Shopping for bubbles

Late Nights - Let's first talk about why people think being voluntarily awake at night is 'not healthy, beta'. Living in IIT has its benefits when it comes to being an insomniac. If biology works en masse on a species-to-species basis, you know you're well into the grand scheme of things because if you stop yawning at ten pm, so are around 3800 students. This educated guess (thanks, Mayur) includes professors. Isolation has been ruled out, because this whole jing-bang lot of disagreeable people go back to the Stone Age when we were all hunting in packs. How can my internal body clock be dysfunctional?
Nein.

The Secret To A Good Life - Given my present location, I think I can say yes even to my self-doubtful bag of thought-peanuts, because not staying in Bombay makes you think of Bombay more and more. I know why people living in cities are unhappy with their lives. It's because cities don't have halwai shops. Halwai shops, ladies and gents, are the world's most gastronomically attractive places. And if there is anything of considerable consequence that we have been doing ever since we woke up, it is eating. Food is the soul of that man called Life. Food encourages, food nourishes. Food loves unconditionally. Do you know the secret to a good life? I know. It's too simple to gasp at. The secret to a good, wholesome life is - more butter. You disagree with me? You know what you've been missing, then.

The Lizard's Point of View - The lizard lives on a reverse plane of familiar surface. Its 180 degrees is the shape of an unruly crescent moon to us, its 360 begins where we end ours. I've often wondered what would happen to my optic nerves if I were given a lizard's angle of incidence and reflection for one night. a) my beloved glasses would be the first to perish but b) gravity would become very timid a concept from what it is now. Quite a cracker thing to be de-conditioned of, even for just 24 hours.

The Letters 'e' And 'l' Are Beautiful When Doubled - I once nearly had a pen-friend called Priscilla. Isn't her name the prettiest you've heard? I would have written back to her solely for the musical thrill her name held to me, were it not for gusts of wind when I was copying her address down. Look at them, just look at the words -

eerie
melee
between
tweezers
preen
breeze
weed
fleece
sweep

You could write a poem a la carte Edward Lear's Classic Nonsense just because .. well just because of the way they sound when you double them.

The. Ees.

The
eerie
melee
between
the
tweezers, which
preen
the
weed
but
fleece
the
breeze, of its
sweep
.

And who doesn't love freebies?

Ditto with the twelfth letter. When cloned and put together, they sound like they just have to make a point.

The. Ells.

Of pills. And the shrillness of Bill 's illness.
Of gills. And the thrills of Will's kills.
Of hills. And the smell of Jill's dills.

Now, someone
was talking about the shallow
and hollow
but mellow
bellow
of a
yellow fellow

When all
he ever did
was yell
oh Hell!
(You see, he
fell)


[Shopping for bubbles will continue eternally. More so because the shopper's having a lovely time. Hope you did, and will too.]

Opening secrets

An April's week this year was spent with my grandfather, Nana. Days were spent going off in delightfully obscure lanes and chasing peacocks. Nights were spent lounging around and listening to Sufi and Pink Floyd. I found something which has always been my little quest wherever I go - a place to write. It was a huge rock on the periphery of a deserted playground, with a single bare tree and lots of scrawny bushes scattered around. I roamed around, answers elusively tingling my head but appearing like ellipses.

Ahmedabad is a fascinating place for people forever in search of something. The Sabarmati Nadi runs across the city, roughly marking a time divide. Its eastern bank is New Ahmedabad, riding high on bright billboards about home loans and weight-loss programs. The western bank is Old Ahmedabad, its shops yawning and waking up to animals and people. Walking through this part of the city feels like you're revisiting New Ahmedabad's childhood. If there was a place which could be similar to the smell of nostalgia between the pages of a forgotten novel, this place is it.

But Old Ahmedabad isn't timelocked. Time behaves like a curtain of separation which sways and folds, every now and then. There are old blankets worn soft with age, coloured with splashes and flashes of flouroscent modernisation.

