Arugudi

Both of us sat staring at the opposite walls of the hallway avoiding eye contact at any cost. The walls, painted a dull grey, mirrored the atmosphere of the dim lit hospital. The darker hue on the bottom half of the wall shone brighter at one spot due to a flikkering light near the door with a red OPD sticker. My eyes scanned the far end of the long hallway for any sign of the Orthopaedician we were waiting for. The nurse in the X-Ray room had casually mentioned that he would walk in precisely at seven every evening and the big round clock near the pharmacy showed two minutes to seven. Pushing aside all the chaotic voices from my mind, I decided to talk to my dad sitting on the black iron chair opposite to me, staring intently at the newspaper stand as if he was using all his unavailable psychic powers to read the magazines from twenty feet away. "Pops... How do we handle this one?" I asked with a straight face. Of all the escape techniques my dad so poorly employs, he chose ...

Walking down this old dusty road had never been so difficult for Jagath. It wasn’t an unfamiliar or unchartered path nor was laden with thick thorny bushes or weeds that prevented the free movement of people. It was a decent eight feet wide mud road with small pebbles spread all around. It was the same road that he used to take for school as a kid. The school bus would wait for him at the junction, a few hundred metres from the big banyan tree, in the morning everyday. The driver, a dark bearded youngster with a RayBan glass always skillfully balanced on his forehead, aimed his red paan spittle like a dart, to hit the milestone showing the distance between their village and the capital city of Mumbai. Though he would notice Jagath rushing towards the bus with his uncombed hair swaying with every movement and shoelace begging to be tied, he would repeated employ the services of his sound horn that was unique to his vehicle. A sound that proved what a big Rajnikant fan he was. Every time...

'Twang' came a sound from the midst of the pile of things, stuffed into the backseat of my Honda Amaze, as the car hit a pothole while shifting my house from 10th cross, Wilson Garden, Bangalore to 10th cross, RT nagar, Bangalore. It's only then that I consciously noticed its presence. This Framus guitar had been my guest for over ten years now.  Having grown up spending most of my time on the sports field, it was no surprise that I did not even know to tune, let alone play the twenty thousand worth musical instrument that had majestically garnered dust in my living room for so many years. But, I was proud of it. It kindled several memories whenever it made its presence felt. On a dry sunny afternoon, sometime in the mid 2000's, after a couple of Patiala Lassis and a hearty lunch of Amritsari style roti and butter chicken with three of my friends, did I decide to try my hand at music.  Growing up in India during the 90s was an unusual feeling of being stuck between the ...