life ii

the day after i wrote about the purple cloth bag, it was taken away. the ground, on which it was kept finally breathed easy. how did that happen is still a small miracle for me. now in its place is a blank, empty void, ever so beautiful. a few days later, a phone call came. the phone screen displayed a city code which is not a happy-news code, in my experience. i stepped out of my cube for some fresh air, clutching the phone and my sanity. the next 14:56 minutes, i heard a couple of months old mother whimpering, trying hard to make sense of the act of her fingers, that dialled my number. if the caller herself was as confused, imagine the state of my clarity. it was worse than beaten. more so, when half hour later an email arrived. it was her again. telling me how she was touched by my simplicity. makes me wonder, if i really am as uncomplicated as i am made out to be, then why do such phone calls happen in the first place. why do i get embroiled in casualties i didn’t even know existed. then i need to conclude: i am nothing but a magnet for all things convoluted. others mess-ups are resolved at my time, in my space. i am mad. don’t tell me i don’t have the right to.

***

“look at him, isn’t he adorable?”: i said, looking at the colony’s retard. she looked straight in my slightly squinty eyes: you weirdo, you! don’t you find everything and everyone that’s gone wrong appealing? aren’t you the one who can actually sit through a long 15 minute film scene in which water drips lazily from a tap into a metal bucket, trying to feel the burden of each drop on your own masochist self? aren’t you the one who brought out a cam in a jampacked bombay train and requested a handicapped eunuch for a photograph, just like that? where do you get the heart and the mind from, to do such idiotic acts? is it not possible for you to stop meddling with others affairs and look into the sorry state of yours? i have no answer to my own questions. i am mad at myself.