Aye'm Back Back

Aye stood on the girl’s hairline now. He stuck his head out through the tangles and looked down. The girl was somewhere outdoors; a wind hit his face. The sea? Aye strained to get a look atwhat lay in front of him, or rather in front of the giant. And there it was again, more and more food. The girl was at it again. She sat in front of a table; food crowding around her. Crumbs lay seductivelt all over the white table. Soups glistened invitingly. Aye’s head spun a little. He forgot all about the spider for a moment as food engulfed his thoughts. . But soon dreadful noises of laughter bore into Aye’s ears and brought him back to reality and the smelly scalp. The girl was surrounded by four or five others. The head rocked as she laughed. Aye held on fast. He realized with shock that the rest of the giants were even bigger than the one he was on ( the one he was stuck on was nothing, pooh!). It was no wonder the way these things ate. "How do they find so much food?" Aye wondered; an ant would call it a lottery if he ever chanced up on on even one crumb as big as the ones that were scattered all over in front of him. Oh, to be dropped on to the table in front, to bite into something other than hair again! Ah what was the use... Aye sighed and turned.

He heart skipped a beat as YooHoo’s big fat eager face was thrust on to him, reminding him of what he was supposed to be doing. The spider stood right behind him, following Aye’s every movement;“FOOD” written on every twinkling eye of his.

“YooHoo, there you are! Now come look, look down there, do you see that?” Aye asked the spider and moved aside to give him a view.

YooHoo looked down and nodded.

“ I’m hungree…”

The stupid spider was evidently not getting Aye’s drift. The connection was lost on his his dumb head. YooHoo looked askance at Aye; a "whats your point?" expression on his face.

“YooHoo that’s food! everything down there!" Aye said in exasperation. "You and I can jump into one of those shiny things and eat all we want. What do you say?”

YooHoo looked down and inspected the table again. His brain slowly comprehended Aye’s words as his face broke into a wide smile. Aye’s relaxed.

“Alright now, come one”

Aye crept back in and walked in the direction of the girl’s ear through the dense hair; he didn’t want to be spotted by one of the giants and then smashed into a paste. YooHoo followed close behind, even with all his legs obstructing his walk. Aye’s face was screwed up; strategies forming inside his thick skull, his heart beat racing. He could only hope that the spider will refrain from eating him up until his plan could be carried up. And with all the damn hair, it was taking him forever to reach the desired spot.

After almost an hour( Ant hours, yes) of trudging thorugh treacherous knots and tangles, Aye and YooHoo safely crept down onto the girl’s earlobe and hid behind it, out of anybody’s view.

Aye sighed with relief. YooHoo waited for orders.

“Now YooHoo, here's what we will do. We’ll jump from here right into that shiny surface there” said Aye, pointing his head towards a bowl of soup. “I’ll say one, two, three and at three we jump, okay?”

YooHoo nodded. “wonetoothreee”

“When do we jump?” Aye asked again. “One two…

“Threee” YooHoo said smiling widely, the expectation of food lighting up his eyes and warming his innards.

"Okay". Aye called on the all the Ant gods he knew and took his position on the upper tip of the ear lobe, with YooHoo standing nearby, alert.

“Okay. One, Two….Three!” Aye thrust forward.

YooHoo jumped down screaming, his greedy mouth wide open to catch all the food waiting for him in the soup bowl underneath. Aye stood waving from the girl’s ear, laughing in spite of himself and wiping his antennae. Phew! There goes that idiot!

Aye watched as YooHoo landed on the soup, his puny legs propping him upon the thin film on its surface. For a minute, Aye wished he had jumped along with the dumb spider. The food. All that food. His stomach was rusting with disuse, his once shiny body was slowly shriveling. But no, it was too much of a risk. The giant was his only hope of getting back to the colony. “if only she’d get up and walk back..”

Aye looked down a again to see how YooHoo was faring.

Uh Oh.

A spoon now descended into the soup; scooping a spoonful of it, laced with pepper, herbs and a tiny YooHoo, and carrying them into the giant’s mouth.

A strain of regret of entered Aye’s mind. That poor dope, a tragic end to his first day.

Oh well, what could he have done anyway? The kid’s dumb, he would have killed himself before reaching maturity one way or the other. Too bad though.

Aye shook his head from side to side; “tch ,tch” , and then walked back into the girl’s head, thinking. He was not sure how long he’d last this way. Hunger was spinning his head. He imagined great volcanoes of acid bursting inside his tummy.

Tired, he leaned against a strand and closed his eyes.

He didn’t know when he had fallen asleep, but Aye woke up to find water all around him. He jumped up in panic. There was water flowing down through the hair canopy above him; waterfalls breaking out all around. Aye clambered up through the wetness and reached the surface. He poked his head out through the tangles (which were all the more tangled now for the wetness) and tried to breathe. But as soon as his head was out, a torrent of water hit him on the face and he lost his balance. “Help!” Aye slipped over the slick surface of the giant’s hair and flowed down in a stream.

“Nooo…!”, he screamed into his own head, too tired to shout out anymore. What was the point? He was screwed. The day just kept getting worse every second and no one would help him. Here he was now, upside down and free-flowing down on a water ride from hell. The day’s events flashed through his head. A small misstep had landed him in the state he was in, now. Oh well, what was there to live for anyway. He’d been missing for hours and he was sure no one at the colony had even noticed. It’s not like he brought back a dead butterfly every day or was even on the queen’s good books.

