Darkness....

He is on his daily late-night walk. Alone. He likes it this way. Suddenly, all the street lights around him go out. It is one of those rare power failures. The whole world around him is engulfed in...

Darkness...

Absolute darkness.

So serene, so comforting. A surreal feeling of nothingness. It consumes everything, uniting all in a dark black globe.

Darkness doesn't distinguish between anything or anyone as does the light.

To him, Darkness is the apostle of calmness. Darkness is soothing to the eye.

In the realm of darkness, there is no right or wrong, no truth or lie.

Darkness symbolises impartiality. It symbolises God...

(Hits a street light while typing all this on his mobile phone and walking in the darkness simultaniously. Angry. Irritated. Very irritated.)

But darkness is ignorance. It conceals information, it hides facts.

Darkness is stagnant. It quells change. It is constant. Forever stationary.

Darkness is ominous and ever-present. It is ubiquitous.

(Electricity is back. The world lights up. A feeling of happiness, combined with a sense of loss engulfs him).

Light signifies knowledge. It is invigorating. It encourages innovation.

Light ushers in change.

Light tears through the darkness as if challenging its supremacy.

Light brings in enlightenment. Light is a beacon of the Gods for one and all...

(Impartiality instinct kicks in)

Darkness dims the brightness that light brings to the universe, bringing a sense of order; as if controlling an organised mob of photons from working up a riot. It promotes rationality. It urges for patience.

Each is opposite of the other like fire and ice. Neither is or does signify good or evil. Both come together, weakening each other’s influence, to form a Grey universe. All are grey. None is absolute.

So what is the point of all this?

Precisely.

There is no point whatsoever.

It is up to your discretion. Your imagination. Your sub-conscious. Your own Grey world.

How the Lizards made an enemy out of me...

I have not always detested lizards. There was a time when we were ... friends. The hostility that I harbor towards them today is a natural instinct that was born out of a certain untoward incident in my childhood.

Before that day, everything was "hunky-dory" between us, as to say. We were in a state of peaceful co-existence. I even used to include them in my paintings on occasion during my drawing classes. Sometimes we would even enjoy meals together, myself enjoying "Chhole Puri", while they gorged on all the delicious mosquitoes and other insects. There was just one unspoken rule. We never used to enter the other's territory; that is, I would never crawl on the walls, and they would never crawl on my bed. Very simple and straight forward.

I was all of 8 years old on that fateful night. Like the good boy I have always been, I finished my homework at 9 PM and prepared to go to sleep (those were the days when Ekta Kapur had not hijacked the "after-dinner prime time television", people slept early, and woke up early). I put my notebooks in my schoolbag, and put my pencils in my "Arabian Nights" pencil box (which by the way I own and use to this day). I switched off the tube light, and went to bed to sleep.

It must have been 15-20 minutes since sleep engulfed me, when I noticed something on my bed, below my pillow. Still very much in my sleep, I took it in my hand and felt it. It seemed like a rubber (eraser). "Oh, I must have forgotten it on the bed when I was packing my bag", thought I. So, I rose up from the bed, and promptly switched on the light to put the rubber back into the bag. As the tube light flickered before finally getting steady, I realised, to my horror, what was in my hand was no innocent and inanimate rubber, it was in fact, a big slimy lizard. Just as realisation struck me, the lizard promptly leapt from my hand on to the bed, and started roaming on it from one edge to the other, as if trying to make a point, that the lizards now owned the whole place. That I had become a refugee in my own territory. I was both furious and afraid at the same time. It is difficult to put that feeling into words. I called my mother, and together we encaged the over-ambitious lizard, in an empty bucket. I wanted to kill the little guy for its audacity, but my mother pacified me, and we finally eased it outside our home.

That night, I had a troubled sleep. My territory was under siege by a species more than 10 times smaller than me. Over the next few weeks, the Elder lizards came again and again to apologise for the unruly actions of that rebellious lizard; they reminded me of the peaceful relationship, and the camaraderie our empires once enjoyed, but I wouldn't be talked into resumption of peace in any way. Finally they gave up.

And thus, till this day, we have been in a state of cold war. I have experimented throughout the period of my school days, the impact of various materials (such as cold water, compressed air) for loading into weapons against lizards and certain sonic and/or visual arrangements that tend to scare them away. They on their part have encroached on my turf on countless occasions and continue to do so to this day.

Since my childhood, I have turned into an infinitely mature, patient and peaceful person, but put a lizard in front of me and the dormant violent streak comes to the fore...

Note: This post is a pat of the continuing "The Incidental Criminal" Series.

Why they fear the Lokpal ???

When the teacher asks the eternally troublesome kid in the class to solve a tricky math problem to put him in his place and restore order, the way the kid goes about the assigned task is very interesting; guessing something here, writing something there and gauging the teacher's face and those of his classmates every now and then, looking for some hint, some leakage of emotion to ascertain if the guess was satisfactory and decide the future course of action. He may, in the process utter vague and meaningless words hoping to confuse his audience but everyone including the kid knows that he is just trying to delay the inevitable, perhaps hoping for the school bell to ring a bit early, and rescue him from the difficult predicament he got himself into.

It of course becomes difficult for the boy concerned when the teacher is as strict and adamant as the infallible Anna Hazare, who has made a hapless kid out of the whole Indian government. It is almost comedic to see this government's functioning in face of the mass agitation that this septuagenarian has whipped up.

Absolute chaos and uncertainty had become the rule for the present government for the past few months as it dodged and ducked sustained attack in the parliament, the media and the courts, but quite expectedly it has encountered a tremendous roadblock in the form of Anna Hazare and his Band of Merry Men.

So why do they fear the Lokpal?

For one, the Lokpal with the limitless power at his disposal combined with the popularity and support of the urbane and the educated as well as the almighty media may become the most influential man in the country; in certain aspects more powerful than the Prime Minister himself. A man who has the authority to pull up the prime minister, his cabinet, the Chief justice of the Supreme Court cannot be taken lightly. As he goes about his task of cleansing the system, he may be rewarded with even more powers and authority by the amenable civil society. Overtime, as the hero of the civil society hauls out deep-buried carcasses of corruption, the public may start warming up to the idea of having him as the Chief Executive of the country. When that happens, where will these thousands of Oldies (read politicians) go with no other acquired skill or source of income?

So, our ministers, having guessed what might be in store for them in the future, are scampering around on the stage, hoping for some divine intervention to strike this organised movement and divert the public's attention from their filthy hands.