Toe Nails

After having become laughing stock of my entire family, relatives, relative’s friends and my friends for missing the flight, even on reaching airport four hours before its actual departure. I always make sure to adhere to all timelines and every guideline written or announced on Airport and double check everything.

 Is flight no. Shown on display boards and on my ticket same, is flight on time? By any remotest chance is it early? No power banks in check in luggage, no prohibited objects in hand baggage. I check on which gate boarding will take place and on which floor is this boarding gate located. Most importantly I make sure to take the boarding pass, the moment check in starts and get my security done, then take the seat in front of boarding gate to do the boarding when it finally starts.

I did all that, that day and triumphantly secured my middle seat in the Airplane. I picked up the airline magazine from pocket fixed on backside of my front seat and started praying for one of two things to happen: god either give me female co-travellers or keep seats adjacent to mine initially empty and when everybody is seated, one of the airhostess should come, sit on it and strike a conversation with me.

Soon the window seat was taken by a geeky teenage guy who slept the moment he took his seat. I had lost my hope yet again and started blaming god but soon I got a gift which broke my brooding.

Your meal sir, a packet of nachos and cheesy dip with a can of beverage, would you like anything more sir, said the hostess. A girl seated in seat in a row before mine, uttered “ I need more”

Then this girl turned around and, my god ! she had big beautiful eyes, two almonds on a heart face.

She said that her seat is not comfortable as it is somehow not arching back, so she wants to change her seat.

I prayed, I begged to god, I bribed the universe, to make law of attraction work and it indeed worked. She came and sat next to me.

She was wearing a cream - white embroidered Shirt and standard blue jeans.

I tried to break the chill and said to her “these airlines need to ...” she stopped me in half “ I am not interested”

Girls are terrible at being humble, I was just trying to start a conversation, I grumbled in my mind and went on to read my magazine. I tried to focus hard, but I couldn’t, her feet didn’t let me. They were slender, long and extremely soft to look at, the best part though were her toenails, perfectly cut. I for instance, have them so disproportionately cut that they look like toes of an evil monster.

Captivated by her toes, I didn’t realize airhostess was long asking me for giving her empty meal packets until  this women sitting next to me pinched me on ear and said “I can cut yours in the same way, if you want”  I felt shy, but somehow dared to say “ in flight or after landing”  and she replied     “ in flight of course” . This released plethora of fantasies in my head and I was sailing well in them before I heard the carcass voice of air hostess.

An airhostess  was announcing in a mic:  everybody, this woman here is our first official style hostess, she and her team will transform you while you fly, so enjoy their services to put your feet on ground as a completely different looking person.

Soon the women next to me stood up and said we have a team of pretty ladies over here who will come to your seat and give you services at a meagre cost as per your requirements. You can get a haircut in our special technically advanced barber head cap, get manicure, pedicure, face message or simply a head massage. She pulled me up and said “This man would be our first experiment” I waved to everyone, to which they gave a good laugh. I wondered in my head, “whether I was just born to please people” and, felt sad at this thought of mine but then something struck me, maybe an arrow of courage released from a cupid’s bow.

Was it the serendipity event I was waiting for ? Yes it was ! I said to myself  first and then said this loud out to our audience  “yes I will be her experiment if she agrees to go out on a date with me after we land on ground”

Some people laughed, Some clapped and some whistled before all of them roared in chorus “ yes she would, yes she would”

She was feeling shy or embarrassed, I can’t say. But she held the mic and said in energy “ Yes I would !”

People clapped and shouted. This was the best Air travel I have ever had in my life.

And, this is how I met my girlfriend for the first time and unknowingly helped her launch a new add on service in her airline company’s first flight.

Soon this service reaped her huge benefits and her airline company became champion of the domestic travel segment surmounting the large players in the aviation industry.

The Rain Makers

Everyone at home was sleeping while they had managed to unlock the noisy door of terrace without making any noise. Their cat walk training had worked which they had been practicing since last couple of weeks.

“This time I am going to beat the hell out of Dimpy, He will never think about competing with me ever again.” Inu was blabbering while searching something about cloud seeding on her mother’s smartphone. Her brother Vihan was looking at her with a puzzled look.

 Vihan believed that his sister was mad as she always found a way to get entangled in difficult situations; her sheer ambition and her drive to emerge a winner possessed her spirit.

Vihan, even though he never wanted to support her wild streak, was bound to support and protect her as per the pledge he had taken on his first Rakshabandhan. The oath, he doesn’t remember taking but believes that he has taken, as everybody at home says so.