Pink carbon paper.
Bajaj scooters with very shrill horns.
Beds of woven jute, or khaats.
Old men, sitting and smoking pipes.
"Yeh, Akashwani hai. Ab aap Salonika Dalal se Gujarati mein samachar suniye."
Torn kites.
Kids playing with WWF cards.
Pyarelal ki Halwai.
A paan shop every 100 metres.
Bhajan ringtones.
Melody, Poppins and Gems.
Verandahs.
Bottles of Old Spice.
Goats, pigs and bulls on the streets.
Stationary shops selling small notebooks lined in red.
Loudspeakers screaming "Shri Ram, Jai Ram, Jai Jai Ram"
Sridevi-Rishi Kapoor songs.
T-shirts about "Amrika".
Giggling girls, when you smile at them.
Women carrying pots of water on their heads.
Open doors.

Most people can be likeable, but there aren't too many people who can be deliciously out of reach. They inspire a sense of admiration, tinged with a grasping inquisitiveness. My grandfather is a personification of this quicksilver enigma. Nana is a mesmerising person. He's extremely well read, has a curiously ethnic sense of aesthetics and a deep sense of music. The best thing I like about him is the gentle, atmospheric mystery he exudes. He's almost like a mystic; the only difference is perhaps that he works for the government too.

The wonderful thing about mystery is the chase. It could be trying to understand people, places or simple puzzlement over a word-game. I remember trying to solve a word-game I had come across during Techfest with my friend Sharan at college. We were sitting in the canteen, quite literally breaking our heads over a word-jigsaw. Suddenly, the answer popped into my head like a fingersnap and I was instantaneously transported to the Olympics. The finish-line ribbon was floating around my waist and I was running across to the spectators, my limbs flowing in slow-motion. The exhilaration was so complete that I just sat there, grinning myself silly.

I think real mysteries never let you go. They are always there, teasing you, a neuron's spark short of enlightenment. It's always gratifying when you have it clasped safely in your hands, but darting after it, and shaking off its shadows is the real charm of a mystery.

(Photograph courtesy: Crowolf)

Captain Hook goes fishing

This one is solely for you, Sharan.


Ten Things You Wish You Could Say To People Right Now:
(you can withhold names if you want)

1. I wish I was there.
2. Patel Uncle, Vimal's - You have the brightest smile I've seen among shopkeepers. And your prices are the best. Thanks for keeping inkpens alive.
3. The five teachers in my life, of my life - I remain forever indebted for a million reasons.
4. Paridhi - don't listen to one word about 'not talking to strangers.' Those supposed adults are just plain chickens, and you're missing out on Cosmic Brilliance.
5. Arjun Singh and the Chinese Government - Fuck off.
6. Meryl Streep - you're a great actor. I'd like to meet you someday.
7. Roald Dahl, Alan Fletcher, Edward Lear, Robert Frost and Sylvia Plath - thank-you. So much.
8. Pearl Jam, U2, Michael Buble, Mohd. Rafi, S.D Burman, A.R. Rahman and all the bands and singers which have made the music I love and revere -
It's the terrible beauty in terrible pain
Like the smile of happiness you can't restrain
Stop me in the middle of an agony
And make me feel with bravery
9. Nani - Please don't worry about me. And please - don't ever leave me.
10. Kavita K. - You were a wonderful person. Thank-you for not forgetting me that evening.

Nine Things About Yourself:
1. I used to bite my nails.
2. I'd like to die free-falling.
3. I don't drink tea, but I can make it really well.
4. I hate it when people say 'k' while chatting.
5. I can't walk too long with my bag slung on my left side.
6. I like stroking barks of trees while walking.
7. I love dots, the sound of crunching gravel and dahi-alu-poori.
8. I don't think I can ever learn how to play basket ball.
9. I'm terrified of dying in the middle of a sentence.

