The Fairy from the Portrait

Kanishka trembled with ill-concealed joy. She had been waiting quite some time now. At last she heard quick footsteps in the corridor and there seemed to be a gleam about the air outside. She waited with bated breath as the footsteps sounded nearer and nearer until they were almost outside her door.

Then there was bang and thud and a loud "OW!!! Grrrr!"

Kanishka jumped quickly and opened the door. On her doorstep there lay a fairy.

"Thank God she had wings.." Kanishka would say later "... for otherwise I would have thought it was just one of my prankster friends out to have a laugh at my expense"

Indeed, with glasses askew, loose T-shirt and jeans that were torn at the knees, the figure that sat holding its head with both hands could hardly fit human imagination of a fairy. Only the wings, and a soft halo gave away the fairy.

"Err...Hi, you must be one of those from the Portrait. Why don't you come in." said Kanishka, not knowing what else to do.

The fairy was shaken out of her daze and said,"Yes, I am Omega. We made an appointment in your dream...." again she became abstracted and started to look around for something.

"Have you misplaced something?" asked Kanishka

"Yes, I had brought a surprise for you, but I don't know where it landed when I fell." said Omega morosely, still looking all around. Kanishka spotted a squashed package lying at the far end of the corridor. She brought it over and said, "I think I have found my surprise."

Omega looked up, and heaved a sigh of relief, "Yes that's it. Go on, open it."

Kanishka opened the package expectantly. A shrill voice cried out, "OMEGA YOU CHUMP!"

Kanishka was taken aback to see a chocolate cake frowning at her out of the package.

When it realised it had shouted at the wrong person, the cake became embarassed.

"I am sorry" it said in a much smaller voice, "...but that Omega just messed me up."

"Err... umm.... sorry Choco" said Omega in a faltering voice from behind.

That seemed to anger the cake once again.

" "Sorry?" "Sorry?" You nemesis of all cakes! What good is sorry when because of you my nose is now stuck to the lid of this package?! I wish fairyland scientists would hurry up with that Anti-Omega spell. In the pipeline they say... but do we keep falling prey to the greatest terror of cakes till then? I ask you....."

It would have gone on but Omega shut the lid back on and gave Kanishka a wan smile. Kanishka stifled her laughter and ushered Omega in. The room cheered her mood considerably.

"Look at the old Portrait! I like the way you have decorated it." she said, switching the lights off and on, enjoying the greenish glitter of the radium stickers that Kanishka had put on around the Portrait That Never Teared. "We had good times here," said Omega, reminiscently looking around the room " chatting away till late, debating hotly about something, sometimes studying together, or watching movies while eating pastry from Mongini's..." Omega's voice trailed off.

Kanishka looked at the Portrait closely. It was a simple portrait, done by an amateur painter, but its mystery lay in the fact that it refused to tear, even though decades had passed after it had first been pasted. The young faces there showed years of closeness and camaraderie. The eyes were bright with joyful companionship. Kanishka had always thought it to be unaccountably beautiful.

A loud rumbling brought Kanishka back to the present. She immediately ran to the window, to see if it was cloudy. She would need to collect her clothes before it rained, which it was sure to, with such loud thunder.

"Err... heh heh... in case you are wondering, that was not thunder, it was my stomach." said Omega shamefacedly, "I got hungry talking about pastries." she mumbled.

Kanishka gave a snort and disguised into a cough, briskly walking to the cupboard in an effort to fight an overwhelming desire to laugh.

"Will you have Maggi?" she asked

"Oh yes, Oh yes!" shrieked Omega and gambolled over to the cupboard,"Oh look... there are Banana Chips.. and Bourbon Biscuits too! I will surely tell Vazz you keep this room better than ever she did!"

Kanishka smiled. Fairy or not, Omega was just the same as she had read about in the famous comic book "MEG(H)A LAUGH DIGEST" She was sure Omega and Mohini had their Tom and Jerry fights in fairyland too.

" So how did you get to fairyland?" she asked.

