A busy lizard’s night thoughts

Before, it used to be half past one. Dead of the night as other humans liked to call it. But not my humans. They are so lively at 1. It is endearing to watch them make unfunny jokes and laugh at it till tears rolled out. But after a point, it gets on your nerves. Sure, I need my nightly entertainment. And the boy and the girl give it for free. But I also need time for my own activities, viz., thudding along the window panes, making musical sounds, dancing on the dark walls and jumping from one human property to another with my mates. A very busy time I have in the night.

Only, to do any of this, the humans should switch off their beastly lights and go to sleep. Unlike them, I don’t prefer having an audience for my performances. I need perfect calm around me. The only chaos that occurs will be what I create. That’s the rule. That’s the only rule. But do the humans pay any heed to it? No. They put off their bedtime further and further away, and I have to wait, tapping my tail on idiot spiders’ web. Oh yeah, this house is full of them. I suspected if the boy and the girl were raising them. You hear about pet parents on the radio – or whatever the medium they use today. I am only a year old and already in the prime of my life; so the radio should be ancient to me.

But we live by history passed on from generation to generation. And some time in the mid 1900s a lazy ancestor stopped taking notes. We stopped finding out what’s new with the world. I do hear dull-sounding words like internet and smartphones (even with smart in it, that’s one dumb coinage). But they don’t interest me. I’d rather the humans bought a radio, if those things still exist.

But these two do carry with them some oldfashioned habits more to my taste, like reading books. From books. Not those unsmart phones. I told you my humans were a precious lot. Only thing I disapprove is their late hours. Because it makes the important being here –ME – wait. And I don’t like waiting. I figure I told you that before. But that’s how much it affects me.

And now the girl has taken to keeping awake for long, long minutes after lights off. The boy’s no trouble, drifts off easily and makes funny sounds. I do like funny sounds in the background. But the girl’s turning this side and that for hour after hour (my indignation allows for minor exaggerations) and what’s more, she’s taken to watching me!

That’s right. She’d suddenly open her eyes at 3 in the night and look at me, amused. As if my acrobatics are anything to laugh at. But these two make and laugh at the poorest of jokes. So laughing for them must be like breathing for the others – totally involuntary. Now I have to wait for the lights to go off and for this insomniac to go to sleep. I’ve actually taken to chirping lullabies for her without making it too obvious. I don’t suddenly want the radio people to poke their mics at me and ask me how I feel about being a singing lizard. I hear media today don’t need your answers. They poke the mics and supply your answers too. Very kind of them, I think, doing your work for you. I wonder why my humans don’t like them.

Just as I finish this thought, I find the girl has finally gone to sleep. I can say when she really sleeps and is not awake with a thousand thoughts popping in and out of her head. It suddenly becomes very peaceful – her face and mine. Well, for different reasons. For her, it really must be peace, and for me… freedom. But at times that she’s awake, I do like that she looks at my eyes and talks to me when there’s no one else around. She must fear the radio people so. It’s nice to have these conversations. Though I am pretty sure she doesn’t listen to a word I chirp. And I do not like it that she’s now taken to calling me Lizzie. Not only is it very unoriginal (duh, a lizard called Lizzie) but it sounds like I am my five year old grandma, who is dead!

Oh would you look at the time! Right, I gotta go now. My playmate’s come. From the other room. We neighbours are very chatty in the night, another quality my humans lack. I think with the radio, the neighbours too went away from this world. People have strangers living next to them, not neighbours.

Oh, didn’t I say I was going? Hard to stop a busy mind like mine at 3 in the night. Must be the same for my sleepless girl.

A Stalker’s Tale

(Wrote for Manu’s Rum Road Ravings)

You know what’s the most annoying proverb ever? It’s when people come and tell you that once you are a ‘that’ you are always a ‘that’. Just that one day, just that once, I missed that straight road, the one that qualifies you to be in the decent zone. It was as usual a girl, the same reason that leads every true-blooded Malayalee astray. Her fault, all of it – if I had a say in this story somewhere. But where a girl comes, there is no say for a man.

The day had gone as usual till evening, when I stepped out to Nanduvettan’s tea shop outside, which makes me wonder about this whole question of fate. If I had chosen Thomasettan’s thattukada instead, I would never have seen her. But as fate would have it, I stood there pretending not to hear the pleas of the old one-legged man who begged outside Nanduvettan’s everyday from 10 to 5 (he was very punctual about this, I have noticed, skipping all the way to the bus stop for the 5 ‘O’ clock ‘Kaveri’). Fate again played a role I feel, for if I had turned my back to tip the beggar, I wouldn’t have seen her. I didn’t turn. So I saw first the hair, which like in movies, blew back on either side of her violet kurthi, revealing the small violet earings and the violet Angry-birds earphones from her ipod. It all registered in that one flick of a moment. I had no need to try and remember anything. Better than any photo I have taken after moments of fussing and focusing. I didn’t know I was staring. I must have followed my gaze till she reached the end of the lane. There was a moment’s hesitation when I wondered about stepping out of the decent image I had carved painfully for 23 years of life. But I knew then what I had to do. I had to stalk her.

