THE LAST CIGARETTE

As the satin curtain was cautiously being detached hinge by hinge, he sat at the far end of the dimly lit small suburban studio. With a wrinkled and tired forehead much like the walls and corridors of an old building, he tried to flex his fingers, but even his lazy knuckles refused to crackle with a noise. Half lit by the flickering monitor kept ahead on a small makeshift tool to his left, the other half of his face kept steady despite the glaring sunlight entering from the small slit on top of the grungy studio wall next to him. The untied shoelace on his stretched-out legs kissed the long sequences of never ending wires on the worn out wooden floor. The hammer, with which the P.O.P pillar in the middle of the shooting set was being broken, could not break his deep gaze. The only time his eyelids shifted was when the plywood was being unearthed, generating a heap of floor-dust; even as the lens on the camera, was still being detached. Right from his first day of shooting as an unpaid intern to 20 years later as a modest television director, he had learned to respect, protect and shield the camera at all costs. This brief instinct of the eye broke him out of the deadness of the graveyard shift which began at 9 – the previous night. Moving his head towards the glaring slit now, his eyes struggled to keep open. His digital watch displayed 8:59 am, and the noise was suddenly much more prominent. With honking horns and barking dogs outside, he stared at his worn out watch for some seconds while the entire shooting floor was being dismantled. It was a wrap! The long run of 318 episodes had come to a halt. The production house had decided to shut shop as the ratings weren’t really the talk of the town! But there was little despair. Over the years, he had incepted and ended numerous mediocre shows with great flair. Once touted as a promising film-maker – he waited anxiously for his ancient Nokia 3310, battery bundled with a rubber band - kept on the monitor in front of him, to ring. Neither the ‘KEEP IN TOUCH’ hoots and hugs of his assistants, actors and crew; nor the workers and setting boys taking the set to pieces – could get his eye. His son had an interview lined up at a film production house today for an internship as an assistant. Just making sure that the phone is fully charged and not on the silent mode, he picked up his torn packet of Marlboro next to it. Without using his fingers, he lipped out the last cigarette in his mouth.


I ran! I ran and how! I ran like a dog! In absence of a belt and food - for days, my pants were on a perpetual decline. As I struggled to keep my underwear from full public display with one hand while running, the other one tightly clenched a shoulder bag freely hanging all over the place. I was still far from even the other side of the road and I feared that I had missed the bus to the city, already. It was, by now, almost 9 a.m! My interview was at 11 and the massive production house, about 90 km away, had shortlisted applicants for an Intern position - from all over the country - for the biggest film ever being made. Having won umpteen film festivals, this was to be my first job and I was perspiring not because I was shitting in anticipation but because I was running like my ass was on fire. With an entire town praying for me, my untied shoelace and ill fitted pants did not ruin my plan of racing through the bustling street of my small town connecting to the main highway to the city, like a fox. My body was giving up but with no other means of travel to that production house and with virtually no money in the pocket, I just couldn’t afford to miss the bus. The clutter of the street filled with tea stalls and bullock carts, clubbed with the madness of the sun were driving me crazy. Even in this moment of insanity, being the obsessive freak that I am, I wanted to check my resume one last time for any errors. Jumping railings and maneuvering like a cat, my hand swiftly moved inside the bag to remove my paper. Meanwhile, I had almost reached the opposite side of the bus stand and my sticky black shirt could now take it no more. It was a small town where the bus barely halted for seconds but it was no where in sight. Gasping for breath, I had the slightest smirk when I gazed at the fat fuck standing at the bus stop grinning at me. I used to see this guy every day, same time, same place, and sometimes I used to think – same clothes as well. He used to catch the same bus to the same final stop for fuck knows why. His life was as predictable as that of a headless chicken. When I saw him there, I knew I hadn’t missed my bus. Deciding to check the papers in the bus, my breath was subtly returning. I was bending with hands on my knees, with the fat fuck smiling at me with just a road divider in the foreground. The desolated road usually never had a single vehicle pass for hours in a day. So passing onto the other side required no marathon. Giving him the most devious smile, I reached out for my pack of cigarettes. No one knew I smoked. I barely used to carry a packet, but this moment called for one! To my delight, there was one last cigarette inside and I guess one last minute before the bus to arrive. Perfecto!


The studio was virtually empty. The crew had left, the set dismantled, the equipment loaded in trucks. He still sat at the far end of the studio with eyes gazing in front. He was waiting for his son to call. He was waiting for his son to tell him that he was on his way to the interview. He was waiting for his son to ask him what to expect when being interviewed by a director. He was moving the cigarette from one end of the lips to another. He wouldn’t light it. His eyes were tired and clumsy. His posture was losing grace. Smelling like a rotten fruit and looking like a pig, he got up finally to bid adieu to his bread and butter for over 18 months. Dusting off the leftover properties of the dismembered set, he picked up his shoulder bag and stepped out of the studio with the cigarette popping from one end of the lips to another.


