Song of Sparrows

After many years, the sparrows have returned.

Every morning, all morning, a sparrow tries to enter my room. She keeps pecking against the window pane. When I open the window, however, she flies away in fear. Crows and ravens have always proved to be friendlier creatures. Sparrows are fragile little things.

After many years, the sparrows have returned, and my home is once more textured in their muted songs.

Auld

There are certain things that will evoke the taste of loss in you, many years from now. Like that of the cheap sugarcandy that you never bought from the local grocer. Stuff that you can't get now, because they have been phased out, too old, too simple to be profited from. Stuff that reminds one of slow afternoons of trams crawling the streets, of the toy seller hawking his wares. But it will be too late, like it is now. The taste of loss is that of cheap sugarcandy and of orangesticks at the zoo and of an unregistered morning during the summer holidays when the flowers still outnumbered the houses on the street.

Capital

It's too late for a year End post for 2010.

However, now I'm in Delhi and will be here for some time.

Paper Fish

I've never had an aquarium in my life.

Recently I bought a pair of shoes which cost me Rs.2200/-. Made of black leather, they're really comfortable to wear to work on the odd day that I do feel like wearing formals, as opposed to a T-shirt and a pair of jeans.

Back in my school days, a pair of Bata Naughty Boy cost almost ten times less. They came in boxes made of rough, yellowing cardboard, covered in yellow paper. The box, approximately rectangular parallelepiped, was a big draw, for me. It had the smell of a new book.

I would take the box, and line one of the sides with glue and sand and weed clippings. I would then draw aquatic scenery in the background. Finally, I would cut out a side to leave just a frame, and cover the top of the box with hard cellophane. Then I made paper fish -origami or cutout- and threaded them to the cut side of the box with matchsticks tied to the other ends of the strings. Carefully, I would put the cut side back on the frame, and would cellotape it together. Once I flipped the box to the side, the cellophaned top now facing front, and the sandlined side on the ground, it looked just like an aquarium. I would keep it and fuss with it just as if the fish were real. The fish mostly moved up and down with help of the matchsticks, but later I fashioned out fixed tracks along which I could move the little animals. I cannot say I miss my paper fish, but I do miss the ease at which happiness could be found in cardboard boxes.

I've never had an aquarium in my life; but for several years, that never stopped a few paper fish from coming to life on damp Calcutta afternoons.

Paintball

is good fun, all things considered. Today's score stands at 3 kills, including a headshot. I got shot in the neck at some point, after I ran out of ammunition (limited to 19 capsules). I was playing left flank, attack. Ah, violence. Makes me happy. Capture The Flag, it was.

On a completely unrelated note, you know how there are some people who insist on sticking to outdated, long drawn methods of preparing food? I happen to be one of them.

Last night we had chicken cooked in beetroot, made by my friend's mother. It was very good.

Okay, I am writing this mainly because I feel compelled to write something. Excuse the general flatness of the text.

Few things can beat eating and shooting things. Especially at the same time.

Also, today I have been compared to Barney Stinson. Twice. On separate occasions. By different and unrelated people. That, I consider to be a Good Thing.

Clam

Today I held a fossilized seashell in my hands which is estimated to be 45000 years old. I must admit, it is easy trick one's mind into a soup just by imagining the course of time over what is essentially the dead body of a bivalvate mollusc. It gathers dust in a quiet, but not forgotten, showcase in a quaint little house in Bangalore.

Just as the house nests seasecrets in several shells and fossils, the house also nests a little fragment of Calcutta inside its walls, spread across the wooden decor, the wall hangings, the paintings, the oddly placed television, the dining table and of course, A Most Curious Showcase With Wooden Side-panels, which, in turn, holds in it curious items on display that would hardly interest eyes which are not trained in picking up the delicate details of life and death.

And yes, there was a cane swing chair with the works, including the slightly depleted cushions, the frayed jute ropes, and the feel of a very old, preserved childhood afternoon that one might have spent on a sunny verandah.

If I could, I would hitchhike the galaxy tonight, yet no spaceship seems to notice.

Romance

Ah, scrabble, how I love thee.