Eight Ways To Win Your Heart:
1. Love life. It's incredibly attractive.
2. Smile.
3. Smell nice.
4. Write letters to me.
5. Make something for me. It could be a sock puppet or a song, it doesn't matter.
6. Enjoy silence.
7. Refrain from platitudes. Instead, show just the right amount of chivalry.
8. Be original.

Seven Things That Cross Your Mind A Lot:
1. You don't remember, do you?
2. Why?
3. Smile. Smile! It was funny!
4. Nice.
5. Just do it - it's simpler than arguing.
6. Bloody hell, that was scary.
7. You still don't remember, do you?

Six Things You Wish You Never Did:
1. Try embroidering a lion. I could never complete it.
2. Get up late on Holi ten years ago. I was in Lucknow, where the worst holis are played. Was woken up by being sprayed with water and sticky colours. Disgusting.
3. Underestimate my father.
4. Cheat in my class 11 Physics Final Exam.
5. Let my mother give away my purply-green pyjamas.
6. Take my music player to Thane. My sister lost it, and I've missed it deeply ever since.


Five Turn-Offs:
1. Negativity
2. Yellow trousers
3. Dirty nails
4. Smoking, drinking
5. Justifications


Four turn-ons:
1. Deep, earthy colours
2. Rain
3. Wrists
4. Twilight


Three Things You Want To Do Before You Die:
1. I'm not saying the first one here.
2. Learn tap-dancing and Urdu.
3. Make a movie for the hearing impaired and work in a circus.


Two Smileys That Describe You:
:Q
:!@#$%

One Confession:
Really now.
Anyway, just to humour you, I'm awful with sarcasm. I usually kill and stuff the corpse by taking it literally.

I Tag:
Shreyas
Jaya
Rohan
PS: Don't take the smileys seriously.

"Them Academic Suckers"

Them Academic Suckers. I never really liked them in the first place. For me, school was a place I ran away to from home everyday for a blissful six hours of pure fun and expression. Not that that was the original purpose of school. Duh, yeah.

And then those ASs. They'd always be wanting to get the highest marks in all the exams, assignments, even those goddamned class-tests... everything requiring pedagogic evaluation. At least two months before these exams were to take place, they'd be all over the place, creeping up to the teachers with their innocuous little doubts . It was all BS anyway, the rest of us knew perfectly well they knew everything and would go around asking only to impress the teachers. Teachers do get impressed if you ask them specific doubts. It means that you've read through the text thoroughly. Sheesh, I have to admit, they were smart on this one.

They would look down on the rest of us from the rims of their glasses, as if we were lesser mortals, born to shrivel up like plastic wrappers when near fire. Just before the exams, when the rest of us would be busy cramming and splitting our hair on those complicated diagrams, which used to look like the London Underground map and reassuring ourselves and others that it's just another test, we'll do it like we've done all the others, I used to see them flitting from one AS to the other, asking each other in hushed whispers. Once I actually eavesdropped on them, and I regretted doing it sorely. They were discussing something which was 178 pages after the last chapter specified. I was sorely tempted to scream, "Okay!! So you're smart. Can't you talk like normal human beings for sometime? Have the Martians got to us already??"

Once I was graciously invited to these post-examination discussions by a friend who was an AS himself, but not so severely so. I went along for the experience. Usually I would be found in the school-grounds experimenting with methods to dispose off chewed gum, or singing at the top of my voice "Born freeee...as freee as the wind blows...as freeee as the grass grows..." but that day I thought hell, let's see what exactly it is that goes on here. I was in for the most nerve-bending boring times I have ever been subjected to. The ASs had occupied a deserted classroom (and here I was thinking that deserted classrooms were meant for first kisses) and were sitting with the question papers sprawled out in front of their benches. They were all locked in a battle of who could shriek the loudest, and who could bonk the other with those irritating test-questions I had already blissfully forgotten, the hardest. There were some superior ASs who answered the last, and their answers would be the most complicated and long, and would invariably include everything the other ASs had written, and more.

A typical discussion went like this.

AS 1: "So what did you write for the sixth part of the twenty-second question?"