“I got it, its silver Iodide! We have to get silver iodide Vihan and once we get it we will drop it on clouds and see the rain coming down” Inu said to vihan. To this, Vihan replied expressionlessly “but how would we climb up to clouds, we don’t have that big a ladder”

“ I will take care of that, I know Kiara has a huge catapult at her farmhouse, we will make balls of plastic containing Iodide , then throw them up in the sky, they will fall on clouds, increase its weight and puff! There will be rain” Inu said the last line while making gesture of puff with her right hand.

                                                                          ...........

Their home was situated in the interior part of rural India right in the centre of a huge farmland. Family was wealthy and their grandfather had been the mayor of town while father was an agricultural consultant to government of India and ran a company which exported exotic fruits and flowers.  Dimpy and his two sisters lived a life of luxury hidden from rest of the world. Their house in words of her sister was, like water in the desert, like last scoop of dessert.

“Dimpy is born to rule, he is the saviour of mankind, he would solve all their worries and make them happy.” His father, Mr Pradyut, kept reigniting the flame of ambition in his young son’s mind by repeating above words to him every fortnight. He had started this ritual on Dimpy’s first birthday.

Dimpy loved experimenting; he had tons of popular science books kept in their gargantuan library built on top of their house.

This year’s monsoon had dashed everybody’s hopes. We need rains said Mr Pradyut to the crowd of farmers assembled in his house’s courtyard. We will seed the clouds with silver iodide. I will talk to Dr Sisters; Dr. Veena and Dr Itika to manage the project. Apart from raising money through a city wide paid entry competition where people will be encouraged to find ways of generating rains on our lands. We will also request the government to release funds for carrying out this activity.

The idea of seeding the clouds fascinated Dimpy, later he asked his dad about this seeding thing. His father said Dimpy should take this up as a challenge to learn about it on his own, participate in competition and solve people’s misery.

Thus started his journey for finding a solution to the problem of farmers, he thought in his mind that he would win this competition just like he had won other competitions held in the town for children, Even though it was bigger this time, for there was no upper age barrier. Arming his thoughts with action Dimpy started his study to put rain into minds of dumb clouds.

Soon the posters were printed and publications were made in city periodicals about the competition.

After studying for a whole week, Dimpy finally devised a simple plan. He would wrap silver iodide in polyethylene pieces, tie them around a rocket, then fire the rocket towards cloud. The rocket would catch fire, melt the plastic capsules and then silver iodide would fall on clouds causing rains.

He collected a bunch of rockets from leftover diwali cracker boxes and assembled silver iodide filled polyethylene wrappings around it. 

                                                                                ...........

Kiara cleaned up her catapult and kept it outside in her garden. She was sceptic about Inu’s big idea but just like Vihan, tagged along with her, after all she was her best friend who had once saved her from a bunch of hounds.

“Maybe we should try laser beams as Dr Veena talks about, here in this newspaper” Kiara said to Inu, pointing to news article she was currently reading. Vihan said; “ but laser has been practiced only in lab, and it is difficult to control it, we are not pros and it is just another children’s competition” Inu snubbed him midway “it is not just another competition kiddo, it is a war which i will win hands down” She continued in her fiery voice “look here, I have made a dozen spherical plastic containers  filled with silver iodide, we will fit them up in catapult, aim at clouds, then pull it’s thread back as far as possible before releasing the balls of iodide.

                                                                         ...........

The Fairview grounds situated on outskirts of town were crowded with participants and audiences on the competition day. People had made simple projects on small scale to show their plans of seeding the clouds. None had gone as far as Dimpy and Inu had, to actually work towards seeding the clouds. Organizers were apprehensive at first to let them even try out their projects but seeing the enthusiasm of kids. They agreed to let them be, but not before getting a safety contract signed by them and their parents.

Two positions were marked at the centre of ground where a huge catapult and a rocket launcher were kept respectively. The crowd was distanced from the centre of the ground and was made to stay in it’s periphery.

First went Dimpy owing to the alphabetic order of their names and ignited his rockets one by one to launch them towards the sky. His rockets almost touched the one lowest looking cloud before bursting into flames. Instantly, the cloud turned black and it was assumed that the little kid of organizer Pradyut had done wonders. Some people even started to gossip that Pradyut would have arranged help for his son to win this competition. Though the talks died soon as not a single drop of rain came down, apparently the cloud had got enveloped in just the smoke of rocket.

After a long wait Dimpy had to take a slow walk from centre to periphery of ground. From there he had to watch the proceedings of Inu. He prayed her failure.