"That is a long story.." said Omega, busily munching a biscuit, "see, we were all ordinary people, but together we were Magic. An atmosphere of that mysterious power called Love brewed of itself when we were together. Once, long after we had left this college, we all met and were chatting, smiling and laughing, as you can only in the presence of those most beloved to you, when we felt dizzy all at once, and all fell unconscious. When we woke we were in a different land, breathtakingly beautiful and brimming over with joy... Yes joy, gladness and mirth are tangible in that land, just like air. But sticking to the story, we were pretty perplexed how we came to be there all of a sudden. The explanation came (you know, ideas float around there, beautiful, lucent ideas not thought of here) and it was understandable even to us mortals. It had been the result of a transition. You know Heisenberg's principle, you cannot predict the position of an electron exactly, you only know the probability of its being somewhere in some point of time. It is the same with different planes of existence. They all revolve around the ONE, just like atoms revolve around the nucleus. You can never predict where one plane will be, it could be at a different orbit now, some other orbit the other moment. In such a moment of transition, when the plane of pure love (or fairyland to us) intersected with earth, we happened to be filled with that feeling and so got transferred to that plane."

"Woah that's a heady mix. Spirituality and Science in co-existence" said Kanishka, her head reeling.

"Heh heh. Well, we were just too curious about what happened to the place where we all first met, so we have kept constant tabs on the college and this room especially. You seemed very receptive, so we contacted you in your dream. You know that's when human beings travel the other planes uninterrupted. Today I have come to meet you and give you this phial." said Omega, handing over a small phial to Kanishka, "It contains Love, it is our blessing to a place which blessed us with joys unimagined."

With a last bite, Omega parted, leaving Kanishka dreamily staring out, the phial carefully placed in a nook, to shower all coming generations of inhabitants with love and joy.

PS: This post is written to relate to you the story of a very special person, Megha (I didn't leave much to imagination on that point) who is, by turns, a joker, a wise scholar, a clumsy, innocent baby and above all who shares with me a very very special bond. Its her birthday this 24/7 and though I can't be there to wish her personally, I want to tell her through this blog, that I am always thinking of her and missing her terribly.

Enchanted by Pop-Biscuits

Up and up the Faraway Tree they went,

wondering what folk lived behing those little windows...

They knocked at a little round door and the loveliest little elf answered.

"You look hot and tired..." she said,

" come and have some pop biscuits, I've just finished baking them".

The Enchanted Wood, and more particularly the giant Faraway Tree, whose top touches lands such as the land of presents and the land of parties, is every child's dream woven into words. Whenever I sat down to read this memorable book, I saw to it that I had something to eat... for how are you supposed to survive those hunger-pangs when you read about the mouth-watering Google-Buns and Pop-Biscuits that Silky the elf bakes or the Toffee-Shocks and hundred different kinds of jams that Moon-Face keeps?

Pop-Biscuits appeared to me the most delicious eatables of all time, what with the honey filling your mouth as soon as you bit into them. I was pretty crazy about the Enchanted Wood as a child and even pretended that the discarded steel shelf in my room was the Faraway Tree. I used to put my sister on the top-shelf and pretend she was Silky, busily baking Pop-Biscuits for her friends (that was me and a host of imaginary people). I would lazily climb the tree, shelf by shelf, picking up an imaginary apple from this branch, a cherry from the other, chatting up Moon-Face and the Saucepan-Man, who lived a shelf below Silky, and finally reach Silky's house where we would gorge on the pop-biscuits.

The Saucepan Man with his saucepans

These biscuits were such a fascination with me, I even put them on the menu when we played Restaurant (yeah, you read that right). When my sister royally walked in and ordered Pop-Biscuits, she would be served Brittania biscuits with honey poured over them. People planning to visit me don't need to be worried, my Restaurant doesn't serve such Pop-Biscuits anymore. But although I grew up, the Enchanted Wood never faded from my memory.