As soon as I managed to smuggle out a miniature matchbox from my dysfunctional shoulder bag to light that victory cigarette, a bus zoomed in and zoomed out before I could blink my eye! I lit the match and was about to light the cigarette when my ass lit with fire. The fat fuck was gone! He boarded the bus. My body trembled. My mind went numb. The next bus was not scheduled till for at least 3 hours and my big interview went for a toss. Drowning all expectations, I felt like a goat ready for slaughter as I gazed at the empty bus stop. I still had the cigarette in my mouth. It did not drop. I tried getting my phone out to make a call but to my dismay, I had not charged it. I was a dead duck. Just sometime back, I was a promising film maker who was in the final short list for the coveted intern job. I was destined to be there! Everything and everyone in the universe conspired and played the part right to get me that job. The last cigarette did me in! Life did not fuck me. I fucked myself!


It has been 20 years today. I managed to get a job in the city after that. I have a wife and a son who is starting out to make a mark. Who knows what would have happened if I were to be on that bus. Life could have been different for me or the bus could have punctured a tyre just a second after my boarding and life would have been the same. But I missed my chance not by destiny but by deed. And that’s what counts. The universe forgives but does not forget. And I did miss the bus it sent! I stopped time on my fancy but cheap digital watch just a minute before 9 am and it has remained like that ever since. Time stopped, life paused! I played with fate and it screwed me hard and I wanted to apologize. I don't know why but I couldn't get closure. I stood opposite the bus stand on a deserted and lonely highway with a cigarette stuck in my mouth, angry at myself - for a long time. I hated every element of that moment but I wanted everything to remain as is, like a snapshot, till the time fate found me again. Life was to resume only then! And hence, I could never throw my Nokia 3310 which gave up on me at the last minute, nor throw my flying shoulder bag. My watch still reads 8:59 a.m and I still do not tie my shoe lace! I still gaze at the fat fuck every time I end a show, thinking and reminding myself that he was the one who led me to that bus every day. We never spoke but he smiled and grinned till the last minute. He was virtually making my life. I never saw him after that! Only the day I find him and the bus in real again, will I throw the last Marlboro cigarette, from that day, I could not drop. Until then, I will continue popping it from one end of the lips to another.

The Look

Cramped like a doll in a cardboard box -- at the window seat in a crowded bus, you travel to work. You still can't figure whether to put your feet up and rest your knee on the back of the seat ahead or ground your feet on the floor and sit uptight. You fidget and fiddle to fit. You wonder how the fat fuck next to you with a sticky sweaty white shirt can sit with such deadpan tranquility while you try every feather in your number-fucked mind to achieve that calm! Yes, your mind's perpetually number-fucked. Dates, Schedules, To-do lists, Birthdays, Meetings, Appointments, Friend requests on your blackberry, your GMAT score, the damn E.M.I, the number of comments on your twitter post, the money in your wallet, the time on your watch, count of days for your next pay, recurring adjustment in today’s daily budget to compensate for last night's fat dinner bill --- the list's pretty extensive! But all you think of right now is the number of coins you have in your pocket and the tantrum the conductor will throw once you play a prince with no chchutta paisa. Wrestling your hand into your ass, you somehow manage to traject out the wallet. "Teri Maa Ka! No 10 re notes, no fucking coins, not even a 50 - just the damn 500 re note - the jackass is gonna throw a fit." Anxious as hell and full of shit, you squirm like a prisoner and frown like satan’s dick! Showtime! Standing on your head with his botox’d fat-ass grin, the bus conductor looks like Google’s answer to God! You so know he so knows that you don’t have so many coins! The sticky sweaty white shirt fat fuck just bought his ticket with so many coins. They have shared a smirk and formed a team and they know you are a prince. Moment of truth! But something happens just then. As you crunch, you realize it was the front jeans pocket. It always was! The coins – the fucking coins! Their smirk transforms into straightfaces, your straightface into a smile! But your pants are tight. You need to get up to remove the coins. But to get up is to give them respect. You don’t wanna do that! You have a solution! There’s still that tiny space underneath the back of the seat ahead, you can spread and dive your legs straight in. You slant your spine and slide your ass forward to give your hand a clean slip in your front pant. You glide your legs oh-so-smoothly beneath the seat infront, remove the chchutta paisa from your jeans and start pulling back just when you hit the bottom of the front seat with your feet, hard. Fuck! You just kicked the lady’s butt sitting on it; and dude, how!! The lady turns with disgust, you squirm in embarrassment, the fat fuck’s anxious to see what happens next, the conductor’s bugged. They all exchange --- The Look !