Even from the safe three feet I put behind her, I could sense the perpetual smile on her face. Smiling, I imagined to the songs she heard, to the memories it brought her, and to the occasional visits to the present when the wind blew too loud (or to put it crudely, when the cars screeched). I don’t know if she knew I was behind. She must have. I thought I saw her glance sideways as if she checked for the traffic but wasn’t she wondering about me? That’s the thing about girls. They can never be sure if someone is blindly admiring them. Why are all women so unconfident, so unsure? Of course men are always looking at them, not at the blue skies or the chirpy birds we pretend to avert our gazes to. It’s always you, woman!

She crossed the road twice and like an idiot, I crossed it with her, glancing at my mobile phone as if that would clear all suspicions. It was after two kilometers through the sidewalks of the noisy NH, that I found a spot to stop her and try to talk to her. By then I didn’t want it to be just a woman I saw and admired an evening. I wanted her to play a bigger role. Not a wife, not even a girlfriend maybe. But I just didn’t want to lose her to the vastness of the city, to some unknown lane she’d disappear to forever. It had to last a little longer. Fate played its third card that day when as luck would have it I chose a spot where I should be seen by one prying relative across the road. I wasn’t sure what my opening line should be. Girls like attention I knew, but they’d jump at the first sign of any communication beyond silent glances of love. I didn’t use ‘hi’, too cheesy. I said excuse me. Violet Kurthi stopped. I could ask her the way to some place…no, too fake. I chose honesty. “I have been walking with you for two kilometers”. Her smile didn’t vanish. She was genuine, she liked what I said and didn’t try to hide it. “I saw you back there and then I had to come and tell you how beautiful I thought you are.” Her brows raised, and smiling still, she said, “Okay”.

“I never do this, I hope I am not freaking you out. Do you mind if I walk with you?”

There was a little frown. She must be deciding. I am a total stranger after all. “I am sorry, but I have to go,” she hesitated. “But thanks.” She smiled and walked away. I knew this was the right time to stop and no one will ever know of it. But trashing reason, I walked again. This time I did use hi. She didn’t stop walking, so I walked along. “I really don’t want to disturb you, but think about this. If you see someone interesting, and you want to know them better, what can you do? Real world is not facebook where I could click on your face and find out our mutual friends or the place you work at or study. I could not even send you an FB message and play it safe from a virtual distance. This is the real world and I took the direct step. Is that so bad?” She was listening all this while, her dark brown eyes bouncing like a ball when she looked at my face. She had a few red pimples. Such darling pimples! “Ok you seem like a nice guy but really the world is such I can’t trust my own – hmm let’s avoid clichés. I can’t walk with a stranger, your name?”

“Ramesh”

“I can’t walk with a stranger, Ramesh.”

“I understand… but I can’t just leave you.” I was desperate.

“I could give you my Facebook id. But I am not going to. Like you said, real world is so much more…. real. I walk some days like this, around the same time, and the same roads. If you are around, we will catch up. Ok?”

“Ok…”

“And this time, don’t follow me again. You don’t wanna be called a stalker do you?” she smiled and put her Angry-birds earphones back on.

Well, I tried. I couldn’t dwell too much on my loss for the prying relative had crossed the street and asked me what I was doing. I was thinking the best lie but I knew it’s useless. He had heard all he wanted to, and stayed quietly in the background to jump in at the right time. The villain must have stalked both of us! He knew from my silence I had nothing better to offer. And with his own juicy bits he presented an elaborate story to the family. “My own son, a stalker! All those years of feeding him paal and pazham!” – No, not from my mother, but my serial-watching dad! And for the record, he has never given me a single pazham, even snatched several of mine! Amma did the more worrying role, of refusing to talk about it, giving food and tea but never looking at my face. My sister didn’t bother to hide how she enjoyed all of it. She kept calling one friend after another, to tell about her stalker bro. Where are those days when aniyathimaar looked up to their vellyettans?

It’s been four days now. I never saw her so far. I tried everything, from being not so obvious to being extra kind to the one-legged beggar, buying him tea and murukku everyday. What if she is watching me secretly? At home, it’s the same story. But I have my hopes, I hear my prying relative’s son did badly in his 12^th standard public exams. The family would lose interest when they get a new black sheep. Poor Vinod. The only thing worrying me is mom. Dad would go watch another serial, aniyathi would start bitching Vinod. But mom would continue throwing plates full of food and gloom at me. I came straight to the point. “Havent you ever seen a man somewhere, in a train or a bus, on the way to your college or home and let your eyes linger a little more than needed, wondering what made him laugh, how his voice was like, what he talked to his friends about?” From her expression, I knew she had. “I just spoke my mind Amma.” She nodded. The silence was over.

