And the game plays you

This blog post is an unfortunate, but necessary addition to the shite piled here. Well, since it is necessary , we might as well get over with it quickly.

By the way,I just noticed that starting a post with "This blog post" gives the reader an uneasy feeling , as if the next words are half expected to be " is my last, so goodbye to Moo (my dear pet cow) (sniff)" , or something along the lines of "is my last, for I have found Light in Auroville ". Well, the masochistic reader neednt be scared. I have every intention of continuing with my gentle bombardments.

Anyway, this blog post has nothing to do with Shallow incoherent wordplays. Ahem . Did anyone dare to suggest that? It doesnt even have anything to do with the shallowness (and the depth thereof ) of our everyday lives and our day to day existence. I can imagine you getting to the very edges of your seats at this very moment. In fact, I am not at all writing about shallownewss, so you can get back into your seats .

No. Rather, I talk of that mythical creature, legendary in the circle of her clandestine devotees and yet unknown behind that thick veil of foundation and mascara, The greatest player of the greatest game mankind has ever played, A game that is so vast and complex that even realizing that you never play the game, rather it is the game that plays you can be called a revelation. The creature I talk of, is called as "Target" for reasons unknown (and not to be circulated for public connaissance (in the event of non- existence of nefarious designs) by individuals who have this information)

Do not get me wrong. No one has ever mastered the game. Philosophers have tried to comprehend the game since time immemorial , and have failed. Whatever it is all about, it is beyond the Human race to comprehend it. Target is no different than the rest of us in the sense that she also has scaled a fraction of an infinite peak. But, well, when placed on the same peak, it is easy to see that she is way higher up .

So it started like this. The game might have noticed that I cheat. So it sent along Target, for, remember, the game plays us. After the customary courtesies, I started playing my own little game, and thought I was a genius. Little did I know that I was a piece on a board. I started ignoring her. Generally works. But she did a somersault that firmly put me back into my place. She applied my own medicine to me, only, she was a lot better at playing the game that I imagined was my own invention and copyrighted belonging. Now they say that if a guy ignores a girl, the guy becomes ten times more appealing, but if it happens the other way round, well, if it happens the other way round, 90% of such cases culminate in a mental institution. Guys are a lot weaker in constitution you see.

So I started getting crazier by the day, and started acting as if I were in a trance. I gave motorized vehicles a shot, ( I mean tried driving them ), but they were not much fun. Vodka didnt relieve me either, and I dont think Pot will either. I tried washing my clothes this evening, That gave me some temporary relief, but its still there, clinging to me like a lobster clings to , whatever, you get the point.

And all this while, she has just been smirking. I am sure The game has cooked up a nice little concoction for her too, For even the greates are not immune, and the greater the player, the greater the need for that player to be humbled. Thats the irony. You think you are immune until it hits you like a rocket in your stomach.As long as you think you are playing the game, The game is happy. But as soon as you are aware of the game's existence, but you are naive enough to believe that you are playing with the game , then the game gets angry.

And then, you feel what its really like to be played

Reminiscences?

Its funny how the brain works. No, I am not referring to the left half of your brain or the right, the upper cerebellum or the lower cerebrum, I am referring to that tiny little department tucked away into those dark alleys of your brain, with the sheer confidence that it has concealed itself from your prying gaze forever. Yes, that one. I am talking about the Memory Department.

Its rather funny that I should be struck by it today, for today was no different than yesterday, or for that matter the day before that. I was reading through a rather riveting novel, in which one of the protagonists (???) was traveling through the rain swept plains of undivided India, marvelling with childlike wonder at the bizarre spectacle that the flooded fields seemed to a Sahib like him. And quite unexpectedly, I was carried back to a similar memory from the lost shelves gathering dust in the Department, a vision of flooded plains, and a bamboo shack floating as in defiance to the mighty wrath of nature. I dont even know how much of what comes floating back into my mind actually took place, and how much has since been embedded , thanks to the idiot box. It is so faint, a wisp really, and yet, I can still remember every damn detail of that shack floating in the field. The dull brown clumps of bamboo, everything. The surrounding details might have been constructed by unseen forces, but that shack I can vouch for. So poignantly beautiful a simple shack can be.

And when I cast my mind back along the stinky, abandoned by lanes, hidden deep in the mists of time, I notice, what I have seen all my life without noticing, that I have forgotten so much that I would deem unforgettable at the time of their occurrence, and yet I remember so much that I would be the first one to relegate to the category that we humans label by disgraceful words like trivial.

When I asked my dad to turn on the world news when I was five to impress a rather patronizing bhaiya who lived across the lane and was visiting my place for dinner. Or when I puked over my english exam in class 2 after getting overexcited about a bee that had entered the class, and afterwards I distinctly remember my teacher telling me with a lot of regret that I had gotten 97 as I had misspelt "King" as "Kink" (yeah, I was born horny), in five places. Or when I sat gaping open mouthed at Her during my class 12th board exam, noticing how small her hands were, noticing how the corners of lips pursed upwards while she solved her maths papers, how beautiful she looked sweating in that thin sliver of light illuminating her face.I remember a particular stone in Rue Moufettard for no particular reason. There was nothing out of the ordinary about it, and yet my glance fell on it every single day when I went to buy the paper.

And I remember now, this same thought passing through my head last year, as I was contemplating whether to blog about it or no, and then the rain, and me rushing back to the TV room just in time to see some Dutch guy fouling a Cote d'Ivoire player. And I was infuriated.

But anyway, I think I am rambling.In queen's english no less, but I am. Does the brain have a system, a method in its madness? How does he (forgive the gender bias) select which ones to archive and which ones to cast away? God knows, or does he??

Come to think of it, I remember having said that too. After being asked by my class 8 sanskrit teacher why I thought I was mentally unstable enough not to take a bath for a week. I dont remember what she did to me though

Sweat bites, and barks too

Yes. I finally am discovering every part of my body (the perverts need not read deeper into this sentence than i want them to) thanx to the unbelievably hot chennai weather. I had absolutely no notion that the weather can be so screwy so near the sea.

There I was, a peaceloving UP-ite , sticking to my routine , and I had the temerity (if you will have it thus) to go running at 6:30 this evening. Light sea breeze, temperatures dropping to decent levels, heck, this should be a walk in the park. When I was back, I was producing more sweat than I thought the water content of my body would be. I mean, sure, they do say that man is 70% water, but wow, I never thought that all of it was convertable into sweat. Why, it seemed to me that in places of such inclemet climes , the conversion of water from the "reserved for non sweat purposes" into sweat is as easy as it is to change dollars to pounds. Maybe its recession or something.

What followed is even more bizarre and grotesque. Needless to say that I was in the bathroom doing what one is supposed to be doing in a bathroom (once again, keep your twisted interpretations to yourself) long enough for my room mate to suspect murder by sweat,and when I came out, voila, I was sweating with newfound vigour, as if the bath had replenished my stores of water so that my body could sacrifice increasingly obscene amounts to some satanic sweat god. In fact, even now, sitting in the air conditioned cc, I can hear the vague murmurings of mutiny within my body, as if my sweat glands are waiting for me to step out into the heat so that they can plunge their hearts and souls purposefully into the worship of the demonic lord of sweat.

But , i tell them, that i'll run again. tomorrow. yup. My friends dont call me masochistic for nothing