I read a story by Salman Rushdie recently in HT, and today while on my usual round of cycling\loafing\deep thinking, I decided to write a short story on the exciting happenings around satyaki.
I left my apartment in high spirits, relieved after completing my sat pretest. I wanted to be at peace with the world and its horrid dominating people, so I grabbed my bicycle in order to reach my area of zen and peace- the empty roads near my society. My spirits soared higher as I rode the cycle, having filled air in its tyres the day before. I neared my favorite road,enjoying the sweltering, overheated summer evening. I saw the sun, a pale,yellow ,worn out orb of dull light, small enough to be ignored, yet fascinating enough to keep my eyes on it and my ears on the road. By the way, you don’t need to see where you’re going on such desolate paths, unless you happen to encounter a lost cow in the middle of the road. Well, I met the next best thing- a lost scooterwala. He woke me from my sun-scrutiny and asked me for directions. I happened to know nothing whatsoever of his destination, but being a faithful delhi-ite, I gave him my impression of where he should be headed. He appeared doubtful, since his previous advisor had given him the opposite directions, but I used my gift of persuasion and saw him off on my prescribed path of victory.
Meanwhile, I continued along my path and gradually found that the gentleman had in fact been going the right way. My spirits were temporarily dampened, and I hoped that the scooterwala wouldn’t come back while I was on the route. So I took a detour into a DDA apartment, knowing the ways of the watchmen. One of them was eyeing me suspiciously(I must say these people have a sharp memory) but I simply averted his gaze and proceeded into the society singing in a very loud voice. I entered the labyrinth of the block-less buildings, with identical lanes and houses with identical ACs hanging out. I love the smell that drifts through these lanes, of rajma in someone’s pressure cooker, of sarson ka saag on the stove, of maggi being furiously unclotted,etc. There’s always the sound of whistling pressure cookers and cricket or saas-bahu soaps in the background. I exited the maze and found myself on the opposite side of the flats, which coincidentally was exactly where I wanted to be. I skirted around the boys playing cricket and rode through the second gate, where the other guard couldn’t stop me because he’d never seen me in my life, and because he couldn’t stop anyone from leaving!
All the hard work had made my stomach squirmy, so I rode back to the front gate and bought myself a snack, the contents of which are confidential. I grasped my snack firmly in my right hand, and proceeded towards my secluded spot, where I could enjoy the fruits of other people’s hard work in peace. On arriving there, I gazed around at the emptiness, like a king surveying his subjects. At that moment of serenity, some wanderers on their evening walk attacked the silence. A young man, his wife and his mother\in-law. The man was boasting loudly about how his trip to lucknow or ludhiana or some-L had been very dangerous and exhausting. Now that’s a part of humans I don’t understand. What was the purpose of his boast? His wife was already married to him, his mother was in no position to doubt his wits or his existence,so what would he gain from his exhausting speech? Self-confidence, perhaps, or an ill-suited superiority complex. That’s what I gain. Anyway, when the people moved out of audible range, I thought of thinking something philosophical, but then I decided against it and silently finished my snack. That was meaningful enough.
Having completed my adventure, I rode back to my society, to the one place where the french revolution could never succeed. After parking my bicycle, I decided to take the elevator, and thus moved towards it. Just then, from the opposite direction, I saw the scooterwala approaching! I dropped the idea of the elevator and ran up the stairs to give my muscles some exercise.
Back home, in time to write a new post!