Aye sniffed sadly and indifferently gulped down some of the water which filled his mouth. He then looked down to see where he was headed to. A cold hard floor faced him. He almost fainted in terror. “I am going to die!”Aye tried to crawl up but was pushed down by the water .In a desperate attempt he plunged his jaws down on the hair strands only to find himself biting down on sheets of water which now carried him down with even more force.

Oh no…Help!... somebody!

Just then the giant shook her head, throwing off drops of water, inside one of which Aye was caught. He flew for a split second and fell hard against a furry surface.

Aye now bit down on it with all the strength that was left in him.

Where was he? And what now? The way the day had progressed so far, he was sure a lizard was going to swoop down to eat him up right then. He opened his eyes slowly and tried to find out what he was biting on to. He hoped with all his heart that it was nothing alive. “No god, no.”

Aye sighed in relief to find that he hadn’t plunged his mouth onto a squirrel or dog (as much of it as he could fit in his little jaw). Phew! It was only a piece of furry cloth that he had been thrown on. He loosened his jaw grip and spit out the cotton he had chewed up, and then straightened his head to look around.

Cherthala Diaries Part two- The non-adventures :D

Day 1

Cherthala’s been hit by mosquito menace this summer. The unofficial ‘National Animals’ of Kochi have taken the little place by storm. Kitchen door chit chat between grandma and the neighbours now regularly features the amount of mosquito carcasses generated in each house by the most modern of all mosquito fighting technology- the all powerful ‘bat’. This revolutionary device has made a true sport of mosquito swatting. All you do is sweep the air around in one or two graceful movements one by one and the little devils fry to death with a delightful crackling sound. Ha…

Of course here ammamma’s yet go give in to this ‘new’ technology (cherthala’s a little snailish on the tech front you see) . But she has her own version of ‘The bat’- a bat shaped contraption of her own, fashioned out of the hard part of an arecanut leaf, yes, the ‘paala’.( Actually ‘contraption’ would be a stretch, its just a ‘paala’ cut to a bat shape for use as a fan which, due to changing realities, found itself elevated to the status of a mosquito fighting device.) So instead of frying mosquitoes by swinging the bat in fluid, graceful movements, we beat them to death one by one with savage force. Ptash ! ptash! , goes grandma as she happily indulges in this exercise while watching cheesy old movies on TV. She sits there now, beating around her legs and checking to see if the mosquito on the floor’s really dead. Onscreen, Mammotty’s stealthily following the villains who raped his wife and sister, looking like a mosquito himself, with a black outfit and giant shades!

After a particularly violent thrash, grandma looks up at me, visibly amused by her new hobby. “ Our bat works well don’t you think?” she asks laughing.

“Maybe we should put up a board and sell them” I suggest. She nods and laughs.

“It’s the next big thing!”

The mighty ant population of Cherthala’s also on an upswing. The Giant( well. In ant terms, giant) red orange ‘musaru’ ants are building nests on every cashew tree, the tough black ants which go about alone and which wont die even if you hit them with a brick and stamp on top of it(guess how I know :P ) , are all over the place. The myriad of little ants also abound. In fact, the first big news from grandma’s kitchen today was that the carefully guarded sugar bottle had been hit by tiny red ants. I was given my first assignment when Grandma spread a newspaper in front of me as I sat staring with my tea on the back porch and spread the ant hit sugar on it. I am to swipe the ants away as t hey disperse from the sugar mound and spread out in panic. And these ants bite! I put my glass down and get on with it. In no time I had meticulously finished the tricky operation with minimum ant casualties. Grandma takes away the sugar; “Operation Red hunt has successfully expelled the guerilla ants”, I declare to myself. Chidambaram should really really hire me ( :P )

As I get back to day dreaming and staring at the trees, I notice that a clearly miffed ant is clinging to my ankle, biting with all its might. I stare at it for a while, too lazy to brush it away. I stare a little more. Its not very entertaining though. He/she is getting on my nerves a bit.

"stop biting me..” I tell the teeny ant. Its in no mood to listen.

I nudge it a little. “shoo…” It finally gives in and falls to the ground, then wriggles and walks away in a huff.

“I had to defend the sugar…” I whisper after it regretfully. It scrambles away angrily and does not look back.

“Can’t we atleast talk about this?”...

“Abjure violence, come for talks!.." I shout after it in a tiny voice.

Now where have I heard that before? Umm.

Day 2 and then on

On the days I’ve been here, my chief entertainment has been sitting on the kitchen porch staring at the life around, participating only when something interesting throws up (or when I am made to, by granny). The porch is good place to observe things. In front of me stretches the backyard, through it runs the makeshift lane which leads to an opening in the fence a long way off. This is the lane through which grandma’s many visitors use to make their stop over at her kitchen door. I sit on the steps looking out. A little off to my left is the large pond, filled with fish and turtle and snakes and possibly even a loch ness monster of the Alleppey variety (well it is a huuge pond), under the thick cover of water weeds. To my right is a smaller pond which only fills up during the rains. Near to it stands the fire wood shed. All around me are trees. So everyday, I sit a long while on the steps watching things develop and people come and go, while grandma buzzes about having her share of strictly ordered, efficient ‘fun’.