In college I had an amazing time discussing books, right from Atlas Shrugged to the Alchemist with my friend Megha. We never discussed Enchanted Wood and Pop-Biscuits somehow, but they came back in our lives in a most amazing fashion. My friend Daniel, who is also my senior in college, happened to bring me Eclairs on one of his visits. I had never eaten Eclairs before, so I just thought they were regular cookies. I gave some to perenially hungry Megha and went off to do some work. Late at night, hunger struck and I remembered the eclairs and brought them out. I bit into one, and I thought for a moment that honey flew into my mouth. I looked at the cookie in surprise and realised it was filled with cream, not honey. But it was a pleasant surprise all the same, to taste something that really could be my beloved Pop-Biscuits. I rushed to Megha's room and asked, "Megha, woh cookies khaye?"

She was all excitement too, " Haan haan, woh ekdum Silky wale biscuits jaise the na?"

Eclairs-nee-Pop Biscuits

We stared at each other. It was like discovering my friend all over again. She had read the Enchanted Wood too! She knew about Pop-Biscuits!! We were soon talking away like crazy, analysing the Angry Pixie and Mr. Watzisname and laughing over Dame Washalot and imagining what fun life would be if we could be Joe or Bessie or Fanny, munching away at our Pop-Biscuits all the while. I'll remember that episode forever as one of the sweetest of my life, what with my dream of eating pop-biscuits coming true and sharing that experience with one of my dearest friends.

Me(left) and Megha

P.S. This post would be incomplete without a hundred thanks to Daniel, who made our trip down memory-lane possible. :)

The Auto Menace

Hey dudes and dudettes,
This blog is in tribute to all those Auto-drivers who live to transform the most easy-going, quiet individuals into raging, bickering passengers. All through my industrial training in Bangalore I ranted about the high rates they charged, but Bangalore's breed pales in comparison to Delhi's tribe of Auto-Rickshaw drivers. At least the Bangalore clan has meters, and most of the drivers abide by them, but come to Delhi and you'll find the drivers charging any amount they wish. Haggling for ten minutes makes them decrease the fare by 10-20 rupees which is hardly any compensation to your pocket. Then to top it all they have such rude language and absolutely no respect for passengers. I have had two bad experiences with these U.P. autowallahs: one charged 130 rupees where it should have cost just 80, and after driving some distance tells us "Auto dheere hi chalegi... kuchh pareshani toh nahi hai na" it drove me clean mad but we were running late and the auto didn't seem to be too slow so we went on, but with distance the auto slowed down to such an extent a bullock-cart overtook us at a point. I gave the driver a long sermon on honesty but he just kept smiling stupidly, then I gave him just 100 rupees(he still made a profit!) and he stood yelling and cursing at our backs.
The other was when we came back from the Ghaziabad RTO where we had gone to get my learner's license made. The driver overcharged, but that's something all auto-drivers do, this one was more insane than is usual among the tribe, he slept off while driving and when shaken awake said, "Kya aapatti hai? door door tak tirafeek nahi hai.. sone do" . Then he stopped at the main road and wouldn't take us to our society which is only a little way inside. When my mother asked him to drop us at the society he looked out of the corner of his eyes and in a most sarcastic tone said, "Madam tumhara dimag kharab hai". There he crossed the limit. My father stood ready to slap him and I pretended trying to pull my shoes off to beat him. That unnerved him and he apologised. ("Munh se fisal gaya bhaiya...").

People who know me are probably laughing their heads off at the thought of Vasudha beating somebody, even scolding somebody... but these mindless autowallahs have managed making me that angry. Its not something I am very proud of, I have managed to hold my temper through four years of college when some people gave me great temptation to lose it, but here, the autowallah finally got the better of me. But now that I have gotten angry enough to write a post on it, I want to put it to good use. Its high time we did something about the auto menace... I have thought of putting up posters in socities and malls informing people of the actual fare that should be charged and what they are being charged and encouraging them to sign, probably these signatures could be taken up to the DM or whichever person is involved (I have a very rough idea... only the poster part clear right now). The problem is not restricted to U.P. only... I went to Orissa recently and the autos there didn;t go by the meter too... this is a widespread problem so we could create FaceBook community or setup a website against such miscreants.... do you people have any ideas on how to bring auto-drivers to book? do let me know....