If cell phones were monsters, the internet would be an orgy! But ‘the look’ – the look is inevitably the mother of all communication. We all give the look - be it conscious or faint, plotted or impromptu, straight or slant, focused or hidden! Because spiritually, as mammals - that is ‘THE’ only way we truly speak! And cynically, the lone way to determine a lie is only by the fucking eye! (or more recently, the lie detector polygraph machine).

So when you walk past people on the street, turn back after taking tickets from a window, sit in your car waiting for the traffic signal to go green, waiting at the doctor’s clinic – you consciously (more often than not) or otherwise, make eye contact with most people at your arms distance. Customarily, those strangers return your temporary gaze. But just at that moment when they fix their tangent with yours – you abruptly withdraw your look. You suspend and move forward. You let the moment pass. You stop communicating because there’s frankly no fucking need to, well – most times!

You enter a washroom in the movie interval. Most guys subconsciously dread to pee in between 2 other guys. They’d rather wait for one of the corner urinals to be vacated. It is by far, the weirdest feeling on the face of the earth to be in between and at kissing distance from 2 guys taking a leak. But as in most theatre intervals, the space and time crunch gets the better of you and ‘To Pee or not To Pee’ is no longer the question. ‘You got to do what you got to do’ takes center stage! And here comes ‘The Look’. You make it so obvious that you aren’t looking to your side that you go totally deadpan. The side look, in most cases here, comes with extremely emotionless-driven-rawness. With absolutely no expressions, your tangible relief of having a good pee is surpassed by the psychological relief of having the guy next to you zip up and fuck off from there before you! Phew! It is slightly simpler in the queens section though - Unlike men, a woman expects and knows that it is highly likely that she will be checked out by all women in front of the basin mirror. But they will still do the side glance. And if caught on camera – that is so beautiful sometimes!

The Look is always the first initiator of any communication– the first smiling eyes when you meet your soon to be boss, the first time you actually brush skins with the woman you love (lust in most cases), the look your new born gives you when you hold her in your hands. The look is always the last of any communication – when you look at your boss in the eye when you are quitting or getting fired, when you look at your wife when she is calling it off for some fuckbag, when someone you love is breathing his last. The look is the first act and the final act – there is no foreplay in this with a sweet kiss and a Thank you Miss! The look’s the beginning, the look’s the end – the only deal is how many of them are there in between!

Cynic Diary

You are not that prevalent!
It’s a myth that you are the center of the universe. I thought as much but turns out that it isn’t exactly the case. It’s a fallacy that when you sleep in the night, the malls shut and the monks fuck! Nothing changes – because of you. Things change – because they ought to.

You will not make a difference, nor make this world a better place!
No amount of saplings you dig in the ground will save a dying life! Eventually someone or the other will take a leak on it - balancing oxygen with piss. Let’s look at it more objectively than metaphorically! You ‘cannot’ power oxygen on earth – so just control where you piss! As the aeroplane tutorial video rightly puts it – Please take care of yourself first before giving oxygen to others! Survive! For everything else- there’s God, Government and the fucking MasterCard.

You will never improve!
I can never change! You can never change! If we claim that we have changed, we are lying. If I claim that your opinion on me matters to me, I am kidding you. I may be doing what you are saying, but it is because I ‘want’ to do it – not because you make sense. It’s just that you made me realize what I really thought. So, yeah – Thank you - but - Mind you, I ‘will’ go back to my old ways in no time. That’s pretty much how the cookie crumbles.

You will always be a wannabe or a fake!
Whether it’s the salary hike or a simple Facebook like – you will want to be appraised in life. Be it maneuvering facts on your C.V or colour correcting your display picture, there always ‘will’ be a black gland in your body. You will not be able to flush it out of your system. You will always be an actor –with your close colleague, closer friend and closest partner! No matter what you claim or think, there is no chance that you can be yourself with anyone or anything other than your washroom mirror.

You were never important!
You will always confuse phases of temporary attention in life with the significance you command in other people’s lives. You will never want to accept the fact that you are alone and no one gives a shit in the long run even when you claim that you are accepting that. It’s a pity that you will never realize that all love eventually dies and nothing is permanent in life – not even ‘life’!

The one with a whip.

