8.45 - 9.00 !!!

"how much did it come to ???"

5 pairs of eyes carefully sifted through the coins and notes under the dim light of the street lamp...would it be enough ?? That was the question in every1's mind...

John got the picture immediately...80 short...heck...
The five of us started pondering on the possibilities...In the IT jargon, work around solutions was the need of the hour...did we have any ??

Time was running short..The place closed by 9 and we just had 15 min...

Mandan and vis looked forlorn...An anti climax to the 2 days of planning seemed to be around the corner...We had put in a lot of thought in to every part of the plan and special care was taken on the question of funds..300 was quite a large sum for 6 unemployed jerks but we had made up our mind...

We sat under the banyan tree..That's where we usually assembled in the evening...Like vultures hungry for flesh, we scanned the area for the innocent prey to wander near us...Would we get those 80 bucks ??? hmmm...

And get, we did..don't ask me how, coz i forgot...yup..started that piece of ancient machinery, which also acted as Pappus bike...pushing the hag of a bike to the edge, the 4 of us rode to the nearest place...

reached in the nick of time..the place was just closing up..the probability of getting one was close to seeing a dodo walking on the road again..But pappu was at his polite best..he begged, cried, tried all his magic and finally coaxed the fellow at the counter to part with it...

We rushed to our fave spot..The entire place was deserted...The smiles on our faces said it all..we had finally done it..And thats, how, we first tasted the stuff...

Time heals

old timers say that..read in some books bout it too...

the pain was unbearable..when you are going to lose some1 who is close to you and you know that you are helpless...it was one such ocassion...I was helpless...it just shakes your confidence..I thought that I had the solution to most of the problems..yet, i could just stand by, mute...

The enormity of my actions took a while to sink in...God, why did I do that ? I don't have an answer till date..I could have changed all this- the course of my life...But, I didn't..Just stayed silent...

The guilt remains to this day...It took several days to recover from the impact...Long winded talks with my friends, those lonely hours i spent alone pondering my actions, the incessant pressure at work...It took time...and it healed...Yup, time does heal all wounds..The old timers got it right, yet again....But, what about the scars ? Oh Wise men ! speak up...
They still remain, deep inside your heart, like forgotten painful memories...I am destined to live with them...

Memories at the beach.....

We were at the beach...where else would you expect us on a saturday evening...the movie had redefined our logic levels and questioned our belief in the physics, gravity and hyper metabolic xyz, whatever...Newton would have died on the spot instead of waiting for the apple to fall on his head, had he seen the dumb movie...

Maybe the salty air wuz just what we needed to recharge our grey cells...We took a spot far away from the crowd and drank in the view...saturday evening at the beach, has always been a fabulous experience for me...this time, it was no different...

The waves were high, a bit unnatural at this time...I could see the kids screaming when a particularly big one threatened to drench them...I could see some fellas having a good time playing a game, ahem...one can't define a game which is a cross bw soccer and volleyball...I could see the lovers, glued to themselves, enjoying their cozy moments....and then, I saw her.....

She was strolling on the beach, a little too near to the waves...always on the lookout for the big one...and when it came, she would scurry off from the edge, laughing at the effort...she was different, from the rest, mesmerised by the beauty and oblivious to the madding crowd...A whiff of innocence...

There are some days which one would turn away like pages in a book, too insignificant to hold in your memory...others would bring sad thoughts...Some held memories, which brings a smile to your face...And then there are days like this...they hold a special meaning in your life..this was one of them..I met her for the first time that evening.....

A Saturday morning

Got up quite late..11.00 am...pondered, while lying on the bed on what to do in the weekend..A repeat of yesterday's night out ?? no way buster !!! Another of that freaky night and I am grounded...got up from my bed and went to c the fellas...basil wuz quite excited bout the match..Oz were the favourites but then other teams have sharpened their skills too...except my team !!!

Cleaned up a mountain of vessels...hmmm, any nitwit knows that unclean vessels stink over the week, but then sanity has always refused to impress our grey cells...the thrill of scrubbing away the scum, the wild pleasure one gets when u notice that yellow moss has spread all over the vessels, hmmm, u just cant beat that..Oh, btw, rice flowers can be commercially cultivated by immersing boiled rice and keeping it underwater for 3 weeks...for genetically modified versions of the same, add sambhar/rasam/other curries to the rice and repeat the process....

sat down on the plush diwan to watch the match...the power hitters are back...blasting their way out of trouble...cricket has changed, man !! but, then thats another story...

we crashed out !!!

I had a sick feeling by noon that something would go awry...The team had to do well, had to beat the lankans to stay alive..anticipated an exciting game, but things just sort of fell apart..
But then, this has been happening for quite some time..

back from office, lying on the couch..the whole gang is here,as another lifeless weekend is gonna start..This is america for christ's sake, u enjoy life out here mate..Middletown, though geographically in US, is simply a place in the middle of nowhere...