Feb 28, 2008

Ode to an umbrella

It shelters you from the searing heat
Protects you from the torrential rain
And when the weather is fine
And its lovely to walk
You push it to some damp dark corner
And forget all about it.

But there will come some day
When you will be out in a storm
And you would reach out for one
To find its no longer there
You had neglected it for far too long
And someone has taken it away.

So, take care of that umbrella.

Did that make any sense?

Feb 20, 2008

Dont fight with friends

It was a typical new year eve morning. And the preparations were on for the night. As usual, the debate was about the break up of the six odd litres of booze that would be required. Meticulous planning, disaster recovery, buffer analysis and accurate estimation techniques are all required in this process. So obviously, there were disagreements. And one such disagreement reached ugly proportions and he stormed out of the house. As a parting shot, he told them all to go to hell and that he would celebrate my new year elsewhere.

There was another party on that he didnt particularly want to go to. He hardly knew anyone there and it was a stuffy high brow crowd. But there was nowhere else to go, and his ego was too big for him to call his friends and tell them that he was coming. So he went.

He suffered alone in that big crowd that night. Everyone else seemed to know each other and he was standing in a corner nursing his drink and cursing his luck. He saw her then in another corner of the room and she seemed to be in the same kind of situation. She was the most beautiful woman he had seen in his life. And she was alone like him in this big bad world. And he fell in love.

Today it was exactly 10 years to the day. And there was no particular reason why his mind went back to that night when he had met his wife for the first time. Except the lawyer's letter lying on the table asking him to meet for a consultation regarding the divorce proceedings. And that his mother was in the nursing home in shock. And that his son had stopped talking since being explained what it meant.

He slit his wrists that night. And while he watched his blood lazily snaking down the water in the bucket he thought of how things could have been different. But mostly, he thought of the friends he had fought with that night.