AS 2: "Well, I'm not sure I exactly remember.."

AS 1: "No no, come on, I too am not sure....I just want to confirm..."

AS 2: "Oh well, I wrote that a particle moving along one dimension, like the particle between two walls, is described by a wave function that depends on one spatial coordinate. A particle moving in three dimensions, like a single electron moving around a nucleus, is described by a wave function that depends on three spatial coordinates, x, y and z. It's for three marks, and I think she'll cut one mark because I didn't mention that the wave function gives the probability amplitude for finding the electron at the coordinates (x,y,z), and the square of the wave function gives the probability. What did you write?"

AS 1: "Something similar, only I also included an example that Helium has two electrons, so the stationary states of the electrons...."

For obvious reasons, I cannot for the life of me continue to enlighten you about this extremely engaging discussion on the answer to the sixth part of the twenty-second question.

When a week or two would pass by since the exams had finished, the rest of us would be evidently uneasy. This week would be the week when our papers would come after correction. Which meant either toppling off the cliff, or just hanging by the thread. The rest of us would be happy just to scramble over the cliff and be off. Our ASs, however, would be satisfied with nothing else less than scaling the cliff, standing tall and proud, and gleefully watching others scream and submit to painful gravity. Ouch. I know.

My friend and I would be standing near the classroom door, watching out with hawk-eyed precision for any suspicious-looking packages or papers our teachers would be carrying in their arms. As soon as we'd spot something dreadfully familiar, we'd announce it to our class. This announcement would evoke three kinds of responses. One kind would be a collective sigh. This would be from the people who were expecting to just make it. The other would be a deep-throated groan, accompanied with loud forehead slaps from those who knew they were not going to make it. And then, there would be wide "Look at my pearlies, will ya!" grins and ecstatic rubbing of hands from our ASs.

Finally the teacher would enter the class. The tension inside the four walls would be enough to crack open anyone's skull. Paper-distribution would be done according to roll-call. The teacher would call out the roll numbers, and the respective students would go up and take the answer-papers. The walk from the bench to that table would be the longest for us, and the shortest for them. It's another thing that we would always be sitting on the last benches, but it was still one hell of a walk anyway. The teacher would either give a smart nod, if it were an AS, or a drooling, evil smile were it one of us. And then, horror of horrors, the teacher would ANNOUNCE the marks. In. Front. Of. The. Entire. Class. I still don't understand what kind of twisted sadistic pleasure they would get out of this whole calling-out-the-marks ritual. There would be whimpers of protests, cruelly pillowed by the teacher's ominous voice.

After this, we would open our fates and read the red-inked reckoning, still glistening on our papers. But usually this would not last too long. At least it was behind us. Now the ASs would be in their form. There would be some sitting in a corner, with a oh-what-a-good-boy-am-I kind of grins, and we would immediately realize these were the ASs who'd got full marks. The ASs who didn't, however, would be in a frenzy indescribable. They'd crowd up in the space available between the teacher's desk and the first bench, their arms flailing around with their papers, fighting for....oh no, not their torn or lost map-sheet, but half a mark. Or even more catastrophic, one mark. "If she got it on that question, how come I didn't get it too?". I would almost shout, "coz they did it by the inky-pinky-ponky, and you got left out, dunkhead!!" I mean, honestly. They'd fight like the way kindergarten kids fight over whose glass is filled with more orange juice.

I used to look at these people, eyeing them from a mental distance, thinking, damn, why? Why the whole charade? It was bigtime basic knowledge that they were cosmically shining bright material. Then why the fretting over who wrote what, who wrote more, who drew more, who made what?

Another thing I couldn't digest about ASs was the whole thing about not showing off. If I'd ask them something as simple as, "So how many lessons are coming this time?" they'd never have a clear answer. And if I'd ask them something simpler like, "So have you done this chapter?" the answer would be "Oh no..I've not even reached there!". Yeah, I'm going to believe that. The OTT modesty show was something that really put me off.

