Teh. Blag. Half a dozen other idiosyncracies that would leave you thinking I needed grammar/spelling training. Those that lurk around webcomic sites would probably smile at the references. An occasional post that made perfect sense would have seemed more like a chance meeting with sanity that dropped the facade by the next post. To those that I left baffled with my spellungs, this should open an eye.
I can sum up most of this with one word(phrase?) - xkcd. The site that I found while searching for answers to a certain shady quiz somewhere has influenced my writing (at least the not-so-serious parts of it) almost as much as Adams. Toting itself as "A webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language", it caught my attention with a particular strip. From then on, we've been hitting it off pretty well (well enough for me to give serious thought to geohashing at Chennai).
That (rather short) piece sums up the reasons for my blag. The Teh part is just the regular internet culture of swapping nearby letters (to imply rushed/lazy typing). So, there. That's about all there is in a name.
On the topic of xkcd, my article about is due. I'll try to stick that in by the end of the month. And if anyone reading this has a car and is in the mood for a geohash, let's meet up ^__^.
Lights of a Festival
He rolled the last one. That would be it for the day. He hated working late before a holiday. He would miss the early hours of the morning when the air was fresh. He looked at his hands. Black. As always. He lifted his fists to his face. The thick smell crawled into his nostrils. Months back, when he still held on to the hope his anna had promised him, he would have found it repulsive. Now, it was just another affront to his senses. Like the black all around him. Like the coarse powder that lined everything about him. Like the laughter of the younger children outside that hadn't entered his world yet. They would eventually. They, too, would be conditioned to ignore all of this. That's how it always went. Anna had spoken of a way out. But he wasn't around. Not after the fire at the other godown last year. Anna had spoken of going to Madras. There was always a job in a big city. And you didn't even have to get your hands covered in the powder. You could make tea. Or sell something on the streets. A decent living. Anything seemed possible when anna said so. All those dreams went with anna and the fire last year.
He got up and walked towards the exit. The coolies were lazing outside. One of them held a beedi in his hand. Anna used to smoke too. Nobody could tell anna what to do; He was older than all of them. He knew much more about the world. If anna smoked a beedi, it was because that was what all men did. He kept begging him to stop. Not that his words were heard. Anna did as he liked. It was the privilege of being born a year earlier. A year earlier. He was as old now as anna was on the day of the fire. Time seemed to mean so little now. Day after, the work would resume. There was always an order, especially for the large thousand-walas. Even after the festival, it would be no different. He thought of what could have been if that fire hadn't started. If only anna had listened to him and stopped smoking.
Thank you for reading. That was my first attempt at writing some serious material. I hope I didn't disappoint. I don't really know why I wrote it. Some conversations I had been having recently laid the seeds for it. I just hope you like it.
Happy Deepavali.
He got up and walked towards the exit. The coolies were lazing outside. One of them held a beedi in his hand. Anna used to smoke too. Nobody could tell anna what to do; He was older than all of them. He knew much more about the world. If anna smoked a beedi, it was because that was what all men did. He kept begging him to stop. Not that his words were heard. Anna did as he liked. It was the privilege of being born a year earlier. A year earlier. He was as old now as anna was on the day of the fire. Time seemed to mean so little now. Day after, the work would resume. There was always an order, especially for the large thousand-walas. Even after the festival, it would be no different. He thought of what could have been if that fire hadn't started. If only anna had listened to him and stopped smoking.
Thank you for reading. That was my first attempt at writing some serious material. I hope I didn't disappoint. I don't really know why I wrote it. Some conversations I had been having recently laid the seeds for it. I just hope you like it.
Happy Deepavali.
