What's That You Were Saying?

Hello? Hello? Hello? Is there anybody out there?
Just nod if you can hear me...
Is there anyone home?


But apparently nobody is. Every once in a while I come online, and I'm an optimistic soul. So I think positively, and look forward to hearing from friends from across boundaries. I go after link after link, jumping from one to the other, surfing the waves of the golden internet coastline (bad bad pun), looking for anecdotes, for jokes, for serious issues, for anything. Oh just for life.


And what have I here? Life in my corner of the blogosphere, I find over the course of my extensive perambulations, has been obstructed more or less permanently by a hideous, huge monster of a writer's block. Victims lie here, here and here and here, bravely fallen heroes who no doubt fought off the madness for as long as they could. Or just laid down their pots and pans and went scurrying down south like the Dravidians. The Aryans are coming! The Aryans are coming! Aaaaaaaahhh!


Which brings to the fore a most important question. Writer's block? Writer's block?! What in the world...? Perhaps we have been smoking up, for certainly we seem to be having an overly large-sized image of oneself, dont we? Its not something we should indulge like this. The overly large-sized image I mean. Better that be left to the professionals. Such as myself? Yes, yes. Thats better. I ask not too much of you. I ask not that you compose great lyrical ballads. I ask not that you regularly enrich the world of literature with poetry that could be simultaneously likened to oh the sweet savor of honey and the bitter tang of poorly made nimbu ka achar. I ask not that you give me great and inspiring tales of heroism, of how your friend's friend once battled a lion in a camping trip and how your aunt felled a tiger with a single stroke of her Hatori Hanzo. I dont want a tale of courage in the face of adversity, or cool wit in the face of teachers in class. I dont want your first chapter of your War & Peace.


You might say, or ask, who I am to ask. You are free as a bird, and you may do whatever you wish, or nothing at all, and be a bum. Point. I'm just the guy who constantly wanders from address to address every day, looking for something to relate to, and something deep to ponder over. Looking for a tale about a bus ride, a story about a poor beggar girl, the overheard snippets of conversational banter at an adjoining table over lunch, and anything else at all that once piqued you. My lure is not the incredible writing talent you put on display post after post. It's the chance to glimpse into another life, and know more than I ever could otherwise, with the benefit of saying a word or two about it every now and then, if only I offered a peek into mine as well. Its a fair offer.


So I ask of you that you think. Or rather, that you not think so much. Put fingers to keyboard, and that itself is quite a soothing experience for those of us who have laptops what with the soft, sunken keys and everything, and let the words pour. Tell me. Tell everyone. Tell us about your lunch today. Or how you tripped over three consecutive rocks in your haste to get to college and subsequently became so conscious that you collided with a beefy guy coming the other way. Tell us about a cat you saw on a window-sill. Or a peculiarly shaped cloud while walking back home. Tell us if you love kaju ki barfi. Tell us why you roam in malls all day, despite it being the silliest thing an even slightly self-respecting person could do. Tell us how you dont eat pork, because pigs are filthy animals and you dont eat filthy animals. Tell us about a sport you played once, for just a day, and you shone at it with the brilliance of a thousand suns.


As for me...


I once scored a mighty innings of 23 runs (not out) in the garage of a friend's house, my palm my bat Excalibur, and a red rubber ball stinging it with every masterful stroke I hit to the corners of my dark, dingy packed stadium for that day. I was a force they couldnt reckon with. Single-handedly (quite literally) I closed in on the opposing team's mammoth score (41), and reached the golden 20 run mark with an absolute marvel of a forward drive. You, who are not intimately acquainted with the ins and outs of hand-cricket, cannot really appreciate the problems faced in forward-driving. So just take my word for it when I say I was spectacular. I was good. Very. I was a master. I was, I might say, spectacular. You agree? Yes yes, I know its just about apt isnt it? After I hit the winning runs, the team lifted me on their shoulders and carried me back to the pavilion with rousing cheers and glad hurrahs. The losing team, dejected and embittered, enquired wailingly of God what sin they had committed that He pitched them against me in an obviously one-sided match. They still have my name on a wooden plaque, gravely engraved with my career stats beside it. (In a reign spanning 47 test-matches and 79 one hour internationals, I scored close to 3000 runs, at an average of 17.15. Top score 27*. ) It lies somewhere beneath the tools cabinet, among the amateur canvasses painted in enthusiastic pre-teen years, covered in dust and grime and spider-webs. It records only a few random numbers to the casual eye, frivolous and meaningless in a world comprised of meaningful and weighty terms such as Osama bin Laden, inflation, rising oil prices and global warming. But it holds infinite moments of individual glory (mine) and bitter examples of defeats (theirs). Its a record of achievement, a record of growing up and learning the valuable lessons of life, a record of how I so bloody rule. There amidst cans of lubricating oil and ragged clothes for cleaning and beside the old and rusted Fiat, by solemn hand-cricket law, it lies.


And that, so to speak, is that.