Something I'd written about 5 years ago. Found in an archive:
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"I KNOW he is the man who committed the crime. There has been particular inaction by the Delhi Police.. It seems that the rule of law doesn't seem to apply to the children of those who enforce it." - words out Additional Sessions Judge. J.P. Thareja while delivering the 450-page judgment in the 'Priyadarshini Matoo' rape and murder case. He further went on to say that he was 'forced' to acquit the accused, Santosh Kumar Singh, the son of a highly placed and prominent police officer, giving him the benefit of doubt. The alleged murderer was set free.

Let us rewind the cassette. Priyadarshini Mattoo, a 23 year old law student in Delhi University, is found raped and murdered at her house in New Delhi on January 23, 1996. The evidence points to Santosh Kumar Singh, the son of a highly placed Police Officer. However, in December 1999, the judge acquits him, pointing to serious inadequacies in the investigation. In 1995, Priyadarshini had complained that Santosh Singh was harassing and stalking her. She had been provided with a personal security officer at the time. On the morning of January 23, Santosh is seen knocking for entrance into Priyadarshini's uncle's house, where she is living, in the Vasant Kunj area of Delhi. The huge amount of evidence indicates that Santosh enters her house on the pretext of striking a compromise. Subsequently, he allegedly rapes her, strangles her with an electric wire and then batters her face beyond recognition with a motorcycle helmet. The evidence is immense and the verdict is obvious. But what happened.. is history!

Hey! My name's India. Sup?

I am a great nation - a land of rich culture, richer tradition, and the richest history! I am a land, which gave the world 'zero'! I am a superpower! You know what actually. I am a nuclear power -duh! I have the technology to destroy most countries at the click of a button. I have the best of missiles, best of tanks, one of the largest militaries, huge amount of guns and ammunition which can destruct and put to ashes an entire planet, which can put an entire population to freaking debris, which can shake up mankind with atomic thunder blasts. Cool, eh? Ironically though, sadly, I am also the land where a dumb Buddha practiced lame peace. I am the land where an old chic- Teresa -attained 'the' mother of all salvations it seems.. and hey - the funny bald guy. what'd his name be.. yeah, Gandhi, - Gandhi- was adamant and stubborn with his proclaimed Satyagraha bits and pieces! Phew! Anyway, chuck that dude! I welcome you! Welcome to me! Welcome to India!

All right, lets hit the bull's eye straight on! Lets know who I am! One hundred and fifty crore people and still counting! These people are raping me! I cannot tell you how orgasmic I feel when the census takes its toll across my body! But actually, it aint that big a deal, more on that - later! I am a bad girl with a whip you know what I mean. I feel sadistically fulfilled when more than 70 percent of my children do not even have 2 times of bread and many of them starve to death! But again, like before, not so big a deal and hence, more on that, later! I feel insanely turned on when a woman is raped brutally every half an hour on my breast and another is burnt to death every 75 minutes for not bringing a large enough dowry; where shockingly, more than 5.2 million people are infected with HIV and still don't know the difference between HIV and AIDS, where female foeticide is still so wildly popular and 'sati' is still practiced with utmost sincerity in Rajasthan and Andhra Pradesh! You've just begun to know me though. Buy me coffee before I start with what all turns me on. Lets save it for later!

If you got to buy me coffee though, you need to shift focus to a tad more important issues I have! Figuratively, far significant than the trivial issues I just highlighted up there (pretty embarrassed that I brought crap up). Rahul Mahajan does drugs!! Aint is huge? It's so big that it is breaking news! A recent report read, Rahul Mahajan spends 70,000 bucks everyday on cocaine. So, if you were to calculate, it would take him much more than a century of centuries to literally ejaculate his murdered father's amassed fortune of more than 4000 crore rupees! Holy cow! One big orgasmic fortune for a junkie! Did I hear someone say I was a poor bitch? Not really, I can pretty much pay for my coffee I guess!

I am a happy nation. Pretty happy!! Yay! So what if some Karishma Kapoor gets engaged to an Abhishek Bachchan, calls off the engagement, gets married to some Delhi hotshot, files divorce, hooks up with him again, has a kid - an eternal solution to a doomed marriage by the way. So what if a Dirubhai Ambani piles up a fortune, dies and his sons merrily crash the family to build individual empires! So what if some Jessica Lall is shot point blank amid 200 people and the accused walks free hooting a whistle! So what if a Satyendra Dubey gets murdered in broad daylight for throwing a torch on the epic corruption in government tenders! The fact of the matter is, I am a busty place! I am a great nation with rich heritage! I am one of the fastest growing economies, a bustling place for foreign trade and investment; I have the potential to support a huge infrastructure; I can proudly say that over the last 2-3 years, my investment rate has crossed 30 percent of the Gross Domestic Product, for the first time in history, with the per capita income rising to $700. So what if more than 70 percent of my children don't even get 2 times of bread and many of them starve to death. It is not that big a deal, is it? I am what I am! It turns me on rather, remember?