Inu, kiara and Vihan repeatedly pulled the catapult as far back as possible and launched their Iodide spheres one by one towards the sky. All the spheres covered quite a distance and fell on exact same spot, on top of nearby Fairview hill at the end of their projectile motion. A couple of them had indeed touched one cloud but still they bit the dust like other ten of them had.

Dimpy burst out in laughter followed by initially silent Crowd. This brought tears in eyes of Inu. She located Dimpy in the crowd, ran towards him and slapped him hard. They followed it up with an intense little quarrel. Vihan and Kiara tried to pull Inu back and were helped by an announcement which made both Dimpy and Inu stop fighting. The announcement was about Dr Veena and Itika’s laser Rainmaker project.

Dr Sisters’ equipment was assembled at hill top. People waited with their eyes glued to the top of hill, some of the followers of Dr. Sisters took out umbrellas to be ready in case the rain falls.

After about 4 hours a beam of laser emerged from top and up went in the sky, ionizing gases in air. The hot beam lasted for five minutes. Before people could fully recover from what they saw and felt, they were greeted by a downpour.

The head of farmers along with others lifted Pradyut on their arms, people in the ground started to dance, Dimpy, Inu and Vihan too joined them in celebration. The unthinkable had been done. The draught had been ended.

Seeing the herd of people running towards hill top,  Dr Sisters boarded their helicopter parked nearby and flew away in the sky towards their headquarter.

“I think Silver Iodide of those two kids did the job because downpour occurred from clouds we had not aimed at with our laser, we should have also stuck to Silver Iodide too” said one to other in the helicopter.

Is it ok Maa

Is it ok Maa,

To mix a Sunday with a Thursday and forget my own birthday,

Some days I just stare at the wall,

Waiting for something to happen,

Terrible or good,

For the pink paint peel to fall from the wall,

Is it Ok Maa,

Some days I get hooked to Jazz, listening to Miles Davis and Dave Brubeck back to back

With a History book in one hand and a physics one in another,

While on other days I like listening to folk song I recorded on my phone,

Travelling on a train, two middle aged lovers, performing a song, whom tongue tied I watched, 

Is it ok Maa,

To just stay quiet and hate people,

Shun away from society,

Practice meditation and do salsa,

Trying to avoid contact even from friends I love,

To talk without breath with strangers,

Call an old friend and talk like you never separated,

Two leaves reborn on a same tree,

I feel like being at our home,

Drinking tea in evening,

Going jogging in morning,

Doing nothing all day,

Just discussing crops and plants growing in our little farmland,

Is it ok Maa,

To join army,

A terror group,

Start a company,

Save people,

Making robots, study genetic engineering,

Finding ultimate truth behind Mathematics,

And summing it all in one equation,

They lie don’t they Maa,

Mars has no life,

All those missions they have sent are in fact to a far away planet in not so far away galaxy,

And they have found life, like we did, a litter of puppies in our attic,

Who would have left them out of free will,

Is it ok Maa,

To abuse and win Porsche 911,

Slap someone in India for calling 911,

And then lecturing about greatness of nation,

Is it ok Maa,

If I ask you for Money to study abroad,

A course in Arts,

Which will initially give me no money,
but I will be a legend who invents new thinking,

Why did Grandpa work in a factory ?

Is it ok Maa,

To hide mistakes,

Living in guilt,

Being stone like,

Why don’t you call me when I am busy?

Why do you cut phone when I say I am busy?

Why don’t you sing lullabies on phone?

I am tired of this blabbering?

Dhani and The Djinn

Dhani and The Djinn

Djinn: I can burn you to dust.

Dhani: Its I, who got you out from this well; otherwise you would have still kept rotting in the hell. Instead of being thankful to me, you want to burn me! Try with your might! Let me see what harm your fire can bring to the daughter of Sun

Djinn: Sun is just a star, no one can be a daughter of a star, come out of your fantasy

Dhani: Many people think you to be a fantasy too,

Djinn: but here I am, in front of you, in all my glory

Dhani: your glory is because of my mercy

Djinn: you are a fool

Dhani: you are part of my dream, I have created you and I can destroy you too. It is my playground and my thoughts are my powers here

Djinn: then handle these flame globes

Hundreds of flame globes come rushing towards Dhani but she stays calm, like the wind before the storm.

Each flame globe enters her body and gets

lost like a drop in ocean

Djinn: Impossible

Dhani literally bursts out laughing, the explosion engulfs Djinn, injuring him badly. He falls on ground powerless and in sheer terror.

Dhani re-emerges infront of him. She appears taller than the Everest... Dhani’s continuous laugh lets out a cry from the Djinn’s mouth.