The first visitors to appear on a usual morning are the crows, in particular a large black ‘valluvan’ crow that stations itself on a tree near the kitchen window waiting for scraps, occasionally attempting breaking and entering into the kitchen too. Next comes the woman who sweeps the yard very morning and helps grandma with chores; she’s new, the old one’s ‘run off’ somewhere, according to you know who. As the lady goes out with a broom and pot, I am summoned in for tea. When I come back to my vantage point after a while, the scene's changed completely. The suns shining and the birds, all of them, have descended. A group of noisy, spirited birds called ‘pothaankiri’ hop about on the trees and on the yard, chirping and getting into fights among themselves and with other birds. One or two mynahs walk about with their heads high under the jack tree near the large pond. The cuckoo is already at its usual spot, a branch of the huge ‘aanjili’ tree, screaming bloody murder and biding time till its chased away by the pothankiri birds. A slim, black headed bright yellow bird comes and sits on the mango tree, chirps, looks around a bit and flies off in a hurry. A flash of blue, the kingfisher, flies across the pond with a catch as a pretty little bird, the ‘kola kozhi’ comes out of the pond and probes around in the kitchen garden. Many other shy winged things fill the air with noises unseen. Little squirrels, adorable brats, scamper up and down trees and play hide and seek.

As these inhabitants go about their business, some visitors arrive. There’s that bend, old lady who is addicted to ayurveda medicines. She stops by for some idle chat on her way to my aunt’s dispensary at the junction. Grandma, who hates being disturbed during her chores, tries to shake her off, but the woman won’t budge. She goes on and on about how her daughter in law doesn’t treat her right etc. The fish vending lady comes next. After some subtle mind games and negotiations, grandma and the lady reach a grudging compromise and she departs after unloading some of her wares. After her, the grocer comes with groceries for ‘teacher’. Later a partly blind lady drops by and hovers around for lunch. A neighbor comes to buy coconuts… the list goes on.

So today, a day as normal as any other, I sit on the steps with tea and a slightly disoriented head. I can see my uncle and grandma walking towards home through the path running to the kitchen from the opening in the fence at the end of the back yard.

“Nandu, there’s someone here to see you!” Grandma calls out. I rub my eyes and look at the approaching group. “Is that a cow coming behind them??” I go out to meet them and to see who the visitor is.

“Buffallo!” my uncle exclaims to me. So we have a new inhabitant.

I keep my distance; pets and farmyard animals were never my thing. The little buffalo is bewildered. “It’s from Pollachi”, my uncle enthusiastically explains his new acquisition. Grandma’s happy at the new arrival whose only purpose according to my uncle and her, is to clear the land around the house, which is over grown with weeds of all kinds. That’s not an unpleasant job for cattle to be burdened with, I think; laze around and eat grass, sounds good.

The little buffalo, whom granny christened ‘Panchami’ ( I have no idea what that means, neither does she), is understandably melancholy all day. It refuses all food and drinks just a little it of water. Uncle takes it down to the pond in a bid to cheer it up with a bath. No use. I try to keep it company lest it’s afraid of being left alone and try to cheer it up with grass sprigs. Panchami’s in no mood to cheer up. She sleeps through the first day and most of the next.

Grandma and I go visit her from time to time, trying to coax her into accepting food. Its her second day and we have had little success. She refuses to touch the grass and just drinks water. I stroke her head and even give her massage behind her ears to cheer her up a bit. She looks up with big moony eyes and then tries to eat my kurta. “ Now come on...!” I say and lift up her chin. The little buffalo looks up at me with such a forlorn expression that even I, the happy sunshiny cherthala version of myself, am a little depressed. Depressed by a buffalo; how strange is the world.

We need to get her to eat something I tell granny. Grandma goes around the yard and gathers what she says to be the most appealing of grass varieties. Panchami won’t even look at it. “She’ll come around” grandma says, “lets wait a while, your uncle will probably think of something”.

And uncle does. The next day, we have a delivery- hay. Uncle has ordered them to be brought to see if Panchami will take a liking to it. We take a little to her and stand away. Panchami looks at us and then sniffs the hay. Grandma, Uncle and I wait with bated breath. And Voila! She likes it. Panchami chomps it all down and looks up. Bring more, Here we go!

So hay it is. As Grandma and I wait for uncle to bring more hay, Panchami looks at us as if to say, “why couldn’t you think of this earlier you fools?”.

More hay is brought.. We watch with amusement as she eats. Suddenly uncle’s face becomes clouded with thought.

“Hay’s friggin expensive these days…”

“Umm.”

“Wasn’t she supposed to eat all the grass?” I ask aloud.

Uncle looks around, then at me and then at the buffalo.

“This can’t be right...”

Oh we’re screwed.

contd

Twist and shout

The things that should worry an average Indian are these- spiraling prices, unprecedented climate change, depletion and destruction of our fresh water resources, security. Or are they? A passing glance at the media circus would make us believe that the above said issues are mere diversions in between the all important issue of discussing celebrity weddings, cricket and useless rhetoric of corrupt, self announced protectors of our nation. Giving valuable air time or news space to real issues is mere a concession the media make to oblige boring people who want to spoil the party for us all. “80 jawans dead? Really? Vedanta usurped tribal land? Oh damn! Okay, now, lets get back to what Modi tweeted while having lunch..”

