This Office life

I just realized how much I enjoy working in an office,I love sitting at a desk and going through files and signing memos day after wonderful day, the very smell of fresh typed papers, office orders and memos, rises like a votive flame to the Gods of work. The files appear and disappear like enchantments, magical things too ephemeral and precious for mortal ken, office staff file in and file out of my chamber with files about other files, containing circulars about other circulars with instructions on other instructions, with rules affecting other rules, which effects humans who affect other humans. I am in a magical carousel! I don't want to be on a beach or on a holiday or at home, No Sir, it's the office for me.

The innocence of a young banded krait

A venomous banded krait caused quite a commotion slithering near my gate. It wasn't a big fellow; just into his teens, I should think. This species is not known for its aggression or nimbleness- being a lethargic serpent species. I let the chap slither away unmolested into the park. I didn't at all mind the young gentleman serpent out on his evening stroll through the colony and the wider world; more importantly, my dogs didn't mind him at all, which must mean he was an OK fellow. But, as is the habit of homo sapiens around these parts, passersby and layabouts in the vicinity were quick to film, gabble about and spectate like incorrigible voyeurs, disturbing the fine sensibilities of the young snake and forcing him to hide in the bushes. That's humans for you. That's my snake story update for today, hopefully my next update on snakes will be titled- "The spectacle caused by a spectacled Cobra."

Permanent Vacation

I NEED A F*****G VACATION!

I wish I was on a beach somewhere

I am not fussy about the here or there

I need to be far and away- more than most

On a shell haunted turquoise coast

Or in the pebbled nook of a rocky shore

Any beach I haven't been to before.

Perhaps the sands on a sun blessed Isle

Will be host to my wistful exile

Or Perhaps, a moss hugged cheerless shore

Is where I shall hear the ocean roar

I cannot be fussy about the here or there

I just wish I was on a beach somewhere-LT

CHOICE IN LIFE- BANKS AND BANKERS.

When banks want to screw you; they do a good job, what are your choices in life when it comes to banks and bankers. May I suggest a few.

Scenario 1: You are neck deep in a river, stuck between a well armed banker on a boat and a crocodile Best choice: Embrace the crocodile-it only wants to eat you, the banker wants your soul.

Scenario 2: An apocalyptic event has overtaken the world and a searing, flame ringed, sputtering wall of lava, 500 meters high is engulfing your city, you can feel the scalding heat on your face as you race away from the inferno, the bank building with its armored vault is the only place of possible refuge. Best choice: Walk into the lava! bank vaults trap souls for all eternity.

Scenario 3: Suicide bombers have overtaken your local bank and come out with a list of demands which must be agreed to within four hours or else they blow up the bank and kill everyone inside, you are the chief of police. Best Choice: Do nothing. Because one should never negotiate with terrorists.


Scenario 4:You have six friends on facebook because you are such a loser that even the guys with fake profiles wouldn't add you. Five of them are bankers and the remaining one is a stalker who keeps sending you his soiled undies. Best choice: Unfriend the five bankers, the stalker is your fan! He might not be such a bad guy at all.

THE BURDEN OF MEMORY

Remember your creator in the days of your youth, before the days of trouble come and the years approach when you will say-“I find no pleasure in them”—Ecclesiastes 12:1

Were my days like a river, I would have drowned. I don’t quite know, nor do I pretend to understand, why… I might have drowned in the Yamuna in 1876, or the Yariapo in 1567, or did I die crossing the Rubicone-my memory fails but I do remember the Jordan, but I might not have drowned there. In fact, I may be dead.... But then..and since, I am still typing on my birthday- here, this day- on the 23^rd of November 2013, I think I have somehow escaped the flood waters. I must then be in my own Gilgamesh epic, perhaps, I am a Noah in my own flood haunted story. I might have drowned in the tide of memory or will do so shortly. In any event, apparently, I am still alive…and thankful..to the one, the triumphant one on Calvary.I am most certainly human and breathing, that is all I know- and that is enough.

