Baboon Logic

Note:
(1) This was written as a part of a deal, about three and half years back. I planned to revisit it sometime and make it into an actual story (the original deal was to write about a single day on a particular theme, though I have cheated anyway :)), but it is not happening any time soon, I am afraid.

(2) This is not autobiographical at all. I imagined a guy very different from myself writing this; so those of you who know me, don’t think of me when reading this, because the intended mood of the story is quite different. But had this piece been any good, I guess I would have claimed autobiographical influences. :)

(3) God knows that I have had enough trouble people reading themselves into my stories! Did I mention three unjustifiably broken friendships?! All girls! And it is not even me, always. Twice, the girls read my story and broke up their friendship(!) with other people!!! I guess they didn’t broke their friendship with me because we were not friends to start with (which, I’m ashamed to say, I have been thankful for). :)

Stump
———-
It is a stump now,
Its art gone,
Its ornaments all gone.

It does not stir with spring
Nor bend like a bow when green
Nor from its flowers fly KamaDeva’s arrows
Nor in its shades are sighs of travellers heard
Or tears of lovers seen.

Only one old bird
Sits remembering something.

‭(‬Translated from the Hindi of Suryakant Tripathy’s‭ “‬Nirala‭” ‬by Vikram Seth.‭)

Read the rest »

Today, we went to visit the construction site, which is in a very beautiful but weird place.

I don’t really like the tropical green in general, and indeed I was thinking how ugly all the bushes next to the road side looked, when suddenly a miniature version of the Great Wall of China came interrupting the wild growth. It turned out that the institute is going to be inside the infamous reserve famous for its wild, renegade and usually angry horde of stampeding elephants who frequent the nearby villages and have unwittingly claimed human lives before (hence the walls to stop them). This means even though I might one day fall in love with The Pretty Girl and might want to walk under the moonlight in misty nights with my arm on her waist (with a passionate kiss or two in the offing), an elephant’s bone might prove to be too big a haddi in the Kebab to be overcome.

When we arrived, I was surprised when I noticed that I could hear the birds chirp and flutter.

The Director showed us the construction plans, and The Pretty Girl (she has got dimples) asked him if the academic block was modelled after the first letter of his name (the chic of it!). With a polite laugh, he then went on to explain, “No. You see, these are two spirals, and this end of this spiral here …”

Read the rest »

More than an year ago, I was browsing Rainbow’s (given what follows, the reader’ll understand my attempts at concealing his name :)) scrapbook, where someone had dropped in a line saying that she found his previous scrap absolutely over the top. I visited her scrapbook, dug out the culprit, and decided to help out the poor girl.

To be honest, I didn’t see that I was doing something wrong. I was not even trying to be clever, because I was so beyond trying to impress girls at that point of time, because Agnid was my roommate at that time ;), and I remember I didn’t even care enough to check out the photo album of that girl (in case she had none, I didn’t bother to check if she had one :)). I just like being obnoxious around Rainbow and I was a little insane at that time anyway. We have a long history of being obnoxious around each other. He is my oldest friend, by the way.

Read the rest »

For the first time in years, I don’t miss Anshul all that much! And anyone who has seen me writing in all this time will realise that for the first time I am also writing in a somewhat personal way. I don’t have to hide behind the alternate details I usually make up for my life, I don’t have to entertain anyone! For the first time, I don’t mind being myself, unafraid of the banalities and unafraid of the judgements. Anshul will spot this, I think.

Ah, but then I might be deluding myself. :)

Read the rest »

In the meanwhile, the motherboard of Irene got all burnt up and I had to buy a new one along with some more ram! Ubuntu just cruised through the new motherboard, and I didn’t have a single hitch. It even offered to download and install drivers from ATI!

Read the rest »

Well, honestly, there is nothing I have to say on the tantalising victory of India over Pakistan in the final. The feeling of joy is too primitive and pure at the moment to be delved into. It will take a couple of days to settle down and it is only in retrospect that I will find something to say, which someone must have said somewhere already.

Read the rest »

Suddenly last week, very much against my wishes, I had to go to one of the places I have least wanted to visit in all my life. I was packed off with my bags in the name of holidays, and I knew I was damned if I was going to enjoy a minute of it. This is the draft I had planned to put up before I was thrown out of my room with my Nokia 6300 and a ticket to an epidemic ridden rainy patch of land that was supposed to be beautiful.

Read the rest »

Note 1: This is the official sequel to The Mail that Launched a Thousand Spams.

Note 2: To those who received the drafts - The reference to Robert Kolker was incorrect, which I discovered after going painstalkingly through his mammoth book again in an effort to quote him exactly (it contains the whole of GRE word list many times over). That would explain the delay. He said some nice insightful things though.

Note 3: This story, and its prequel, are officially declared to be ficticious accounts incorporating no characters inspired by anyone living or dead.

Read the rest »