Just trying to recall some moments where people have shown a great deal of empathy and kindness towards me.
I had a terrible accident during my 5th standard which led to me being hospitalised for well over a month. I was using some hot water in a steam inhale session to fix my fever, and ended up splashing a lot of water which caused significant burns.
I have been buying masala dosa from a local shop since the 2000s, and at some point I started noticing the price. Not tracking it properly, just noticing it, the way you notice a friend’s hairline.
Here is what I can piece together.
| Year | Price of one masala dosa |
|---|---|
| 2005 | Rs 20 |
| 2010 | Rs 30 |
| 2015 | Rs 45 |
| 2020 | Rs 60 |
| 2026 | Rs 75 |
Five data points, no receipts, entirely from memory. Naturally the correct response is to treat this as a serious economic instrument. I present the Masala Dosa Inflation Index.
I don’t know if you had felt this before , but imagine you are doing some activity, something along the lines of walking on a crowded street with music over your ears and the street is quite busy with shopkeepers and people who are bargaining for groceries. Amidst such chaos , you seem to be lost somewhere, somewhere that is clearly not the present. The reason being you remember something, something that is funny and you let out a chuckle , your otherwise serious boring face acquires a smile , an honest one which doesn’t care about whether it is photogenic or not. The people who are walking opposite to you see the sudden transition in the face and thinks you are a weirdo, the biker who had just honked in front of you let out an unapologetic curse word. You walk away from the trouble and move away to the reality of present with much more optimism and a secret chant to yourself “Life is Good”.
Forgetting someone is a difficult thing. Even when you think that you had sort of got over someone, there are these push buttons waiting to be activated in our brain which sends in waves of memories related to that person (whom we shall call as ‘Y’ going forward). The trigger occurs when we visit some particular place or do an activity that is usually associated with ‘Y’. Sometimes it gets triggered for no particular reason also . Anyhow , it is not a good feeling when the trigger hits and you are back again to square one thinking about ‘Y’ when you clearly know you should have totally forgot that person by now. I thought about this for quite a bit of time today, maybe I owe the alcohol in my blood stream some credit for coming up with this thought all together. In this vague thought of mine, I imagine my silly little brain as something similar to an Operating System (OS) which i have fine grain control on. We have just identified a means to over ride the OS which mostly does shit that makes no sense and is full of erratic behaviors. Thanks to the most advanced brain programming technology, we now can send patches that will over ride the default behaviors and settings.
“What is your opinion on dowry ?” , she asked me while laying on the terrace with me looking at the starry night
“Stupid Question Neha. C’mon don’t spoil the night " , my eyes focussed on the luminous full moon at this time.
She turned her head sideways so that she could see my face, My cold and dull response hasn’t gone so well with her.
“Okay Rahul, another Question then. Hopefully you will like this one”
So this is a story that I wrote while in college. I had this idea in my head of creating a short film of sorts and the story kind of became a bit like a screenplay. Anyways this got published in the college magazine and my dear editor/ director friend Anuraj did promise me that he will convert this story to a short film one day. I am still waiting for that day :-D