TIME

Like all living things/I age/ I am older/In the register of life/I open, older by one order/Older the second-the seconds that scorn all life- the day begins/But dear grandma time, dear prodigal time, where are you taking me/ Soon, you will melt me to star dust again/Before I have mended, bended, kneaded this time- this time I was gifted- you will kill, grab, accost, accuse, be jury, judge, executioner/ In the name of immortality/ You will kill me and call me immortal/ Time you are cruel- LT

DEATH

DEATH
..Separate the plastron from the carapace, slide the cold metal in, down, down, down, to the beating center, inward, there, there's your reward, there!..to where my heart beats. Turn the blade, steel against flesh-win,win, win, win- you have the wins. You win, you win, you win, now push it in, deep, deep deep, let the steel bite, kill me, kill me, I am dead, I will die, I am dead, I will die...- LT.

I REMEMBER A DAY IN JUNE

I remember her laughter and then, I remember…

…I remember a day in June and the way the river looked as we came down to it, a brown serpent surging between the hills. It flowed cool and hurried amid the green lushness; a creature born of water, silt, and time. I remember the smell of wet mud that clung to everything and above us; clouds crowded the sky from rim to rim, ready to flail at the earth.

We walked barefoot, on the banks of the river, on pebbly silt flecked with the shells of clams, because there was nowhere else to be in town and nothing to do except to be with each other. I remember her eyes, shining like silver almonds through the veil of rain and how her girlish banter rose like a song above the sounds of the river, and that we had the time, to talk of everything and nothing. I remember the taste of her lips; the scent of her cheap Burmese perfume, the warmth in her tongue, the tautness of her body against mine; and how; her breasts rebelled in my palms.

I remember her laughter, a lost melody of my youth, how it bound me to her like an enchantment, on the road back to town. I remember the easy purr of the Vespa on the slick roads, how the sound of the engine and her voice melded in my ears. I remember too well, those other sounds, as we slid past the shuttered houses in the village, past the soldiers, on the road crossing the cemetery.

The years have passed like a staccato of rifle fire, and those other sounds grow louder and threaten to drown out the memory of that June day. It is at such times that I hear the sound of that lost melody of my youth. That laughter that was also an enchantment and I am bound once more to her, and I can remember that I am a creature born of memory, blood, and time.

Then....I remember a day in June…

Lalsiemdik Tusing, 23/10/13.

FAQ’s ABOUT LIFE-PART 1

ON QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS: Growing up with unanswered questions.

I am filled with questions. I am overwhelmed, bushwhacked and waylaid by the need to know and the necessity of finding out about things. The need to know and the endless questions it brings forth is not a mere artifact of mental infancy- clearly- but something primal and inborn. It seems to me that the older I get, the more questions I have. At this age, with university a couple of years behind me and my days well ensconced in my working life, I thought I would have run out of questions to ask and found answers for the more important questions in my life. That hasn’t happened. But was it supposed to? I don’t really know. That itself brings on another question that requires an answer.

I now believe- I have no certainty of it- that the majority of adults start ignoring most of the questions they had asked themselves growing up and tend to “settle down” into the routine of daily life, because they fear they will not find the answers to the questions buzzing in the back of their minds. That we keep innate curiosity and our sense of wonder locked up in the basement drawer of our minds, so that we can live responsible adult lives is a necessity for most of us, I suppose.  Questions like “Who am I? Why am I here on this planet? What is love? What is the meaning of life? What is life? Etcetera, tend to dissipate like smoke when we are faced with the tyranny and the immediacy of a tax payment or the menacing regularity of credit card bills. My point in all this is that some of us still ask endless questions even as adults and needed the answers “like” yesterday! I am one of these irresponsible adults. Let’s call them- The askers.    

I am certain about one difference between my childhood and adulthood. When I was a child, the world seemed bigger, people were taller, buildings were huge, trains were monstrous, Ice cream tasted better, monsters stayed in the shadows and one lurked under the bed and all my questions were simpler. As an adult, the world seems more manageable, people are shorter or taller than me and I don’t care anymore, buildings aren’t that impressive anymore, trains look like trains, Ice cream taste like shit, and it takes much more imagination to “see” monsters in the shadows or hear one of them breathing under your bed. It is easier to get the proportions right, measure the relative sizes of things and find out about the world through observation. Yet! Though the nature of the questions have changed, perhaps because I have changed, the endless questions remain and the greatest difference between my questions then and the ones now is that I don’t have answers anymore- Just questions.