Let’s put aside the media obsession with twisting words and licking up tit bits of celebrities and other twits. What’s even more appalling and criminal is the deliberate attempts to hide truth, to keep people ignorant of things they should know and which would affect public opinion. Everybody knows the name of Shashi tharoor’s alleged fiancée, but not many people know who Srinivas Siras is. He died very recently; committing suicide after being tortured mentally and hounded out of Aligarh Muslim University for being ‘caught’ having sex with a man. The reason I bring up his name is because he’s not a rural faceless man, technically he should be on the radar of our media, for which farmers and poor people are generally not glamorous enough to be featured( they neither speak English and nor can they look good debating in a news studio). Bu for whatever reason, his death, a symbol of the extent to which institutions and society at large trespass on personal liberty and violently pursue their hypocritical , repressive views, was ignored while other issues of ‘international importance like Sania Mirza’s wedding dress took centre stage. This and other information manipulation is nothing new. It’s been hardly a week since the most gruesome Maoist attack in recent history killed more than 75 CRPF jawans. After the initial hue and cry, those lives have been forgotten. The Home Minister, under whose reign this occurred is a media darling of sorts. So lets forget that he has anything to do with this or any other terror attacks (and there are scores) and lets go hound a junior minister for wanting to marry a third time. Who cares that he is actually good at his job, he thinks we’re dopes, we’ll teach him a lesson!

Most of us live in fear of what are ‘mundane things’. Will my children have clean water to drink next week? Will the power go off as I try to study for an exam in the grueling heat? Will food prices go up again? Will my neighbour who serves in the Army come home in a flag draped box because his life’s disposable? These are trying times. To waste our time in the midst of baffling uncertainties with senseless drama is not just irresponsible, but sadistic and criminal as well.

The argument we hear over an over again in defense of news policies of most media organizations is an incoherent babble with the words ‘ratings’, ‘what people want’ etc. Maybe its time for the fourth estate in our country to admit that the so called main stream media doesn’t really give a damn about the way in which the content it churns out affects people. Don’t dish out ‘news’ to serve vested interests and then pretend to be guardians of democracy, freedom and all things good.

‘Why do we bother with news?’ is something most people I know wonder at. Maybe it’s time we stopped. That way we might actually save some trees and precious electricity. Listen to the headlines on the radio maybe, and then go plant trees or take a walk with the time usually spent on Prime time news. The circus will go on of course, but at least we won’t be the clowns anymore.

Aye'm back

Contd from way down below, in case you are not one of the approximately three people who read this blog regularly :-)

A fierce wind( by ant standards) shook Aye out of his unconsciousness. He was lying on his back, his legs curled up in the air; not an ideal position for an ant(unless he’s intent on suicide) and very much a bother, Aye thought to himself. His head was spinning. Microscopic flying creatures seemed to him to be circling his head. He tried to lift up his head but fell back instantly and passed out, again.

After what seemed an eternity and after passing out and then back in, again and again a couple of times more, Aye woke up and felt a little stronger. He still lay on his back, conserving energy and trying to figure out a way to get back to ideal ant posture. Above him, light filtered in through the black tangled hairy canopy. He could see some green through the gaps and above that a little blue.

Aye thought of his life. Until yesterday, he was leading such a blissfully normal life ; waking up when his shift started, obeying orders, talking non sense with the blokes in his battalion, making fun of the queen...Now look at him, flat on his back, staring at his own pointy butt and lost in some weirdo’s head! Things sure can change in a split second loss of balance. Sigh.

His colony, his sweet, organized colony with its airy chambers and regular food supply lay God knows how far away. Food, oh food! He was famished and this place was sterile as only it could be. Not that he had any use for human head fauna now. The situation he was in, he’d better pray that no other insect discovers him and gobbles him up whole, legs and all. An ant with his legs up is the dream of many a creature of the insect kingdom and generally, considered an musing sight by all, especially humans, Aye thought to himself. There was this one time when one of his friends was over turned by a human and left in that state. He was discovered hours later, (ant hours of course) being taunted and about to be devoured by a baby lizard(who by the way, would not dare to even look at an upright ant!). There were many such stories... All of which reminded Aye that he should probably make an attempt to stand on his legs again ( that is if they still worked)

“Now how do I do that?”

“Help!”

“No one?...”

Aye was sure his head wasn’t quite normal. Who was he calling out to anyway? He was on a desert; the Kalahari equivalent of any place an ant could be. Oh well. Now what?

It was all the hair. One strand was pressing him down; making it impossible for him to get up. His legs were asleep from all the upside down action, which didn’t help the situation either. Aye sighed. This day was going just great! He closed his eyes and tried to think… Various types of food marched by in a procession inside his head. Caterpillars, cake crumbs, drippy little drops of honey. “ No aye, focus. Foo-cus!” He shouted into his own head. It was no use. They all came marching in, background music playing, as soon as he closed his eyes. Maybe he should think with his eyes open. Hmmm.

