Peace and Prayers

Empty spaces lend me shapes

I but with being stick to last



River - My reasons and flow of life

The river , Like generations of my useless and mindless grandfathers, it was flowing with this wonderfully resilient silence .Many a wonderful gardens it must have caressed , Trees , bees and people s feet .Cowdung and flowers too must have melted into the river.Yet the emptiness of the river ,its lack of identity ,its ability to contain all of its fragrance and odour too into the vast emptiness of nothingness that it was .River was without any identity , yet , it helped absorb the lack of it in myself that day

There i was , on the foot of a river . The ebbs were gently tickling my toes , as i hesitated to heed to its call .its touch was so refreshingly cold that day . So many things i got to remember from those few drops of water river was showering on me like a mother's blessing . It was almost two hours since i started waiting for my friends who promised to be there .It was only the middle of the day ,yet trees and clouds conspired to cheat me of my sense of time .If it was not for the lifeless motion of my watch , i would easily have been cheated to believe that it was late in the evening . There is something deeply religious about the trees that surrounded Kottarakara .i had ample time before the gang of idiots make me lose my sanity and what little cash i had saved to go to Mathews marriage.It was so very privately lonely in that place ,in among those gorges and large trees ,yet i felt one hundred idiots ! This thing was our legacy , my grandfather was known as this big idiot among our family members .He was that sacred fool who lost all his wealth to his religious and philosophical pursuits .It was a communist devil which made him lose his material sanity ! Most of my family members and some school going kids too thought that i was the only one in my family to have carried over my grandfathers legacy . I was told that i even resembled my grandfather ..the river was so determined in tickling my legacy .It was determined in helping me reconcile my fate as the grandson of this big communist idiot! Most of his contemporaries , his comrades , his enemies ,friends and strangers too were dead .Yet his legacy lived on . I was the quintessancial butt for all communist jokes and all religious and atheistic puns .Yet i failed to understand why i did not hate my fathers progenitor ! Probably because i could see , how really miserable the rest of the intelligent people really were. I could see that their riches had replaced their eyes , ears , heart and skin too with this strange and puzzling sense of ownership and pride . River was my reassurance that i was not the most idiotic and my grandfather was equally intelligent !

Ah friends .. yeah friends .. oh my god friends !~!

I could see some stuff , my own stuff , my pencils , my pens and my old green T shirt coming down the river .I was shocked initially , it was such a contemplative moment that i thought i was seeing my thoughts in the flowing river and this was just an abberation . and when i saw my shoes .. i was left speechless ! Looking up , i could see that it was my gang of friends ..the group of infinite idiots who were laughing to see my react as if i just came back from office . They were playing pranks on me .They were waiting for me in my car and were curious to see me lost in thoughts in the middle of the river with water right up to my neck ! I was immediately pulled back to my senses and their really poor sense of humour . Going back to Mathews Marriage !



In evi table ! three different ways of fate

How i really wish i could turn him back from this inevitability .It was Every grown mans dream to get married to someone beautiful or ugly or female ..or atleast human! All of us knew that we had to marry one day ..But this was too soon .Ofcourse we all loved to see ourselves married and we all were really supportive of this mind numbingly senseless social phenomenon called marriage ! Mathew as just so .. so .. you know ..immature and …kinda ..really intelligent and sensible for us to imagine such a horrendous tragedy happening with his conscious decision ! it was not as if i was losing my respect for Mathew . I mean it grew ..The man must be such courageous soul to be giving a treat too for a conscious decision at self immolition . I mean i once heard that a priest in Thailand burned himselves to death without even moving a single muscle in his body ..But this was much worse ..this guy was even celebrating it ..with birthday cakes and all ! this was too much .but …the infinite buts and ifs ..had prevented us from stating his inevitible fate ! so we were silent spectators for this personal tragedy for two individuals to whom we owed a lot (money ,time , boredom and humour too )

Boredom divided by brandy

It was just one more day before this guy transformed himself to a kitchen utensil . So we had him for the day before marriage . The day before marriage for any self respecting Malayali Achayan* is marked by booze ..soda ..and more booze than was flowing on that river that i was talking about .Ofcourse ..me being a malayali and brought up among so many Achayans.. had no objectiono in having my own share of the non alchaholic brandy and whiskey ! (i am sure that they are yet to invent something like that ) As we buried our sensiblities and sanity along with worries in twenty glass of brandy , whiskey and occasional beer bottles, hours were nearing for our friend to take his vows . we sang and danced the entire day . Actually no one really was sure how much we ended up having ! but evidence was all over that place we were lodged that day . The noise reverberated even the next day morning .

