I started with...

I happened to be simply thinking about posts that I have written over the past two years or so. Sometimes it is the line that I started out with that I remember and sometimes it is what went into the post that I remember. But, here is a bunch of opening lines that I remember.


The transition from a journal on paper to this electronic version has been rather...well...ahem..errr...er...nothing great.(That’s how my first post began.)


After a long blank in my life, here is a blog to fill in the electronic void.


I cannot see my watch without taking my left hand off. But, I know it’s six-thirty in the evening. Simply because the traffic refuses to move. There are a hundred horns honking away in a thunderous cacophony. The seconds counting down ever so slowly on the traffic-signal timer. The smell of burnt petrol mixing with the scent rising of the mud after the rain. My hands drumming on the steering column to the beat of Maiden’s ‘Wasted Years’; my whistling making up very poorly for the lead and rhythm guitars. (This one is a bit of a rip-off from the opening lines of ‘Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance’ by Robert Pirsig)

I feel like a cigarette.

The moon shone brightly overhead. The stars glittered like diamonds thrown carelessly on a gigantic black velvet cloth. Some of them lay in patters that ancient astronomers christened with names steeped in myth and fantasy; dedicated to heroes and gods in tales that had been handed down from generation to generation. Orion stood proud and alert, waiting for his next quarry. Maybe that was me.


I have always had this dream of writing a killer of a piece – hard-hitting opening line, heart-wrenching meaningful content and a very thoughtful end to it all. The point that I realize now is that there are two kinds of dreams – ones that turn into realities and ones that don’t. This is the latter kind. After reading countless blogs, stories, articles and editorials, I still can’t find inspiration. And, well, even if I do find the inspiration, I don’t have the talent to do it justice in words. That, of course, is a big if – if I find the inspiration.

This one simply had to be here. Though, the post never saw the light of the day, for reasons that will become obvious.

Back in the days when condoms leaked like a sieve and kids were like Ford cars and mothers were like production lines…

And I swear I couldn’t continue. I simply broke up into pieces and fell off my chair.


This is a whole blog. And this one is my favorite. Not many have read it, but here it is.

This was one of the days when the weather suddenly gets a little colder in the morning, making you get up out of that cozy little cavity in the mattress where you lazy warm all night. Then you decide that the fan is going a little too fast, or maybe that drafty window needs to be shut. The decision to figure out which would be better, or rather which would be easier, takes a quarter hour. Five more to do the job and you have five minutes till the alarm goes off. No point in sleeping, you decide, and trudge down the hallway in a daze, off to the bathrooms to brush. The sight of twelve others, all with the same bleary-eyed sleepy look mechanically brushing - left to right and left again, greets you. The toothpaste foams at the mouth, dribbles down the chin and onto the t-shirt which last saw the inside of a washing machine a long, long time ago. You walk up, wedge yourself into position with the others and brush away. Twenty dead minutes later, when your mouth and hand beg for mercy, you spit out the paste, gargle your mouth and rinse the toothbrush.

Back in the room, your roomy has already bathed, dressed and run around the wing three times for exercise. You curse your existence, the weather, the leaking tap and every other creation - artificial, natural or divine. Your roomy then skips off to have breakfast looking very pleased, indeed, with life. You don’t have a class for another hour and the thought of sleeping those precious sixty-minutes brings forth another barrage of curses. The sticky feeling gets a little stickier. Time to take a bath; the last one was a couple of days back. The bucket receives it usual load of underwear and towel and swings way in your hand on the long trip back. Two buckets of cold water, lots of soap and eight minutes has a sparkling new you in a towel around the waist ready to kill all those people who spoiled the morning. Dressed in the same old baggy jeans, you stand at the bookrack figuring out which books actually need to be taken, and your eyes fall on the little joint you rolled last night. Why not? It’s just a little one. A little high…that’s all. A couple of hundred meters, that’s all.

The match lights and your hands cup the flame. The joint lights nicely. The filter holds well, surprisingly. Two puffs. Things seem lighter. A little quicker than usual, quicker than yesterday, at any rate. You smoked one yesterday night, too. And the one on the night before that. It looks like it’s going out of control, but you tell yourself, “It’s alright! Sixteen sites and a couple of books said that weed wasn’t addictive. I can stop. Anytime!” The smoke billows away in the wind. Slowly the joint burns out; you chuck it away. It joins the other butts on the roof – cigarettes, joints and even a few beedis.

The stairs seem to flow below your feet as you slowly climb up the stairs to your class. Three hours of practicals - mindless commands and shells. The commands flow out like gibberish, questions that make no sense. You don’t bother; it doesn’t matter. It never did really, anyway. Your thoughts fly away to sweeter places. Time flies and everyone is leaving. You stumble out of your chair and walk slowly down the aisle, the flickering screens still shutting down. There is an assignment that needs to be submitted in a couple of hours. The first afternoon hour gets the sack.

The assignment gets copied in a trice. Too late for this hour and too early for the next. Wasn’t there a little more stuff left over from the morning’s manufacture? And you know what…there is even some tobacco. Crush. Roll. Twist. Light. Puff. The clouds all around you now seem softer than they did last time. You leave to class. The next teacher is yet to come. You find a place back there in the corner against the wall. The teacher walks in and as soon as the class starts you spit out all that you just learnt. The teacher ignores you for the rest of the class. The bell rings and you go to meet some teacher to talk about shifting your test to a different day. You are going to a college fest over the weekend. You promised yourself you wouldn’t screw it up this time, but you know you will. Some one hands you a form for some summer training and your friend says, “What the hell! Let’s just give it a shot. We don’t have a snowball’s chance in hell, but hell…one shot.” You type out your resume. It looks too bare; no stories of glories and laurels. Just plain average Joe. You give it anyway.

You go to the little shack and smoke a couple of cigarettes. It’s been a crazy day. Things planned beforehand never seem to work out. Impulsive decisions seemed to work just fine. Your room is filled with people either, cracking silly jokes, screwing with you computer or draped artlessly on your bed. Slowly the crowd trickles out. Playtime. The room empties. You look around for something to do. Your eyes fall out on the little white butt sticking out from under a pile of papers. Whoooooha… it’s a long forgotten joint. Nice and fat. Tight. Aaaaaaand…we have lift off.
The coders are back; mindless jumble of code that draws squiggly lines on the screen in jarring obscene colors. You shut your mind to their gleeful cries and yells, turn up the music and go back to that great gig in the sky. It begins to come down and the music slowly fades away. Your stomach feels empty and growls. It threatens to quit on you. A little bit of food is all that you can manage; the growling subsides to gentle purr.

You find company for another couple of hours of flying. This time it is a bong. You have never tried it before; today isn’t a bad day to start, is it? Two joints make things seem mellow and life doesn’t seem too bad to live. You go meet a couple of friends and the need to leave the ground comes back. People back in the block have gotten together in a room and are merrily making weird jokes that make no sense to you; you are way higher that you think. You walk away. You are the loner. Dark corner, paper and weed. The joint is ready. Being blown while rolling doesn’t matter anymore. You fingers know what to do. The match flares in the darkness.

You float back. You look at yourself in the mirror, moments before you crash out. It is a dark, haggard face with disheveled hair and week old stubble. Sunken bloodshot eyes stares back. You stare back. The lips move. A dry stammer.

“Happy Valentine’s Day!”

P.S. : This is entirely a work of fiction. Any resemblance of characters to people, dead or alive, is purely co-incidental. All places and incidents are fictions and are simply figments of the author’s imagination.