“AHHHHHH!!!!” …. It was Aye, his eyes were open now, and staring into another pair of eyes, (actually a lot of eyes, he didn’t know how many, but on one head for sure) staring right back at him.

"Weeeeehhhhhh!!!!".. It was the creature staring into Aye’s face from above. Plop! He/she/it jumped to the side in fright and looked at Aye from a distance, eyes, all of them bulging.

Aye closed his eyes back with lightning speed. He was taken by terror. Breathe. Breathe. Its probably just a hallucination. These things happen. His head had been hit... Its perfectly natural. Just a hallucination.. nothing else. “is it gone?? ..Oh please be gone!”

Aye opened his eyes a slit. There was nothing above him. Phew! He now opened wide and looked around (okay, not exactly a-round, but he looked left, then he turned his head and looked to the right). There was nobody. “Good lord, thankyou!.. It was just a weird…

“hu aaare yuuhh???..” A timid voice squeaked behind Aye’s head.

Horror.

Aye froze. Then screamed out and in his utter complete fright, propelled his body upward in a super human, ahem, ant motion and scrambled up the hair strands pressing above him. He was on his feet again. He himself couldn’t believe how he had managed to turn upright in such a split second. He was slightly proud of himself. No wait, this is not the time. Snap back now..!

The sun fell lightly on Aye. He looked down from where he was perched to see what it was that had stealthily stood behind him and frightened all the formic acid out him. He saw a creature a little smaller than him. Its eyes were enormous on its transparent, puny looking body. What the hell is this thing? Aye tried to remember all the creatures he knew. This one looked so weird, it was almost invisible except for the giant eyes…

“Its a spider!! Ofcourse! How could he miss the legs, all eight of them?.. A spider!...

“Uh oh. "

"A spider.”

Spiders generally tend to eat ants. Hmm. Aye looked at the thing a little more closely. Thankfully this one looked like a baby and kind of stupid too. There it was, staring up at him with its mouth open, like he was from Outer space, wherever that is. What should he do now? He kept his eyes on the little spider baby and pondered. Maybe a little friendly conversation would be nice. But not too friendly,he told himself; he should establish that he was boss .

Aye looked at himself. Hmm. Perching up here like a tailless monkey wasn’t exactly saying I am the boss. “I should get down.”

He took a deep breath, smoothened his antennae and got down slowly, eyeing the spider all the while. It stood there still, gaping as stupidly as ever.

“Hello there” Aye said in a croak, (he was trying to sound gruff ofcourse) “who are you?”

The spider looked at Aye closely with all of his thirty thousand or so eyes.

“elooh.. I am , ... I am Yoohoo... Can I eat you?”

Aye’s eyes banged against their sockets. Brain hemorrhage. His mouth froze into a twisted, shell shocked expression. Panic. Panic. Okay. Calm down now, he told himself. Look cool. He’s half your size, get a grip!

“Ummm…,” Aye looked down at ‘yoohoo’ and considered him for a minute,

“ No. No you can’t.”

“Ohh.”

‘Yoohoo’ stared down at the scalp for a while. Aye prepared to bolt.

Then the little spider looked up; he was back to smiling again.

“okay.”, he said,

“Huu can I eat??”

Aye stared at the spider suspiciously. Is he that stupid or is he acting? Yoohoo looked on. He was smiling wide now, expectation writ large on his stupid baby face.

Aye was in a fix.

“Now I have to baby sit this eight legged dope?"

What, in the name of the big fat queen, was happening to him today??..First getting stuck on the dumb giant’s head with nothing to eat but stinky air and now another freak who’ll probably figure out a way to eat him if he doesn’t stuff something into his mouth!

Aye had never really believed in Ant Gods, (or evolution and even gravity for that matter, not that it mattered here) but he now prayed desperately for a way to get rid of the creature that stood in front of him, scratching itself with all four of its front legs. Good lord, please throw me something here...a little life jacket...

“ I’m, hunggrrreee….” A whiny little voice said.

It was YooHoo ofcourse. Aye tried to think of someway to pacify him. He realized that his brain may have gotten permanently damaged from the day’s trauma. He could come up with nothing. Absolutely nothing. Boy was he in trouble now. In a desperate attempt, he decided to strike up a conversation to distract the little devil’s attention from food.

“So YooHoo, my name is Aye. I am an ant…well an ant King really. My fellows and I are on an expedition here. They’re, they’re around here somewhere…haha, I wonder what they’re up to, you know soldiers, loot and plunder, loot and plunder. H aha…Ha.Ha. They,… They’ll be back any…”

A weird noise interrupted Aye’s imaginative discourse. It was coming from YooHoo. Aye stopped and looked at the spider closely. Is it going to turn into some mutant spider suddenly and attack? Aye perked up his antennae. The noise grew in pitch. Yoo Hoo had covered his eyes with his front legs. The little spider was crying! Bawling really. Aye was at a loss.

“YooHoo, don’t cry. Why are you crying?”

The spider wiped its thirty thousand eyes and babbled something incoherently. Aye deciphered the obvious. Food. The little thing is hungry. "Hungggreeee."

“What a pest”, he thought. Here I am hungry and depressed and in all probability about to crushed to death by useless hand movements of the dumb girl underneath and this Parasite won’t even allow me a minute of peace in my misery. He looked at YooHoo. He was crying his lungs out and evidently very, very sad. The screeching noise was getting on Aye's nerves. He cursed himself and the entire world and approached the bawling little spider.

