A million fought,
Two survived,
Then they sparred,
One died,
Left alone,
He committed suicide..

D

Twas a moonless night.... the rain too was relentless...

Chi hadnt passed any other car for over an hour.

She swam into view... a mosaic of green and red.

A woman covered in blood lay on the road. Her shawl , green when she bought it had been ripped to shreds. The car, an ancient 800 screeched to a stop, a haunting melody of Morrison emanating out of the radio adding to the melancholy.

One look at the travelbag lying beside her told Chi a lot, Classic Vuitton... she had come from money, the fact that it was still there meant that this was an accident.

Her car, what remained of it confirmed his conjecture. A spanking new Mercedes with its front end plowed into an old oak.

She had lost a lot of blood, immediate medical help was needed.

The lady as if on cue opened her eyes and mouthed a silent plea for help... seemed like the lord had heard her prayer.. an angel had arrived.

Chi bent beside her and helped her sit up. He unstrapped her pendant, pulled off her bracelet, grabbed the travel bag and jogged back to his car.

There she lay, all alone.. the silence broken only by the sob of a dying woman and the pitter patter of rain..


D

35 years had passed...
No one knew him.
No one cared.

With 6 billion sapiens scurrying about, the precious gift called life had become commonplace
He never chose to be born, he was pushed into it.

Chi walked back to the little alcove he called home. He ekked out an existence, trying to feed his wife and children, rarely succeeding.
The grand machinations of Beelzebub or god seemed to have no role for him to play.

Twas Christmas eve, the church looked beautiful...the daily toil left him with little to celebrate.
His family was waiting, today was salary day. A full stomach was guaranteed.
He entered nevertheless.
The dreary aura around him melted away. The choir was in full swing. He sensed joy all around.

Curiously enough, a sense of hope and belonging pervaded his soul. Life wasnt comfortable but it wasnt unjust either. Maybe there was a higher power looking out for them. Things would eventually turn for the better.

Renewed with a sense of purpose and belief he started back home.

Another 20 years passed....
Nothing changed.

Existence without essence.


D

First and foremost, I need someone to help explain the term 'analytics' to countless aunties and uncles!



Chi knew he was a marked man.
No one swindled Mr. Black... that was the first rule of this business.
Being 22 does funny things to you, an aura of omnipotence seems to pervade the very core of your being. Its only when you reach 30 do you realise the enormity of this dillusion.

Chi walked in, the usual swagger in place. Three pegs of grey goose and he couldnt remember his address. Two pegs later he couldnt remember his name.

Two men dressed in black suits were watching all this from the counter. The unusual protrusion around their shoulders confirmed their antecedents... Black's men.

Chi was all but dead and he didnt even know it.

This is probaby a good time for an intervention aka Deus Ex Machina... Never happened though..


They walked up to Chi, put two bullets through his chest.. compliments of Mr. Black.


D

He called her a billion times.
She never picked up.

He wrote her a million letters.
She burnt them all.

He sent her a thousand bouquets.
They withered away unnoticed.

He sang a hundred songs.. all with her in mind.
She bought earplugs.

He proposed a dozen times.
She set the dogs on him.

He smiled at another girl... just once
She brought hell on Earth..


Makes you wonder.


D

Chi was an honest cop.. the last of his kind.
Probably stemmed from his beliefs in heaven, and that god would do no wrong to those who had done no wrong.

He joined the force when he was 22, a young lad with strong ideals. However, his acute lack of people skills left him with little chance of climbing the ladder. Twenty years had passed and he was still a patrolman handing out speeding tickets.

One stormy October night roundabout 11pm, a couple of minutes before his shift ended a car sped past him with its headlights out. The speed gun display read 80 km/hr. Probably another bunch of dumb kids...

Chi started up his car, switched on the siren and sped after them. He caught up with the vehicle, a 1990 Civic a couple of miles down the road. He was wrong about the occupants, turned out to be an old lady and her poodle.
The canine, the last vestiges of life ebbing from him seemed to have suffered a paralysis attack. The woman, desperately trying to save the life of her last friend in the living world had set out to find a vetenarian in her almost defunct automobile.

Although rules stipulated so, Chi didnt have the heart to impound the vehicle. The old lady seemed inconsolable and denying her one last chance to save her dog would be cruel. He let her go after she promised to have the lights fixed after the dog had been attended to. He even gave her the number of his neighbour, a skilled vetenarian as his place was nearby.

At the end of another long shift Chi parked the patrolcar at headquaters and started back for home. The jarring ring of his cell phone cut through the silence around him. Twas his wife... sobbing. Their 14 year old daughter had been run over while crossing the road.. she never saw the speeding Civic with the broken headlights..

D

The ripper had struck again.
The newest victim was a five year old diabetic girl. A Blood stained blazer along with her ID card were found in the service lane behind the school. The toll had reached twenty.

The bodies of the victims were never found... the cops were clueless and the city was a state of panic.