AS 1: "You're MUCH better than me, look at how much you got on that one."

AS 2: "Oh no, just a fluke answer, man."

Cut the ribbon, and get done with it.

I think I'm done talking about them now. It's time for the others. It's time for the rest of us to come out from our closets. So maybe we won't make it to the top Universities or Colleges. So maybe we won't get the pat-on-my-head and goofy smiles from the teachers. So maybe we won't have normal parent-teacher "interactions". We have fun. In fact, that's an understatement. We have the time of our lives. We have a life, inside AND outside the school. We probably know the school better than the janitors. We will be remembered by the teachers as students who gave them a laugh, once in a while. And...we have (and are making) some of the craziest, zaniest and most beautiful memories ever worth telling our grandchildren. So there.

(This was a piece I came across in one of my drafts. I'd written this in a fit of righteous indignation while in class 9. The ferocity of the descriptions draws a temperate smile across my face now, but I love the spunk in this girl.)

Forgotten

It's half past seven in the morning, and Wre has to go for a bath. She opens the tap and lets the water rush in. The flow's impatience is duly noted. The water flows like a bunch of thick velvet ribbons, not uniform but leaping here and there, within a vertical essence. "Around twenty-seven days ago, a year came to a close at college," she says. "A year of swinging between the depths of despair, the heights of happiness and everything in between. After the hysterical euphoria associated with finishing the Final Exams, the autumn leaves of after-thought started rustling about in your mind. A year. An entire range of three hundred and sixty-five days. It was as if time had been sitting quietly in a classroom and you had skidded to a stop outside it, exclaiming in shocked silence to yourself, "You're over .. already?!"

She steps outside the steamy warmth of the bathroom and walks around to find her towel and clothes. She checks the store-room for a new bottle of shampoo, and finally steps back in with everything she needs. She hangs her clothes and continues. "Time seems to have played hide-and-seek, showing itself in leisure, seeking action from you when you would wait with impatience for a boring teacher's lectures to finish. Hiding itself with quietude when you would sit with a friend in contented silence, after a thought-provoking conversation. Time is a slippery reality. The present seems like moving in a cloud, the past is like footsteps you can't get back and the future like walking with an umbrella open in front of your face - you can see only so much far ahead."

She wants to keep talking, and the familiarity of warm water helps her. "An elastic concept of time seems biologically irrational," she says. "What it would be like for people with Alzheimer's or Parkinson's? How would it feel to be trapped in - "

The telephone rings. Wre hangs her head and sighs. Putting a little foam on the tap's top like a conversational bookmark, she wraps herself in premature dryness and goes to pick it up. She's tired of communication and doesn't want to make conversation right now. Her shoulders sag a little more when she sees the number. There are a number of social repercussions if she doesn't pick up this call. On the other line is Opa, a self-imposed friend. Suddenly, Wre gets a bright idea. She picks the phone slowly and hearing a high-pitched "Hello??" from the receiver's head, breathes slowly into the receiver's mouth. The indignant hello is shocked into silence and curiosity takes over her friend, enough to shut her up. Wre breathes again, this time making it sound sinister by flicking her tongue against her upper teeth. Opa promptly disconnects the call. Wre breathes - to herself. She goes back into the bathroom, stares hard at the foam on the top and successfully picks up from where she'd left.


" - your memories? If being walled in between your memories is terrifying, imagine what it would be like to consciously lose them. You remember the opening scenes of the movie, The Pianist, where a Jewish family in Warsaw is preparing to flee the city during the Nazi invasion on Poland? The family members are packing frantically and in pathetic absence of mind, the old husband asks his wife, "Do you think I should take this picture along? I bought it a long time ago, do you think I should pack it? Do you think I should take it?" His wife, interrupted in her nervous urgency tells him to do whatever he wants. This was one of the many scenes in this terrifying movie which hit you and got stuck in your head, disturbing you like an ant crawling across your scalp. What would you do if you had to pack all your things and just - leave? A critical element in dementia is ignorance - you just don't know. But what if you knew what you were leaving behind forever?"