“Now don’t cry YooHoo... lets go and see if we can find you something to eat. Won't that be nicee? hmm?Come on now...”

The spider looked up and wiped his eyes again and decided to stop crying. He looked hesitantly at Aye. Aye smiled back at him with a fake thousand watt smile. YooHoo suddenly brightened up and resumed his stupid smile from before; reassured by the affection coming forth from the ant. Well, that was easy, Aye thought to himself. At least the stupid smile is noiseless.

“Come on now, lets go look around” Aye said sweetly to the spider and started walking towards the girl’s forehead.

YooHoo followed his protector obediently, hobbling along on all eight legs.

Aye walked on ahead, trying to think. He turned around. The spider was following his footsteps closely. That very moment, a bright idea entered Aye’s mind.

“Muahaha... that should get him off my back!”

“Come along YooHoo” He called out to the spider and kept on walking.

Apologies in advance :D

So what would happen if I suddenly stop existing? In other words, if I die, fall of a cliff or get abducted by aliens at night. Apart from the emotional reactions of those who knew me; the tears, shaking heads, tch tchs, evil laughs etc, what would be the real consequence? Anything affected? Any consequences to the material world, anybody harmed?

Let’s see. A regular day at home. 7 30 AM. My mom goes to wake me up; the bed is empty, she imagines I’m already up and about, goes back to the kitchen.. My morning cup of black tea gets cold, colder and then evaporates in the heat. So far the only inconvenience caused and the only physical change my absence has caused. Everything else is working like clockwork. That’s one of the good things bout never helping one’s mom in the kitchen- no one inconvenienced in the event of death (!). Around eight, couple of sweet, evidently jobless, very evidently early risers type people start sending me(along with everyone else in their phone books), good morning messages on the phone. These go unanswered. But no problem there, I do that all the time. Not that I do not care, I do, very much. But the level of emotional reaction caused is not enough to wake me up from my post wake up call disorientation. It’s a difficult time.I'm sure they understand.

So where were we? By now, the morning’s newspapers would be crammed inside the metal post box perched on our gate with no one to rescue them. The second casualty of my non-existence, I may call them. Since I am the only person in the house deranged enough to devour the contents of two newspapers (its true), one face flat on the left side of things and the other decidedly right wing, yuppie and urban, every morning, there’s a hundred percent chance that the said newspapers will end up spending quality time with each other inside the shiny box the whole of this day, the first since my mysterious disappearance. We move on. There are a lot of beneficiaries to my disappearance whom I should not forget to mention-my toothbrush and paraphernalia remain pristine to day and water and power conservation get a major fillip for sure. If it were a working day and I still had a college to go to, many more benefits could’ve been listed and many more people would have had a an easier time; one less person to crowd the bus, more space on the first bench, a teacher with a quieter class etc. But since it’s the grand ‘holidays’ they will not be able to avail the benefits of my non-existence.

By nine thirty, the parents depart, pleasanter and light hearted than usual; their constant irritant for the last twenty years removed in addition to having less clutter and books disfiguring the living room. The only slight inconvenience here is that there’s no one to lock the door and to stage her own version of Home alone. I must remind you that we’re totally ignoring emotions, paranoia etc that human beings may have, and considering a situation where normal life goes on, just without me in it. I realize that this is not practically happen-able, but bear with me here, I am obviously cracked in the head.

So, mom and dad have left. My breakfast is the next casualty on our list. It is left untouched and uneaten in the kitchen; its life’s purpose never to be fulfilled. A myriad of refrigerator flora also suffer the same fate. Bournville bars cry, the tetra packed milk sniffs, hide and seek biscuits sigh and the banana chips jump off the counter in a bid to commit suicide. Well, you get the idea. Since all of these things are more or less the same specie, we name them casualty number three- all the things that I eat. Now you can choose look at this scenario from a positive perspective; less consumption, less energy use, less global warming, the world is saved! Me, I'd say that it would be too much of a stretch to think this way. But it all depends on how much of a sun shine cookie head you are.

The next casualty ladies and gentle men, is the most affected on our list- The Television and all its channels. The TV sits perplexed. The parents’ leaving is its usual sign to spring into life. It awaits that moment everyday of the vacation; much the same way flowers await the sun or useless people await their wedding day. (there is a chance I was murdered). The TV waits and waits for its mistress ; Friends, Bones, Desperate house wives, all go on unwatched. The music player suffers the same fate, so does the computer. On the bright side, the neighbourhood din is reduced, however insignificantly; my TV not adding to the energetic tum tum from the work shop or the chainsaw noise from the carpenter’s nearby. Anyway, we have here casualty five- the entertainment, information (ahem) Industry. (Everything gets to be called an ‘industry these days; the education industry, the beauty industry, the ear drops industry etc. So I don’t see why my attempts at wasting time cannot be given the same honour). Meanwhile, another casualty, the phone, goes on suffering. Aitel, which calls me with the regularity and frequency of a scorned boyfriend, rings up around two and then again at around six. Friends might call but will be unsurprised as usual at my not answering. The phone vibrates itself off the bedside table and hits the floor. After much twitching, it dies. Casualty number five.

