Boo Radley

When I was young, I was told about a certain Arthur 'Boo' Radley.

This Radley character was indeed a curious one.

They said he stayed locked up in his little room all the time.

Said he'd been that way for twenty-five years,

Said he stayed that way because he wanted to.

I was young. And baffled, yes.

Why would someone do something like this?

Stay locked up and miserable for so long,

Not wanting to come outside and see the world.

Not wanting to play, like other kids, like myself.

So, in my mind, I asked Boo Radley why.

He said nothing.

Just smiled a knowing smile.

When I grew a little older, I scoffed at him for being the way he was.

Called him names.

Made ridiculous self-assumed conclusions about the cause of his condition.

I tried to convince myself that he wasn't quite right in the head.

But,

In my mind, he continued smiling his knowing smile.

And though I didn't show it,

His smile aggravated me.

And so, I resolved to forget him.

Cast him to some remote and apparently inaccessible corner of my conscience.

Last night, I turned as old as Boo Radley was when I first met him.

I haven't seen much of the world.

No, I'm not the old hermit I am supposed to be.

After my last cup of coffee, I locked myself up and threw the key away.

Locked myself up in my little room,

Like Boo Radley had been,

All those years ago.

As I turned the key in the lock,

He smiled at me.

And,

I smiled back.

(Inspired by Harper Lee's 'To Kill A Mockingbird')

Love In Grey World

Lets fall in love because there's nothing else to do,

I'm broken on the inside and so are you,

Pick up the pieces and try to be whole again,

Together we might achieve what no one can,

Give me your soul and let me join it with mine,

We'll brew a spirit more potent than any known wine,

And drink it little by little, every day,

In goblets deep, under skies grey,

And dance to the music of our own heartbeat,

Till we collapse, tired, with sore feet,

For, in our world, there shall be no dawn,

No Sunshine, no hypocritical Sun-spawn,

Only Clouds shall rule the Sky, dark and grey,

Darkness will prevail, be it night or day,

And in a black tower, we'll have our black thrones,

Side by side, We'll rule our world,

Eliminate the hypocritical human herd,

And lend the essence of our dark spirit to the clouds above,

And fill our goblets when it rains,

And drink and dance all over again,

And collapse one final time when we're at Forever,

And in the dark dirt of our Grey World,

Be buried under the clouds,

Together.

My First Visit To A Pathology Lab

The man sitting behind the desk is old, and when he grins at me and my mother, I see that he is missing his lower incisors. His skin is wrinkled and I doubt if his hands are steady enough to complete the procedure without giving me some permanent damage to take home. He tells us that he'll do the blood test now and we can come for the X-ray after having breakfast, "Like my own son! I wouldn't expose him to those rays on an empty stomach!", "No sir, you aren't that young.", is my quiet mental response before I tell him it's okay and we can do both right now itself. He gives me a disapproving look, but then my mother comes to the rescue and tells him that it would be a little difficult for us to go back and come again. He says it's fine and gives us a wide grin flashing his missing teeth. Then he opens up his register notebook and writes down my name and age, as my mother and I spell my name out for him.

Shriyank Mulgund 17/F

I curse as his pen makes the 'F' on the paper. I decide not to protest against this clerical error. I give up. I don't want to argue with this man. Not for my manhood, there will be other opportunities to prove it in the future, I tell myself. 

I have been coughing my lungs out for the last month. A self-prescribed antibiotics course, another prescribed by a doctor and two bottles of cough syrup have done nothing to cure my ailment, and after I finished my last course of tablets, I finally relented to the doctor's suggestion of expensive blood tests and an X-ray this morning.

There, as I sat looking at the old man behind the desk, the owner of the lab, writing a long list of tests under my name, age, wrongly stated gender, I thought about the 8-Ball Pool tournament from the day before. I'd lost in the qualifier round itself. I'd been distracted. And I was distracted as the old man, filled out a receipt form, wrote '720/-' beside 'Total:' and handed it to my mother. Then he disappeared into a room behind us and returned with small glass collecting tubes and a Dispo-Van disposable syringe. I'd been prescribed a special IgE Serum test that would check for levels of IgE in my blood, levels that skyrocket if you have an internal allergic reaction to pollen or animal dander or if you have a parasitic infection. I didn't remember being around a lot of animals recently neither did I remember visiting a garden. Well, these tests couldn't be done in 'small town' Durgapur and so, samples of my blood would have to be sent to Calcutta, meaning that the reports would take 2 Days to arrive. I was fascinating about a sample of my blood being smuggled away to some remote corner of the world for illegal genetic research(courtesy Michael Crichton's 'Next'), as the old man reached out for my right hand, held it out straight with the crook of my elbow facing the ceiling and gestured for me to make a fist. I obeyed and watched intently as he tied a rubber tube around my upper arm. "He's looking for a vein, oh great, this is just like the movies, the part where they shoot themselves full of drugs, except this guy is going to take something out.", I thought, as he frowned, he thumbed the crook of my elbow once, twice, but no vein appeared. "Hah, Beat that!", I thought. He sighed, and calmly untied the rubber tube and asked me to hold out my left hand the same way. He tied the tube around my left arm, thumbed the crook, and Bingo, there it was, the vein. A contented smile spread across the old face and I looked at him with an expression that said "Well you got me this time, old boy.". He proceeded to prepare the syringe while I looked on disinterestedly. "Look the other way.", he said as he inserted the needle into the vein, and slowly pulled the plunger back. The barrel filled with my dark blood as I told him that the sight of blood didn't bother me(No person who has watched at least 2 slasher flicks in their lifetime should be bothered by the sight of this dark red fluid that is claimed to be 'thicker than water' and is sometimes called 'blue'). He went on to withdraw the needle from the vein and smothered the spot with an antiseptic soaked piece of cotton wool. I held the piece down and watched him distribute what was inside my body seconds ago among three different containers while he talked to my mother about this 'fear of the sight of blood' that most people have. My mother told him about how my father feels uneasy at the sight of blood and he chuckled. Then he motioned for me to go to the other room, inside. I walked in as he followed. He asked me to take my shirt off as he fired up the X-ray machine. My mother asked me to hand over my wristwatch and spectacles. The old man shut the door and showed me how to stand with my back facing the machine and my chest facing some sort of plate, with my hands behind my back. "Hold your breath on my mark. Now!"