Wre shuddered. The shampoo was supposed to comfort her with its lathering softness but the comfort was too dermal to reach her. She took a breath and went on.

"Something equally disturbing is short-term memory loss. Forgetting a past which consisted of recent seconds is like invisible sand slipping through your fingers. You know something has gone by, but your mind is like vacuum - the emptiness is too solid. There is nothing which reminds you of anything, not even a wisp of a recollection. It's like an absolute whiteness."

Wre stops. She finally realises she can't escape anymore. She hates the word 'maybe' and wants to try actually talking and remembering at the same time. Some conversations, like the ones she has with Opa make her drag her full-stops all the way to the end of her sentences, because Opa doesn't have a conversation, she just talks and expects a response. She doesn't understand reluctance. So you have to keep ploughing on with your sentence till you reach the end of Opa's patience.

Wre had tried talking to another girl at her college, but she realised it exposed the freckles on her memory retention abilities too barely. In school, she had heard her Biology teacher tell her class the story of two goldfishes in a bowl. They would introduce themselves every time they swam around the bowl and met each other, because goldfishes have three-second memories. She was the only one in her class who had not laughed. When she was twenty-one years old her parents decided to send her to a mental institution, because Wre was incapable of having a proper conversation with anyone, let alone live her life. Give her three minutes, and she would forget what and where she'd started, whatever she'd started. Her only friend, Opa, stuck with her because nobody had Wre's endurance abilities, and nobody else would talk with Wre so consistently, despite her mind mumbling off into the land of no recall more often than not.

She gets up, dries herself and continues. "I hope the medication helps you. As far as I remember, I think you're beginning to get better. You remembered the supervisor's name and reached ninety-seven in counting class. It'll be fine, you just need to give yourself some time."

Feeling sunnier, she puts her clothes on and dries her towel outside. The nurse announces that it is lunch-time, and Wre walks towards the Main Hall, singing a self-composed song to herself,

"An itch in an unreachable patch
Of my head, in my head .. "

In verted commas

"Love is sweet misery." - Cryin', by Aerosmith

"Reality - a pain for those in touch with it." - Unknown; seen at a raddi-wallah's shop.

"Choose ur own mate in life
Dn't depnd on ur mothr.
She wil bring u sum1
Who secrtly luvs anuthr." - Unknown; next to the window of an Ambernath 4:46 pm slow from VT.

"Deep rich chocolate mousse. So sinful, even your mother will warn you away from it." - Cafe Coffee Day's menu description for one of their chocolate mousses.

"I tried. I tried my best. But best is best only to me, not to them." - Molu in his sleep, a few days before his first Board Exam.

"Ethological research suggested that there was a major difference between the aggression patterns of the mammalian species and man - namely, that animals had evolved mechanisms to control their aggressive instincts, but humans had not." - Atkinson and Hilgard's Introduction to Psychology. (14th Edition)

On a lighter note,

"Freud isn't exactly obsolete. Psycho-analytic images still appear in animated films, with one of the more recent examples in 'The Emperor's New Groove', when a character argues with his angel and devil over disposing the emperor. The devil is the id, the angel is the superego and the poor critter in the middle is the ego." - An Introduction to Psychology by Cicarelli, Meyer, et.al. Probably the coolest Psychology textbook ever written.

"When we speak of setting difficult goals, we do not mean that we should 'aim at the stars.' In fact, a person who aims at reaching the stars may not even reach the rooftop." - Foundation Course - I, by Mr. K.T Basantani. A textbook which is a generic insult to intelligence.

"Remember that you are an Englishman, and have consequently won the first prize in the lottery of life." - Cecil Rhodes, a British statesman at the height of British Imperialism. At one point of time, this tiny island ruled one-fourth of the world through her colonies.

"Your nearest alternative toilet facility is located on this level towards the spectator's viewing facility." - Sign at a Manchester airport.