Fast forwarding to the next casualty on our list, there is no one to read the books stacked up on the bed or to return the ones I took from the library in like 1925. If I compress time and fast-forward effects, I can declare that the librarian awaiting the books and the fee is a casualty. Books can also be considered a minor casualty, assuming of course that they like to read and tossed around on the bed. Titles doomed to die unread: The Dubliners, The Scarlet letter, a collection of stories by S,K Pottekkadu, Kipling’s Kim(well, its doomed either way, I have drawn up no five year plan yet that includes reading it), copies of national geographic already come and yet to etc. So we have casualty number six-library and some books with no one to read them.

Moving on again, its evening, dad and mom are back; no one to welcome them as usual. I clearly haven’t chosen today to reach home earlier than them. Another cup of Kannan Devan Gold evaporates and joins the clouds above. We’ll club it with casualty number one, the morning cup of tea. The night arrives with no one to switch on the lights and light the brass lamp. I think I can safely say that my parents have some inconveniences to face but I can’t call them casualties since, from a strictly pragmatic point of view, they have more benefits than things to complain about. Couples of more hours go by and it’s bed time. Nobody affected by my absence since the evening cup of tea.

The day ends; lights go off. As far as I can see, my going ‘poof!’ has irreparably affected six entities. To recap, they are- Two cups of black tea, two newspapers, the home entertainment-information industry aka TV-Computer-music player, the phone, books-library and All the things I eat. True, friends and relatives may have noticed, but their reactions don’t count as these are neither quantifiable nor irreparable. In conclusion, I can happily say that I would, in the event of my not existing anymore, have done more service than harm. My sympathies to the six casualties of course but since I am not extinct at present, I could do something to make things easier on them. Draw up a will maybe…

The huge benefit of this exercise, apart from the immense satisfaction of boring people to cold hard death, is that I am not anymore, under the illusion that I am of much consequence. All my suspicions and gut feelings, usually brushed off by friends and relatives, are confirmed. I no longer feel like an inflated amoeba( assuming something as tiny has thick enough skin to be inflated)- small, yet filled with air and with airs! I am currently deflated; happily pseudopodifying through the sea, and respectful (very) of higher life forms.

Tata.

Blabbering. Again.

Owing to exams and study holidays. I’ve been watching a lot of Television lately; a habit I had not pursued actively for while. But I see nothing’s changed, most of the old impressions remain and since this blog is dying a slow death due to boredom, I thought I’d note down in five minutes what I’ve noticed the last few days. I apologise in advance for the blabber that follows. Nothing serious. Just.

Couple of things:

TV news- can only be described as kind of a Scooby Doo on steroids, judging by the way it reacts to events existing and non. It panics and goes berserk at the slightest non event and the next second goes on the over drive with sun shine and yahoo! over something else. So we’re pretty much left with “how dare Tharoor say that” and “holi hey” most of the time. And this I noticed from a daily 30 second dose of ‘news channels’. I stopped at 30 seconds fearing permanent damage to my sanity from watching this non sense. Interestingly, Rajdeep Sardesai once said people who don’t make it anywhere else become journalists. Who can blame him? Most of the said people work for him! At the backdrop of all this, life in the real world goes on, shrugging indifferently at all the ‘information’ and ‘awareness’ and ‘activism’ and ‘debate’.

Ads- Getting dumber by the day. There’s no limit to stupidity. There’s one which I saw, where a rider/user of some bike/fuel picks up a pizza delivery guy stuck on the road in the middle of ‘nowhere-you-can’t-even-get-fake-Bisleri-let-alone-pizza’ (:P) and then drives this person for half an hour on a bike through treacherous landscape, knowing, all the while, that the fellow’s delivering the pizza to his own work shop, then drops him and surprises him with this extraordinary piece of coincidence. If I were the pizza guy I’d deliver it on the hero’s face! But of course in the ad, the boy looks all “I’ve learned so much from you super man….” Gee.

I hear a lot about portrayal of women in ads; stereotyping, objectifying etc. Let’s talk about men. Why don’t they protest? You may have seen, if you're as jobless as me, a recent Scorpio ad (the beastly car?). There’s guy on the vehicle golfing around on some desert with an entourage of attractive men and women. And this one’s just a sample of general advertising targeted at men. Why don’t men protest being portrayed as perfectly jobless morons who go about golfing in the Sahara with an uncomfortably dressed woman painstakingly following him around to clap and encourage him as he gets the tiny ball into the hole? (And lady’s look clearly says “what a retard… and I have to wear a maroon dress and smile at this ass”!) All of this with 3 or 4 other men, in dark glasses (again, stereotyped security look!) looking on. And there’s so many more(most in the car, perfume, shaving cream segment); most show men as perfect Neanderthals who get pleasure out of beating each other in silly car races at traffic signals or making a woman driver hit her head on the dash board with their ‘cool’ maneuvers(gallant!).

Any commercial aimed at men-perfumes say, they’re portrayed as testosterone bottles/idiots who’ll do anything just get to some deviant, non-existent breed of female who’s attracted to men wearing Axe or screw driver or whatever. Its assumed that you can sell even a Mars rover to a middle class Indian male (who never leaves his home town unless its to go to Bangalore), provided, you put a hot girl next to it. (“maybe if I buy this, she’ll deliver it…umhmmm”)

How dare we women complain of being stereotyped as loving caring mothers and indulging, attractive spouses when these guys clearly have it worse. And they don’t even care. Enough feminism, we need a ‘mennist’ movement. My hopes are pinned on gay men in the activist area; heteros are clearly busy, what with all the golfing!