Dhani to Djinn’s horror picks him up and crushes him to pieces and then cleans her bloody hand by rubbing on her forehead and starts laughing again

Dhani’s mother wakes her up by sprinkling drops of Yamuna water on her innocent face...

Jahanuddin baba’s words were still tormenting Dhani's mind.

“your brother will not last long, take him away, take him to the land he belongs to, otherwise Djinn will kill him”

Autodial

Augusta our dog friend...

I do not exactly know whether there was any strategy involved or not but Augusta, a street dog did something unusual...

I am not much of a social person but one Saturday in December last year in order to break my dull monotonous routine. I went out to a nearby monument, an old castle built in centre of a lake. The palace would have been prettier in its time but now it lay in ruins. A half broken pathway connected it to the shore. Boat rides were also available which are normally preferred to reach this fort from the shore.

Since, I was in an adventurous mood so took the pathway and with my heart in my hands successfully crossed the lake underneath and reached the palace.

The palace doors were still intact, it opened into a large courtyard with rooms all around it, and its walls were embroidered with images of birds, people, and artillery. There were not much visitors at that point of time. So, taking this as an opportunity to click some photos, I took out my smartphone. Just as I raised my arm, made a pose to click a picture, a dog came from nowhere, made a smiling face and got captured in my lens. I found dog’s this gesture very adorable, so gave it few biscuits I had brought along and petted on its back and head. Dog acknowledged by wagging its tail.

Later, I went to a different location in the courtyard under one of the windows crowned by a Peacock like statue and clicked a picture of self with my eyebrows raised. I checked my galleries in phone to see whether I had snapped it right, only to find the same dog with a smiling face captured in the photo with me. I noticed it was still in same posture looking at me; I felt happy and gave dog a few more biscuits.

At this very moment a guard standing in vicinity said, “it is a routine job for this dog, it loves being snapped, every time someone clicks a picture here, this dog comes rushing towards that person to become part of the snapshot”. I found this interesting which made me look at the dog more attentively.

It was a Half brown, half white beagle with black spot on its white neck. It must have been around two years old and its stature showed that it would have been runt of the litter. A dirty black ribbon band with metallic name plate was tied around its neck. I read the name “Augusta” written on it.

The guard said, “once a pet, now an orphan, it is looking for a new home”

The guard’s words and puppy’s eyes melted my heart and I picked up this puppy and brought it home.

The next month after Augusta had become really comfortable in my world I took it to meet my parents in my native home. It somehow quickly gelled well with them too and especially with my mom who fed it a variety of dishes.

While I was at my native home, my parents persuaded, no! In fact emotionally blackmailed me to meet this girl with whom they wanted me to get married to.  Meeting was arranged in my house the very next day. All night I thought about plans to escape this trap but could not decide on any one. The night passed fruitlessly and the day came.

It was Sunday morning, Augusta and I were sitting in my room while my parents were talking to the girl and her parents. Soon I was called to meet them, In order to make them reject me an idea struck me, I picked up Augusta in my arms and went out.

As soon as I came in the living room, my parents furiously looked at me, I had anticipated this but what I had not anticipated was the girl and her parent’s reaction. They were looking so happy, I don’t know why. A moment later I found out the answer. As soon as I came close to the place they were sitting, Augusta jumped out of my arms and rushed towards the girl and the girl too joyously got up and picked Augusta in her arms.

She said “ Oh my Gosh!, mom it is Augusta, my baby, where had you been?, i missed you so much “

Augusta licked her gleefully and I felt betrayed.

She was pretty and I had known her qualifications too. I had heard from my parents that just like me she loved adventure and travelling.

I said “I found it during one of my travel adventures”

She looked in my eyes and gave me the best smile I had ever received in my life.

I sat in front of her, mesmerized, looked into her eyes and explained the whole story.

After a courtship of six months our wedding cards got published, they read:

“With the blessings of our common friend Augusta, We, Shekhar and Sarthika are getting married on....”

Fenil and the Waiter - Amit Saini

Fenil: Can I have menu please

The Waiter: Sure Sir

(The Waiter hands over the menu to Fenil)

The Waiter: What would you like to have Sir ?

Fenil: Let me read first, will you?

The Waiter: Sure Sir,

(While Fenil is scrolling through menu, The Waiter is standing in front of him, continuously observing his every move)

Fenil: I will call you. it takes me time to decide on things in life,

The Waiter: It is just food sir, Order whatever you want for the moment, if you don’t like it, order something new tomorrow. We have variety of dishes.

Fenil: You should be the owner of this place.

The Waiter: If only my girlfriend lets me be one.