I saw or heard or felt absolutely nothing as he sent the rays at me, as they entered my body and left it, so I was mildly surprised when he said "It's done".

I put on my shirt, wore my spectacles and my wristwatch as my mother payed the old man. A coughing fit overcame me as I stepped out of the doors of the lab.

"Well, there's always a first time.", I thought.

Grey World

What If it rained every day of the year?

The sky would always be a lovely shade of grey,

And all around me the world would look so dim,

So dark, So beautifully grim.

None of that hypocritical celestial being,

That big round thing they call 'The Sun',

That villainous ball of fire that shines down with merciless radiance upon

Dogs that die in the street and the poor, poor people who weep.

None of that damned 'Sunshine On My Shoulders',

Sunshine that does not make me happy in the least.

I despise that fake happiness,

I despise it when people around me say things like 'Fine Weather', 'Sunny Day',

I despise it when they say these things and laugh and cheer like there's nothing wrong with the world,

I despise it and so I sit and sulk and wait, wait for the rain,

The Rain, the cold, merciful Rain,

The Clouds, the dark, concealing clouds,

The darkness they bring and the despair those hypocrites feel is my victory.

But till that happens, I wait,

I sit and sulk and wait and sleep and dream,

And when I dream I see myself spit on those hypocrites,

Spit on their Sun,

Fall At Them like Arrows From Above, Fall at them like-

Oh yes, like rain!

Fall at them like rain, Fall at their Sun and put it out,

Put it out like a puny garbage fire!

I sleep and dream and wake,

Wake under a grey sky,

And I'm so, so sad.

So happy that I'm sad.

Because this sadness, this contented sadness,

Is what I've been craving,

This sadness that makes me feel ancient,

Makes me experience things from somewhere else,

From some other version of me,

From a beautiful, dark version of this painfully bright and ugly world,

This sadness that flows from the skies into me and from me to someplace I don't know,

Someplace I'd love to go,

Someplace grey, dark, dim, and,

Yes indeed, beautifully grim.

And I must enjoy this while it lasts,

For even though I curse and hope and beg and wish for the permanence of something I consider so dear,

Alas, it won't rain every day of the year.

Dead Heart

I see your face, my heart skips a beat.

It's hard to explain what's happening to my feet.

You move forward, in for the kill.

I'm frozen, and all is still.

You plunge the knife straight into my chest.

But I feel no pain...

All is lost, I know,

No possibility of any sort of gain.

You're smiling.

I know you want to cut my heart out and eat it.

But I can't help smiling back.

With the controlled anticipation of a conoisseur, you grope for it.

I can see your eyes close and hear your gasp as your fingers find it.

I know what you've been expecting.

Warm, bloody, red and strong.

The expression on your face as you lift it out of the gaping hole in my chest.

Ah... Priceless.

You begin to panic as you finally see what your hands hold.

Not a warm, bloody, red and strong heart but cold hard stone.

Black, yes indeed.

I'm laughing now.

You're disappointed and perplexed.

You see, love, I was dead when you found me.

And dead, I still am.

Ghost

I am a ghost from the past.

I have sinned.

My mind is full of dark thoughts.

I am helpless as my conscience rots.

I am a free man. I plan to sin again.

To murder, to thieve, to cheat.

I want to feel alive.

I see a young girl walking towards me.

I don't want to stop the beast inside me.

I am a hungry animal. Her eyes move to my face.

I stop and look into her eyes.

The darkness of the kohl reflects the darkness in my soul.

Yet she is so innocent, so pure.

She is not scared by my cruel face and ragged clothes.

Her eyes are full of... is that pity?

She grabs my hands and says,"Don't worry.. there is hope for everyone,".

I am speechless as she walks away without realizing that because of her I might become a different man..