover up the hole near the protruding thumb stepped out elegantly from the Guruvaayor-Chennai express.
Sunny (some spell it Sunni) looked around and walked to the ticket counter. The line was long as usual with the engineering college students going home. Sunni rubbed his well trimmed mustache and let out a fulfilling sigh happy to see so many girls learning engineering. Gone are the days of male domination in engineering. It’s feminism baby!. He joined the line and waited. It had been raining for the last few days and the station had an uneasy dampness. The dripping sound of water, slippers crunching wet mud, a moody atmosphere. Some street kids were punching keys on the Information Kiosk trying to figure out something. Sunny stretched his hand and pressed an option on the touch screen. “There you go kids. It’s a touch screen panel. Select your options and then punch in the keys. You will know what you need to know” Sunny winked. The old guy behind him in the queue smiled. Sunny smiled back and turned slowly enough to catch eyes with his daughter standing behind. The children had turned around and held out their right hands, the left one pressed against the stomach, face expertly mocked to show painful hunger. Sunny looked away at the ticket counter. The children waited for some time and uttered something very mature and left the scene laughing. Guruvaayoor-Chennai express was slowly moving out of Thrissur. A few more minutes and Sunny was at the counter. “One Ernakulam South”. The lady at the counter expertly pressed a few keys on her computer and frowned at the screen for a while as if wondering why the rocket hasn’t taken off even after the count down had crossed 0.A printer coughed and spat from behind. “Its 65.Please gives 5 Rs change”. Sunny put his hands in his back pocket and touched cool air from the other side. The purse was gone.

A few moments later Sunny sat down on a bench and stared ahead. On the next platform he saw a face he recognized. They both waved hands.

Epidose3: Don’t chop them.

“Do you believe in God, Mr Cadar?”

“Yes sir, I do”

“Then you should be knowing that God wants us to live in a particular way so that he can take us in his league when we are dead”

“Yes sir, I do”

Khalid Mustafa Khan shook his head in disapproval and opened the book.

A child started crying from the back seat.

Mustafa khan took his eyes off the book and pounded the hammer on the table. “Order ..Order”.He read some more from the book.The child was still crying.

Mustafa Khan cleared his throat “ Mr Cadar, You claim to be believing in God but you certainly don’t follow his path. Stealing is a serious crime in this country and we have very clear rules about how to handle crooks”

“But sir, I didn’t steal anything. I just copy pasted some code snippets from Google”

Musatafa raised his voice. “What do you think you are Mr Software Engineer? You think you can fool us all by hurling such technical jargons at us? Mr Jabbar Khan here is a certified computer operator and the entire town gets their computers installed by this guy.He has confirmed that what you did is definitely copy writing and not copy pasting and as you see here in this book, copy write violation is an offence comparable to stealing”.

Mustafa Khan adjusted his specs and turned to his subordinate sitting beside him.

”Type a letter to the president requesting a constitutional amendment. Someone has misspelled copy write to copyright.” Mustafa whispered in his ears. The subordinate nodded his head like a bouncing ping pong ball.

Mustafa cleared his throat again and stood up. “So as it truns out, Mr Cadar you have certainly done a heinous crime and by the laws of this country I have made my decision. Let the condemned be taken to the jail and let those filthy copy writing fingers be chopped off his hands.”

“But sir, I just copy pasted from Google” Cadar cried as two heavy men dragged him away.

Stepping down from the chair, Mustafa khan told the subordinate “When you type that letter, add a post script asking for permission to ban that Google thing”

The prison turned out to be a desert. Cadar had his face against the sand. From the corner of his eyes he saw the shadows of a vulture circling under the intense sun. Behind him there were mumblings about the knife not being sharp enough.They will have to use some force.Cadar thought about the fateful day when he decided to fly to Saudi Arabia.But how could he not? How could he not come when his dear love Armana was calling from the other side.How could anyone refuse that call.He flew in like a dove and now lay here waiting for them to chop off his wings. He remembered his friends warning him not to leave. They had said "Don't leave dear Cadar, they will chop things off" and he had said "I dont care dear friends . As long as I am with my Armana".