Just hours before wedding intense photo sessions ..People were posing themselves with friends and groom in every possible angle the photographer fancied .Mathews face was stiff as an iron box . There was not a single human emotion in his entire body that day .He was just as empty as my plastic rucksack.May be when you are so overwhelmed by the larger than life… dead image of a simple and spiritual process,union of souls rendered as serious lifeless mechanical process,the plasticity is your very defense when faced with such serious stuffing of complicated rituals . Watching him , i could sense my own emotions were being drained and confused ! It was not exactly sad , or depressing …it was exhausting ..to say the very least .

Feasts ! and BEASTS

Feasts , the one thing people go to marriage for and it was lavished ,Every single pore of my body was smelling masalas and beef curry . Appam ,chappati ,Chaaya ! no ..i could not say tea ..CHaaya ! The very taste to which malayali wakes up to .Taste buds were feasted to mystical aromas of one thousand flavours and fragrances . It was blissfully excellant and extravagant . I was less regretful now of not having developed a six pack musculature ! my tummy was more than accomodative of such an onslaught from kerala cuisine .It was as close as i came in my search for nirvana and my bike's keys !



Opulance .pretance and total hypocracy

The wedding was long as usual in most of the christian weddings . It was such slow and dragging process that every one thought it was good to get married only once ..fearing such boredom.Every single of the religious heads who came there , i mean bishops ..fathers ..god knows who else ..were all looking so sombre and serious that they made even the most maniacal of my friends silent . It was an utter calm moment in our entire marriage fiasco . It was so stuffed with religious non sense ..that it all made no sense to us . We just stood there totally powerless to do anything other than wait for the next feast ! But that was only two hours afterwards ! it was awefully long .Church was made only for two things .Marriages and funeral .They needed the rubberstamp of church for any formal arrangements in their life .from birth to death to marriage ,church monopolised , controled and scared every single christian ! There was heaven , hell and marriage too that christian feared worse than their own very life .People were yet to wake from the dark ages where science was condemned and scientists were hanged for stating the obvious .But humans were too retarded too .Even communism was a Church of sorts . And Marx was their jesus .Man had utterly failed in his efforts to instituitionalise his experience ..Church was the tomb of religion , Marriage was the funeral of love , and Politics was the last breath of every rational and sane thought that ever had humanity preserved . I wondered if i too would one day will become married to someone ..someone i love ..With some one who shared my confusions and fear and love too . I wondered if i too would end up being a silent spectator of my life taken over by senseless religions and formalities.Then i remembered ..That i was already married . To that person in my life ..My muse and my identity too . We got married the day we saw each other with our spiritual eyes . We got married when sun's rays touched caressed and kindled the love for each other ..in us . Yes ..ofcourse there was no Church , temple , or mosque to instituitionalise our relationship . But our heartbeats and breath was too holy for any dead and decaying opulance to render its seal to ..

Ofcourse no body understood what i was trying to say ..not even my so called wife to whom i got married without the sound and fury of a confusing religion ! So she left me ..without even meeting me ! not even once .So i lived in lies ,imagination and false hopes ..I told myself Many lies .. Truth was nothing but an invented ,accepted and glorified lie ! There were many such lies ..Physics ..chemistry ..biology ..and Philosophy too … Truth is much less imaginative than image on a mirror too.Truth was of an unequal world where poverty coexisted with opulance .Where one man was worried about his next meal , while the other worried about the ice cream stain on his Stanley leather upholstery ! Where people fed dogs many times the calories needed for a family to survive.Where people worshiped cricket stars yet claimed to be descendants of the most spiritual land !

Serious comedies of life


So all the jokes apart ..lets come to the serious part ..i mean the gift part of the marriage . We all collected money from each other ..and our parents (since economic recession ) To gift our friend on his day of wedding .We gifted him a large packet containing prized product of Hindustan latex .It was embaressing to ask for this in the medical store .yet it was customary among guys to gift Condoms to their friend as a compliment to the other gifts that we give .I was expecting an embaressed Mathew .But marriage had made him resiliant to our poor and unimaginative jokes .He was a serious man now .All he could do was give us that goofy smile which had in it but ghosts of that old slapstick non stop chatterbox that he really was.Now it was time for us to part.Of course we would meet each other and be bored to death with each others sick practical jokes .Yet we really were parting my friend Mr Manu ! Mathew ..i said to him ! on that day !

But personally speaking !!




Having said all this Personally i have truckloads of respect for marriage .It is something which stabilises your life . Every one should get married .If they find someone who compliment their personality , well .. what can i say your whole life will be a Wills cigeratte advertisement .And if you find that the person is contradicting you ..well ..you are just one more arguement away from total spiritual enlightenment and blissful nirvana .People realise great things through tragedy you know ! So cheers people ..to married and single too .It does not matter if you are married ..or single ..or an employee of cognizant ! All that really matters is ..that you love and let love !