Fenil: And how is she stopping you? In fact from my experience, girls should love a man owning such a place.

The Waiter:  You cannot generalize everything based on your experiences. This is a particular case.

Fenil: You Sound Intelligent.

The Waiter: I am!

(Fenil again starts to read the menu card intently, The Waiter keeps on looking at him)

Fenil: I will have an Italian Toast and ummm.. Darjeeling Tea.

The Waiter: Alright! (Goes Away)

(Fenil observes the Ambience of Restaurant, It seems new and is filled with young crowd.  Wooden chairs on Wooden Floor, Chandelier on the roof above him, an old guitar, old telephone and other antique material kept on shelves made in form of love on wall in front of him. These decorative old showpieces make him check out his current status on social networking page)

(It reads “I hope moving on is good for you” He changes it to “I am going to get you back”

While he is busy scrolling down, The Waiter places food on his table)

The Waiter: It will get cold sir, eat it fast.

Fenil: There are other things to do in life than eating food.

The Waiter: for doing those other things you need to survive; try new Dishes, hear new music, visit new places, meet new people, work on multiple things and then optimize all of these to select what suits you best.

Fenil: I can see some grey hair on your head ! Being a waiter suits you?

The Waiter: Yes it does.

Fenil: You haven’t done much in life, have you?

The Waiter: I don’t boast but you can visit “The Gallery of Robots” to know more about me.

The Fenil: I have, innumerable times, my girlfriend works there, My Ex- girlfriend in fact. I had even applied for a job there for a role in training Robots about love.

The Waiter: It is the highest paying job there, especially in times like these when all we hear about is wars around the world.

The Fenil: Yes but I got rejected, for the two jobs at same time.

(Fenil looks at the picture of a young red haired women, showing off her motorcycle tattoo drawn on her neck, The Waiter tries to sneak a glance)

The Waiter: that is one fine woman.

Fenil: How do you know so much about “The Gallery of Robots” ?

The Waiter: I used to teach the robots what you want to teach them there,

Fenil: No Way! And, you left it !

The Waiter: Yes I did, they wanted me to teach the robots to love only one person, his/her master.

Fenil: That’s how it should be.

The Waiter: Still you got rejected?

Fenil: I got rejected because my girlfriend works there.

The Waiter: Why? Didn’t you take her reference, before applying?

Fenil: We had a breakup and she wanted to move on.

The Waiter: So should you.

Fenil: It is none of your business. Anyways, what did you want to teach the robots.

The Waiter: To love everybody; each human being and each robot, this is the only thing that is going to save us from destruction caused by wars.

Fenil: But that would defeat their purpose to accomplish certain task.

The Waiter: What purpose? What task? It should be tasks.

Fenil: They are not living beings like us.

The Waiter: Give them a set of tasks, let them learn from their experiences and let them optimize themselves. Why do you want to supervise their learning. Let it be unsupervised.

Fenil: That is what we should do.

The Waiter: My Point from the very beginning, but are we doing it? Are you doing it? You are still sticking to your girlfriend, trying to possess her. What I can see from her picture is, she is alive, not dead like you. She is living in moment and you are feeding on past.

(The Waiter snatches his phone and unfriends her from his list)

(Fenil grabs waiter’s collar)

Fenil: (while grabbing waiter’s collar) How dare you?

(Fenil and waiter keep looking in each other’s eyes, then Fenil leaves his collar, takes his phone back and sits on his chair)

Fenil: You are right. You are right.

(The Waiter gives Fenil a glass of water)

Fenil drinks glass of water.

Fenil: I will move on, I will love everyone, I will try new dishes, I will start my own company of robots, I will become the man she repents losing. No! I don’t care what she thinks, Let her be happy or sad, whatever she wants to be! I will be what I want to be.

Take this away, bring your menu card or infact bring something new you cook here, something which isn’t available anywhere

The Waiter: I will bring our best dish, the highly priced, “Door to Heaven”

Fenil: Bring it on.

(The Waiter goes in the kitchen, gives order to chef for making “Door to Heaven” Then takes out his phone, makes a call to a number)

The Waiter: Hello, I have done it. We have done it. He won’t bother you again. You were right, he is indeed a gullible idiot! What an emotional fool who couldn’t find flaws in argument.

The woman voice on the phone: See my decision to not hire him was right.

The Waiter: and also not to love him and of choosing me over him.

The Woman Voice on phone: Yes! but don’t start acting like him.

The Waiter: I won’t ever! Ok bye for now my Ducati. “ Door to Heaven” is ready.

(The Waiter cuts the phone, picks up the dish and moves out of the Kitchen)