Rosebowl-is a good channel, if you ignore a certain broad, drag queen met upperclass Indian house wife woman who insists on telling us about food no one cares to make(green yucky stuff and weird coffee which we like to drink at cafes thank you very much) while one unsuccessfully tries to make sense of her clothing style.

Bones-Good show. Of course nothing beats Seinfeld but this is a totally different genre.

MTV-Should get a life! Can anything be so boring? Even their ‘kickass mornings’ can give one a fatal depression.

Now that I have wasted a sufficient amount of time, I’ll stop. Tata.

Ramblings :)

‘Aye the ant’ fell. He fell from the ceiling. He had been marching wearily with the rest of the troopers, egged on by the big headed supervising ants, on their way to drag a moth carcass from the over head attic to their nest just outside the room. He had walked that line on the ceiling many times. Today, he had looked down briefly to see if the girl was still asleep, had lost his balance for a second, and fell. He was now midair, free falling. He looked up; sighing at his stupidity. He fell in a straight line onto the girl’s head, getting lodged deep inside her hair. It was dark inside even for an ant and he coughed as some strong smells hit him. Her head must be unpopulated as the Baygon bottle, he groaned. He was sure that no big lice, no small lice, not even a cockroach could stand the morbid chemical smell. He plodded through the black, tangled forest; extricating himself from the numerous knots and traps with great difficulty, finally emerging on the surface, breathing with relief. He found a strand of hair that fell over her face and walking thorough it, landed on the hollow below her neck. ‘Aye the ant’ then took some time to look around and thought; now what? He then looked up; “I did fall a long way down”.

He had never seen the girl so close as this. She is huge. He thought about her four measly legs (only two of which she used. How stupid of her.) He had often seen her; going in and out of the room as he and the troopers went on daily raids through the gaps on the wood ceiling. She didn’t do much, except sleep and then disappear as the sun grew hot. Once, she had thrown a sticky red candy out the window and the colony had feasted on it for two days. A red stickiness melted Aye the ant’s heart. He had an urge to plunge his mouth into her neck. “wonder what she tastes like..hmmm. But no, no. Must remember what the trainer taught him and the others about control. Besides, it made ants age faster if they went around biting larger animals. Of course, sometimes it just made them stop ageing and just die. He chuckled at his own joke. Now what was he trying to do? Yes, he remembered now. Let’s see if I can go down this leg near her face which is small and is dangling down from the edge of the bed. I could reach the floor with a jump and walk up to join the rest of the troopers as they returned with that moth( may it rest in peace).

He started walking as fast as he could, looking up at the ceiling now and then. The supervisors must be shouting now; “Go to the kitchen table!”, “Go pick up that dead lizard!”. Such block heads. The queen was much nicer but she was now so big, one could hardly see her fat face. Aye the ant now walked through the forested surface of the girl, marveling at how big she was. He also wondered how she survived with such a vulnerable outer covering. Anyone could punch a hole in it; he even with his bony shiny skin, found it hard to live with all the sharp objects around. They’re probably yet to evolve such sophisticated surfaces as me, he thought, and sympathetically shook his head, without really meaning it.

Aye now stood on the girl’s thumb nail; the tip of the dangling hand. He looked down. Hmmm. The floor looked hard. He considered the risks and hesitated. Maybe he could walk back and reach the floor through the cot’s legs after all. What was the hurry anyway? Maybe today was the day to do some exploring by himself. He had heard much about big ants who always went on raids alone. Such brave, interesting, great ants. Maybe this was his big chance. He could… Uh oh. The girl’s awake.

Aye couldn’t understand how the giant who was stone asleep until a second ago could’ve jumped up so suddenly. She raised her hand (the one he was reflecting on of course, if anything bad can happen to an ant, it will) and tied her hair up. Great, he was now deposited on her head, again.

He stood up wearily after landing face down on the dumb giant’s forehead. He sighed for a while and then, straightening his antennae, looked ahead, alarmed. He was being carried out of the room by the girl. She shook the floor with her ‘thump thump’ steps as panic ceased him.

He should have jumped when he had the chance. Breathe. Breathe. Breathe. Damn.

The giant now sat her giant bottom down on a chair. Aye’s head wobbled from all the rumble tumble motion. He wanted a second to make sure the giant was still before slowly raising his head. He anxiously moved close to the edge of the girl’s forehead and looked down expectantly. And there it was, an ant century’s worth of food for the colony sprawled out on the table in front. Haa. Sweet lord of all ants, help me fall into that bowl of milk!.. Aye was drunk with delight and went into a reverie. He was shaken out of his dream world full of melted sugar and cookies and milk before long.The girl raised her hand again to her smelly head. Help! Aaah..! What is wrong with you? You and your stupid hair! screamed Aye in his tiny ant's voice as the hair was brushed back and his little ant body was pushed into the tangled mass of hair again. His head had been hit. Pressure. Pressure. Passing out now. Aw.