The Void.

He walks on the footpath.Drizzling rains had slowly started to fill up the potholes on the road.He suddenly turned left and entered an alley.Strange smells filled his nostrils ,rotting fruits,mango carps,cigarette butts,pan masala wrappers were choking the drains...'and now the bastards will blame the BMC',he thinks.....The walls were slowly started to get covered in moss.The movie posters looked strangely funny,and some people had torn them in a particular fashion to make them look sleazy.Some boys from the window of the government school stared at them with open mouths,and made some silly comments.....the alley was narrow and so was the world of its inhabitants....He knows this very well.,as he smiles to himself.....
Water dripping from the cement roofs ten feet above him irritates him,and he tries his best to avoid it,pushing his leg in the sludge below.......'Dosen't monsoon make everything gloomy??'...he thinks....A dog passes by hastily ....its fur is matted and there is a strange hairless spot just on his back....'that's how they mark the vaccinated dogs??' he remembers....It slowly moves to the side picks his leg up and takes a leak.....which happens to be on the head of a tattered drunkard...."man,monsoon makes them look filthier.....'he thinks....
The open electric boxes on poles shows a thousand jumbled wires which are soaked in water....children in their torn clothes play cricket with a semi rotten plank......using the pole as the middle stump.....somewhere in the jumble of wires stealing power through the mains...lies the familiar old board displaying the skull and two bones...."beware 22,000 volts,high voltage"......
He walks on.....somewhere ten feet above lies a bright banner.....some strange looking people in white are flashing their teeth....and a huge bow and arrow is displayed against a huge orange backdrop...beside which stands a thin and lean man with aviator sunglasses and a hand raised in total authority....he shrugs...a chai stall seems to be buzzing with activity....an appetizing smell of fried vadas and bhajias seduces him ......and the steam from the black aluminum kettle coats his spectacles in haziness......he wipes them but keeps going on ........
The alley comes to an end....and he suddenly enters the busy street.....the world around him suddenly bloats to unimaginable proportions.......buildings grow taller and loom from the gray sky the footpath is neatly metaled...the cars are swanky and water sprays from the smoother roads.....the multiplex around the corner shows the posters of the latest Hollywood flicks ....children move in disciplined files to their multi storied school without as much a glance to the multiplex......a beautifully lit hotel just receives its new guests.....and another attendant carries a clearly drunk person to his car.......the glass buildings become transparent in the setting sun......execs go on typing vigorously on their computers....he stands there and finally a thing dawns on him as clear as crystal..........
PS-India stands on four pillars;bollywood,politics,oily food and of course cricket.
Moral Of the Story-This may not be subtle at all,but nothing in life is subtle and in fact nothing should be especially when the truth stares blatantly in your face.......and if you think its subtle then ,I call it pure blindness......

Strange Observations.

Have you ever noticed the strange things that are printed behind long books that we people generally use,well,petty as it may seem I have had the strange habit of following the strange facts and sayings that are printed there.......and not just that I have made an extensive study of this stuff........
When I was in class four,I started noticing the printed stuff behind books ,at that time I guess in 1999 and 2000,these book makers started the "millenium" editions and the hundred year calendars were suddenly famous,we kids had a lot of fun just to see on what weekday would we have our birthday in 2078 and similar things......
In class five-six,the trend started to change,the books started to carry the"strange facts" or "did you know?" sections where strangest of facts could be found,for e.g leech has 32 brains,man can float in the dead sea for a year before dying of dehydration and stranger facts..........some boring ones talked of sports like the fastest swimmer on earth or the first person to cross the english channel......others sang of the animal kingdom like a crocodile can regenerate its teeth throughout life or earthworms are blind.........while some chose urban legends...like the no. of TV sets brought in US every yesr or the biggest french fry ever made.........the list is endless......
Then in class seven-eight,came the "environmental"period....book covers carried badly photoshoped images of far off fantasy lands and unimaginable greenery ....the "ecobuddy" concept was born....."take pride you saved a tree today" was printed on the last page and the forementioned crapola was replaced by procceses through which sugarcane product bagesse was used to make paper and how we make the right choice by buying that book,convinently forgetting the inclusion of sugarcane in the plant kingdom and making a chutya out of those who believed that crap.......
Years rolled on the trend was set by the bollywood flick Dhoom....the book covers were adorned with sleek n mean bikes and subsequently cars,,,,some even showed modern state of the art buildings....and a parallel trend generated too....that of bollywood celebrities on book covers......while the writings changed too....info about supercars and superbikes was given along with its engine design..for eg.engine eight cylindered dual layered.1234 rpm,four way hadre axle.........like a student understands all that crap....and with a set of twelve books you got a poster free.........
So far so good....my trendspotting didn't end there.....some random trends are still in...for eg.....nobrl lauretes ,etc..................
But one thing stays the small label behind the book giving the printer's name and the no. of pages..........