Ria lived with her mother in an apartment on the 4th storey of Sunset Heights. Her father, a successful stockbroker had abandoned them when she was 18 never to be seen again. Rumour has it that he fled to South Africa fearing a possible indictment under the Harshad Mehta scam. However, he left his bank accounts and property untouched. Enough for a comfortable life in the material sense.

The grandfather clock in the living room struck 8. Time for dinner. Being a school teacher instilled within Ria a strong sense of discipline with regards to time. Never the one to arrive late.

The aroma was luverly. Twas biryani. In the eyes of Ria her mother, a sweet gentle soul touching 60 was probably the greatest cook in the world.

The sybarite within her took over and she attacked the food with glee. Halfway through her meal she bit into something mettallic. It was a dogtag with the words 'Tamanna, Type I diabetic' neatly printed upon it....

" Maa, you havent cleaned up the body properly! I told you, always take any ornaments off before you put it out to cook. "



D

She had been running... running for 35 years now.
Not from life, not from lies, not from lestat but from love.

The little grasshopper was tired.

The pinnacle of physics had been achieved, her academic orbit was at its apogee. Life was good.

The little coffee house across the road beckoned, a place where she had first met "him".
Twas chance, they were forced to share a table for the want of space. It felt right... he felt right... two hours passed by in a blink of an eye. He gave her his number, she promised shed call. That was 10 years ago. She was too scared and the scrap was soon lost to the ravages of time.

She entered letting the inviting aroma of arabica guide her. As her eyes soon grew accustomed to the dimly lit room her gaze wandered. There he stood...

This story couldve had a happy ending, all she had to do was call out to him.

She couldnt, and he left soon after. The little grasshopper was all alone....


D

Life had been a bitch to him. But he had made it.

There stood Chi.

Born to the mistress of a small zamindar with big aspirations, Chi was abandoned at the age of two. The father in an effort to cover up his past indiscretions had Chi's mum extirpated and him packed off to the nearest orphanage. 15 years of abuse would have wiped out the bravest of souls... Chi survived.. Infact Id daresay he thrived... Twas the magic of hope...
Chi nursed the dream of a better place, parsecs away from the hell he was living in. He worked towards it. The day belonged to the owner of the tea stall, but the night was devoted to the pursuit of knowledge. He laboured day in and day out to ekk out a living and support his little endavour. He was 9 when an accident at the stall cost him his right hand... so he learnt how to write with his left.
15 years of hard work finally paid off. A sterling result in the field of academics got him a full scholarship with a prestigious university. The last day of his first life melted into the first day of his last.
He waited at the station. The train approached slowly, lade with the dreams and aspirations of a boy who never gave up. He rushed towards it, never noticing the vendor approaching from the other direction. The impact threw him off the platform onto the rails...
He died.

D

She knew she needed him.
It was the height of the 95 construction boom in Seattle. Mounds of glass and steel attempting to outdo the gods coming up all around.
The alarm went off at 7:30am. Time to go to work. She tiptoed across the faux wood floor and stood under the shower.. it felt like a thousand needles.. the cold water always reminded her of him.
Amy first laid eyes upon him at the newly constructed penthouse of a prodigous associate. A professional...
Subtlety is an art lost upon many. Amy, however, was a loyal patron. A couple of discrete inquiries was all it took to get his number. She knew what to do.
Like the time before this and the time before that, it took a single phonecall. He was hers. 8:30pm, her flat....

He arrived on time, a rare quality in this capricious world. No pleasantries were exchanged and he went straight to it... Amy smiled to herself.. the anticipation of what was to follow built up.. it had been a while..
He finally emerged from the bathroom.. " The heating duct has been fixed, you should get hot water from the shower now.."
Finally...

D

Still cant Shes Electric outta my head...

Second week, fourth semester, six subjects, frigid weather, a bad ankle(Overenthusiastic sliding tackle), just back from ranikhet.. might head off to jaisalmer soon, Just been given a huge cache of bitter chocolates etc.

A socio professor asked us a question recently.. Why do we have children?

My reply: Its the means not the end! (Not appreciated from an academic viewpoint)

He attributed it to a complex confluence of variegated factors both endogenous as well as exogenous to the couple. (Why o why did I take up economics!? This is SO MUCH MORE FUN!!)
He went further on to blame us economists.. We reduce everything to its percieved marginal return(INHUMAN!)

P.S. Can any regression equation used to determine number of offspring suffer from homoscedasticity(Pun intended) ;)

Oasis playing in the background... She's Electric..

Interesting development... one of my bestest friends fell for another bestest friend...

Advantages:
I'll have one lesser wedding to attend
Will get away with one wedding present
My position gets elevated cause im the only impartial judge around
I can rip on two friends simultaneously
Wont have to adjust to obnoxious girl/boyfriends who couldve popped up in the future
I asked one of her female friends out so I guess the score's level now.

Disadvantages:
Who do I hang out with when they wanna get romantic?
If i piss one off the other one's sore too.
I'll always have to knock before entering his hostel room now.
He'll probably have her listening to megadeth before 2007 ends.


D


P.S. Im really happy for them!!