And hence, the people ruling me can be at ease because, who cares, huh! Let the children be! Ofcourse, they have much more at hand to do when they aren't doing me - you know what I mean? Be it an offer of a liberal aid package of Rs.1000 crore to the government of Nepal or just a mere Rs.100 crore for the beautification of Marine Drive in Mumbai and another 50 crore for the erection of a monument of Chatrapati Shivaji Maharaj or another..sigh! C'mon, these things are much more important! How can you just sit there and watch my dear neighbour Nepal be in such turbulence when people, here, are touching the skies! How can you disrespect a national hero by not spending hundreds of millions in his memory? And oh hey, my government has a heart too which goes out to its people, but fortunately, it goes out only once in 3 to 4 years so that it can concentrate on larger causes, the remaining time. So, come 2007 elections in Uttar Pradesh in North India. Mulayam Singh Yadav suddenly realizes that he owes something back to his people. So, in an act of unrivalled generosity, Samajwadi Party decides to take out 400 crore rupees from its closet and distribute Rs.500 to every un-employed person in the state. They swear on their mum that if the ruling party comes into power again in the subsequent election, the sum of the money shelled out would go up by another cool 500 bucks! See! Kindness and humility just got better! I am so proud of my child that instead of addressing the duh cause of providing employment, he made things so drastically simple for the un-employed and lost youth by giving them a direct income. So, 400 crore divided by 500 = Number of youth, unemployed! And hey, mass unemployment is sexy to me anyway! Anyway, I am proud of my other children as well! Lets say - Arjun Singh - for implementing such a drivable cause of reservations and uplifting the poor with such aplomb and dignity, and it was not because he was trying his one last shot at the prime minister's seat! His message's clear - "Dear Dalits, you were screwed in the past .So here's your chance to screw them all!" You guys get it all wrong, don't you? The Shiv Sainiks, my proud soldiers of morality have an insight and belief that if a woman gets raped, it is clearly because she wears urban clothing which demands a rape. It's obvious and I strongly agree that a woman should wear appropriate clothing to help our civilized and culturally rich men control their urge and hunger; leading our lives in a nice talibanized society! So, give a break to my boy Sunil More, for he was, after all, just a drunk policeman doing his routine chores at Marine Drive and it were just situations that led the poor chap to rape a school kid in the police chowky in broad day light! Big deal dude!

A perfect plot to Ekta Kapoor, a loser, one may say! By the way, she rocks and I love watching her soap operas! They are so me! Yay!

So, to sum up, I'd conclude that I am a proud mother, a real proud one! I love the chaos, I love the crime, I love the unemployment, which increases with time! I love the poverty, I love the corruption, I love the hatred, which exists in the ever-increasing population! I am a bad bitch and I am full of myself! I am a freaking mad-house which is hitting globalization at the speed of a shooting star. If you are in control, then you ain't going fast enough! So, fasten your seat belts, sit back, spread my legs and ride me bad like the see-saw of the sensex when it hits the high and kisses the low. Twelve thousand or Nine thousand, the show goes on because the show's bloody ought to go on!!

My name's India and I am the one with a whip!

Dont blow your spine..

By driving something as elementary as shoe lace up her gut, she was literally begging for death. What a drag, seriously! I, of all people; and when said of all people, I don’t scorn death - its just that I give a fuck; swore it no end. With a head duplicating the dimensions of an uncut pea, she considered suicide as her only rationale of reckoning.

Its ironical you start writing publicly with the birth entry on your blog paying tribute to the worst prequel to death - suicide. But a man is a product of his surroundings. And when the left column on page 2 of your newspaper blissfully bookmarks ‘Man kills self’ as an everyday favourite caption, your conscience -despite giving a damn- feels a scratch.

When I die, I will die! There will not be a rebirth, there will not be redemption. My skin will perish, my lungs will soil. That is it. To embrace death when it comes is upright, to fight death when it comes is courage but to volunteer for it is like shitting up your ass and exploding your spine because you didn’t know how to flush the commode. Its dumb!

Its nothing to do with sanity when I hate death reasonably. And hence, it surpasses my comprehension- why would the chick kill herself with a lame shoe lace, rather put, the lame chick kill herself with a shoe lace. Clearly, there is something I fail to understand. To me, I don’t need to love Pepsi to hate Sprite. Correspondingly, I don’t need to love my life to hate death. So why did the chick have to love death to hate life? Fairly equitable.