The next day I waited at Nanduvettan’s without any pretence. I was a man with a purpose, my mind was full of her. My mind was violet. I had nothing else to think of, so why waste time trying? You need hard work to win in anything, and I would win her… I would do all I can. I would…. I would…

The old beggar, now used to my daily alms, was waiting for his tea. The evening August breeze was at work again and it was again blowing hair… red hair. She did not look like a Malayali and nothing like Violet Somebody. This was an angel in green. Red strands fell on her pink pimple-less cheeks every time she turned her tiny head. And what a turn that was! I hesitated for a moment. And then I heard ‘Kaveri’ bus come and the old man not rush, he was still waiting. If he could change… and if once a ‘that’, is always a ‘that’, then…. Well then I had to stalk her. It’s fate.

I am 1 n a half but who says I cant think!

I woke up and cried for Momma. She was nowhere near. I was hungry and I wanted to see her. I crawled through the bed and fell down. I picked myself up. Hey I forgot! I could walk now. I made an attempt to stand in 2 legs, failed first but got it the next time. It seemed like the floor was kind of, well, bouncy – atleast I seemed to bounce when I walked over it.
Aha there she was! My mother. Lots of people around her. I wonder what is going on. This must be that thing she always talks about. It started with p. I cant remember now. Platey? Porty? Its when lots of people come and crowd at a place and say dumb things. I have always found the whole idea stupid. Their life must be so lame! So boring!
Now me! I have got a busy life to waste my time like that!

Hey I need to get Momma’s attention. I guess I should cry. But I am not interested. This was a good chance to do as I please without her behind my back. Wow I could go and get myself all dirty! I could play in the mud! Oh boy! This was going to be a great day!

I ran to the door. Oh oh our maid stood right there giving me that look I hate so much. “Where do you think you are going!”
I gave up. I have tried to win her over many times before. But this one was a toughy! Cute looks, pleading cries, curling-up lips..nothing works with her! She was a rock! I ran back to the bed room. I took a pal and talked to him.
“Gaga gugu bim kung chum”
Mr Teddy, thats my pal, doesnt talk back. He only stares. Maybe he doesnt understand. I cant blame him. I cant understand half the things Momma tells. I raise an eyebrow to let her know I didnt follow. She doesnt seem to understand me either! I am learning her language these days. So far I know to tell her to get me milk and let me play. I add “Momma” at the end. Now thats a killer word. She must really love her name cause she smiles and does as I ask her to as soon as she hears it.

Talking of names, she calls me funny names. I am not sure what my real name is. I prefer Balbi. Sounds like a nice name.
Hmm I am getting bored talking to Mr Teddy. I tried Mr Doggie. Nothing there either. I took another look at Momma. She seems to have forgotten me! At first it was nice, but I dont like it anymore. Its alright to roam about for a while. But now I am missing her. I cant count time but I am sure its been a lot since I saw her. How can she just forget me! This was too sad. I had to cry. I did.
“waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa”

Momma came running. That was more like it.
“Aww my poor baby! When did ya get up now! Awww Momma forgot you? There there dont ya cry now. Shall I get you some milk”
At-a-girl! Way to go girl! Thats my girl! I tried to express my appreciation.
“Momma gau gau gi gi”. I guess she understood that. Cause she seemed happy and kissed me. Hmm she got my face all wet but it was alright. I didnt mind that much. It seemed to cheer the poor girl up. Momma will be back now. I gotta play some prank before that so she wont leave me again! Hmmm…

Girl Vs Green

I have got a yellow ball, a blue bottle, a black coffee mug and a pink bag on my desk. Oh to add on, a blue cell phone and a transparent clock. One thing is for sure. My desk is mighty colorful.
Now I better not try make a story out of these. If I did what would it be? The ball was bored and jumped into the bottle, the bottle fell down and the mobile got wet. The cup took the mobile in and the clock watched it all; the pink bag sighed! Ulp!

Ok no stories. I’ll leave the ball and its gang alone.
What else have we got here for a story. Just saw a plant in here that seems to have been here for some time now. Hey life’d be pretty boring if you were a plant now wouldnt it.
Ok I have got it. I could write about a plant thinking.

So I am a plant. My name is hmm Green. I am a girl plant (:-D)
People think I am sad cause I have nothing to do all day but sit in my red pot and not move. Oh but they dont know I could think. They think I am a dumb thing that photosynthesize and pollinate and does nothing brilliant. Only if I had a couple of legs and a few muscles, I’d show them who is dumb!
I mean the least you’d expect them to do is show some respect to us plants who give them their life-giving oxygen. What if we decide we will stop giving out oxygen. What will these intelligent things do then? I’d like to see that!

Oh dont get the impression I am an angry little plant. The way a girl just looked at me got me frustarted. She jumps around and goes to her seat and types how dull it is to be a plant! How wicked is that! And she was the one who tried to make a story of a yellow ball! Look who is talking about dumbness! And I dont care if there is no such word!

Hey, I have a feeling this is somehow coming back to me! Me the human that is! And not in a pleasing way!
I’d like to wind up here and stop all story-attempts for a while!
So long!

Yeah girl mark your days!
Grrrr-ingly, Ms Green Plant!