"For NASA, space is still a high priority." - Dan Quayle.
"Got a lot of numbers on it. I reckon it's the Budget." - George Bush.

"Eighteen arduous months later, after a long and agonizing process, Rand and I plunge into a love affair - with the knowledge and consent of Frank and Barbara." - Nathaniel Branden, describing his interaction and life with Ayn Rand. Frank and Barbara were the spouses of Rand and Branden respectively.
"It was while making newspaper deliveries, trying to miss the bushes and hit the porches that I first learned about accuracy in journalism." - Charles Osgood, host for CNB Sunday Morning.

"Intelligence has much less practical application than you'd think." - Response given to Dilbert when he asked his senior colleague (who was the President of the local Mensa organisation) on why he worked at their firm if he was so smart.

"The heart has reasons that reason cannot know." - Blaise Pascal.

Loss

(Two friends walk along the Promenade till they reach the tetrapods at the tip of Nariman Point. It's a quiet evening and the sun shines feebly behind them. The salty air is bordered on one side with the wind and on the other side with the sales pitches of the kulfi and peanut sellers, interrupted intermittently by the slow sound of waves lapping up the shore.)
Di: (scrambling on to the nearest pod) This is it, El. Welcome to the edge of our city.

Ello: (sits on the stairs) Seems strange, doesn't it - this sudden territorial finality, like there's nothing I can touch and feel beyond this point.

Di: It is a little surreal, to see the roads come to an end. You think this unsettling feeling has something to do with why people feel seasick?

Ello: I suppose so.. (stretches her arms). I don't know, I'm not very sure. But to stand here and know that you've reached a point in this huge city is almost like standing at the edge of a cliff, and seeing land turn into wind.

Di: The end of land, the end of physical motion. Which is why we find it so odd; to be living in this maniac city and to be coming to a stop.

Ello: Doesn't happen too often, does it?

Di: (scales another tetrapod successfully) Not at all, I think. We're like particles rushing in continuum .. stopping, opposing, resisting doesn't happen. It's a very preoccupied force.

Ello: (breaks into a light smile) Oh yes, Dadar, Kurla and VT are sparkling testimonials to that.

(A little boy in rags walks by, with an ice-lolly in his mouth.)

Di: They say it's all in the mind. I don't entirely agree with that.

Ello: (as if distracted) Hmm.. you don't?

Di: No. I mean, look at us here. Physically speaking there's no further we can go. But mentally, we could cross these seas in a second. And yet we're so stilled. And it's ..
(stares at the horizon, thoughts trailing off with the breeze)

Ello: (after a while) It's like death.

Di: This?

Ello: Isn't it? An apparent end, of sorts. Like these haphazard tetrapods seem to pause my city here, seem to tell me there's no further I can go. But this could also be a beginning. For something to begin, something has to end. Maybe I have to end, before I can become a part of a new beginning.

Di: (Reaches out with her legs on to her third tetrapod) What about memories? What about energy? What about the personal magic somebody has in them, which makes them what they are?

Ello: It's like a waterfall. It's a fluid journey; we flow. Memories, energy, the personal magic you talk about - they all come to an end with you. That's the only way you can begin again. And because we spend so much time and effort creating and constantly taking care of these things, it becomes difficult to draw a line.

Di: (plays with her hair in her fingers) I think realising that you need to let go, realising that you've reached a corner is important, or else you keep searching in a circle.

Ello: This could be true for anything. I think Pygmalion couldn't realise this when he created Galatea, and we don't realise it when we lose someone we're very close to.

Di: Whether it's a physical loss, or the loss of a person in a person, or a loss of ideals.

Ello: (after a while) True.

(The sun has left. The darkness plays with the light being reflected on the ripples, as if tempting it out of the waters. The sounds of cars and bikes take over with vengeance. The peanut seller and the kulfi man have long left. Ello and Di finally get up and leave, breaking out of that inertia which always envelops you when you're sitting next to the sea.)