Cadar shut his eyes tight as someone grabbed his fingers and kept them aligned on a flat rock.He heard the metal strike the rock but felt no pain. He felt something moving in his pants. Something vibrating. A familiar hindi song filled the air. Some lady was saying something in the background.Cadar tried to listen. "Yaatri kripaya dyaan deejiye. Travancore se Mangaloore thak jaane waali gaadi number..". Cadar jumped out from the top berth, grabbed his bag and ran for the door.The mobile alarm was still buzzing in his pants.He ran out as the train slowly moved away. Cadar looked around ,threw his bag down and sat on a bench. He looked at his mobile. The time was 6:00 AM. But the station wasnt Thalassery. Behind him the lady was calling out "Thrissur station aapka swagat karte hain. Welcome to.."

Epidose 4 - About Shimid

Senior Software Engineer, USA, Washington DC, Miami Beach, Las Vegas, Disney world, Tom and Jerry, Spiderman, Poompatta, Balarama, Mayavi, Kuttoosan- The chain of thoughts invariably betrayed Shimid.No matter how high he started, he always ended up where he belonged.

“Enge ponam saar”.The auto driver with the RajaniKanth hairstyle asked.

”Railway station pongo”.

The auto crawled through the Chennai traffic. The beaming headlights from the oncoming vehicles created mysterious creature with the suspended dust and smoke. “Om hreem kutti chaatha” At 25 ,Shimid still couldn’t resist that. He had got a chain mail some time back which said he would gain incredible powers by forwarding the mail to 10 others. So why not give it a try. Shimid whispered again “Om hreem kuttichaatha Om hreem”

”Inneku rombo traffic saar”. The driver said as he switched off the engine.

“Aama. Wait pannuvo” Shimid agreed though he didn’t feel the traffic was any different on that day. It was normal. It had been the same way when he first landed in Chennai.

The chain of thoughts started linking.

Kundoormala, SHREADS,Interview,Job,Chennai,Rejani kanth,Vijay, Aseen,Namitha,Nayanthara,Trisha,Shakeela, Mariya,Silk Smitha..

“Che!” Shimid shook his head and tried again.

Kundoormala, SHREADS,Interview,Job,Chennai.STOP!

Thoughts were galloping horses and Shimid was no cowboy. But thanks to Yoga master Thottada Kumaran mestiri, he now had the ability to hold his thoughts at least on the second try.

Shavaasanam,Sheershaasanam, Kukkudaasanam,Pathmaasanam,Puttaalu, Lottulodukku ,STOP!,Gulugulmaal, STOP!,Kapeesh. STOP STOP STOP!

Shimid gasped for a while unable to control his breath. Maybe it’s the heat. His concentration has gone weak. He took some deep breaths. Or maybe it’s that mail.Shimid had tried to be modern and open minded by ignoring a forward mail. Maybe it’s the mail. “Oh forward mail. Please don’t hurt me. I have disrespected you by not doing what you asked me to do. I shall not have another drop of water till I forward you to at least 50 people. Please forgive me. Pleaasee” Shimid shut his eyes tight and prayed.

The tipper lorry in the front roared to a start and everything behind followed. The Chennai traffic started moving again.20 minutes more to the train station.12 hours to home.Shimid waited in anticipation unaware of the grueling chain of events to follow.

Many miles away from Chennai, a tectonic plate under the Arabian Sea tried to crawl above another tectonic plate for no particular reason. This was not taken in good spirits by the second tectonic plate. She fought back. All hell broke loose and Arabian Sea ran to the shores for cover.

A few hours later in Cochin, Mukuon Mammu ran out of his hut half naked crying “Sulaani vanneee oodikooo..” (Tsunami is coming.. Escape!!)