 

Thursday's Child has far to go

Monday's child is fair of face

Tuesday's child is full of grace,

Wednesday's child is full of woe,

Thursday's child has far to go...

My birthday:
I am older today than I was yesterday and I hope, a mite wiser. The 23rd of November, 2011 is upon me and it’s time for some sober self-reflection. This is a good time to meditate on how my life has shaped up so far, after all, there is much to contemplate on. But before I conduct an autopsy on my life, let me show some gratitude, for there is so much to be thankful for. I am thankful for the fact that I am still alive and in reasonably good health; that I am employed; that I have a roof over my head; that I am a part of a large, loving and rambunctious extended family; that I am unlikely to go hungry or fall into destitution anytime soon; that I have at least a few dependable all weather friends; that God loves me...and so on.

A little soul searching seems to suggest that getting a year older may have brought in an intangible benefit, the very one I was out looking for; that is to say, I really feel- I am a little wiser for it! Gaining an inch on that wondrous thing called wisdom each birthday would be the greatest benefit to growing old, wouldn't it now? But sadly, we never do wish for wisdom in annual increments like we do for our paychecks.

Some people have an irrational fear of growing old, I am not one of them, and it's not because I am still young-still very much in the prime of life, so to speak. I feel the qualities of youth are overrated by almost everybody ; Oui that includes Moi. My grouse is against our mortal handicaps, those truly extraneous but very human impediments that bait us any given day- the desires and goals we burden ourselves with as we plod along in life, instead of just living our lives in contentment. My beef is with the whole 'business of being a human being.' This I fear is a universal human tragedy and no one is immune.


Only human beings have a hard time simply being human, a dog is never quite in a dilemma over what kind of a dog it is and foxes know from birth, how to be foxy all over their hunting grounds. We have to become a particular type of person, and build up a particular type of identity to even have a sense of fulfillment as a human being- That makes sense right? It's not intrinsic at all, dogs and foxes have it better than us in some ways, they are on auto-pilot while we have to steer and row all over the treacherous existential seas. For us, it's all about growth and maturing, and learning; and release; and catharsis; and forgiveness; and self-realization; and self-actualization, ad nauseum, ad mortem, ad infinitum. We have to grow and grow, and break down and rise up and grow some more- we do grow, yes, but much too slowly. At this rate, we will be dead before we become wise and much before we have come to accept ourselves as legitimate human beings. I don't want to be a permanent tourist in that undiscover'd country just yet, at least not before I have found out what I am doing here on planet earth. I will of course eventually go there, to that mysterious country, but many birthdays later, I hope.

But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscover'd country from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of? - Hamlet

Goals are of course, necessary in our journey through life, they give us meaning and help us to attain a measure of happiness, two common ideals we all subscribe to. Indeed, our goals in life and our endless desire for material attainments can mutate and change, but the search for meaning and happiness is universal and immutable. I have to admit but I am not in the place in life where I thought I would be at this age. I haven't met my core goals in life as yet, some of the more important ones at any rate. Somewhere out there in the ageless ether of the multiverse, in the misted twilight of another earth at another time, there is a sixteen year old me, looking down at what I have become, peering down at me right at this moment and he isn't impressed! Oh boy!
"You've gone sloppy, he says

"What" I say

"Pudgy" he says and "Old"

He sneers at me with the untrammeled confidence of youth. "OOOLD" he says, he's hateful and judgmental and from his vantage point- things might seem exactly like that, deserving of derision. I have not yet reached that place I set out for and aimed at when I started out from the hormone addled Eden of my troubled teenage years. Not so long ago, I might add.

"You haven't become what you promised me you would become" he says

"Give me a chance, dammit" I say " there's time, people grow and mature and eventually succeed at what they set out to do" He chuckles deviously and the sound of it wears down my confidence,

"and I will" I add quickly. He's unhappy but I must fend him off. I am not about to be judged and made to feel all apologetic by a sixteen year old. I feel like giving him a punch, but think better of it. The punk might outpunch me.

" Give me some more time" I say.

"Time" He says, mysteriously. Then he laughs a goofy little laugh. Heeheehawheehaw

"Well, Fuck you" I say

"If you Fuck me, you fuck yourself" The cheeky punk replies.