The Pillow

He was lying sprawled on his bed when he felt the vibration. It was a tiny vibration and he heard the closing ding of the ringtone that would usually accompany it. This particular tone meant that he had received a message on WhatsApp. He cringed after he unlocked the phone as the white and blue light from it stung his eyes. After his eyes took a few seconds to adjust to the sudden influx on bright light, he saw that it was two in the morning. He was not surprised as some friend of his would be awake in the US and would have sent him a message. He slid down the notification bar and clicked the notification with his thumb. It was the picture of a pillow.

A pillow? Why I am being sent a picture of a pillow, he thought. He looked up to see that it was from his friend Sara.

“?” He pinged her back.

“My pillow” was the instant reply.

“Yes I can see that it is a pillow. I can still see” was his sassy reply.

“Arrey baba, you asked me na , whom I love the most.”

“So you love your pillow the most?” He got up and sat with his back rested against the wall. This conversation was getting interesting.

“Of course”.

“Why?”

“Oh my pillow is so loyal. He didn’t cheat on me like my ex, he doesn’t lie to me, and is always there for me. Whenever I feel sad or weak, he’s there for me to cry upon. Whenever I feel happy, he’s there for me sleep with a content smile on.”

“Wow, lucky pillow.” Luckier than him, he thought.

“Now don’t you start feeling all jealous of my lovely boy friend :P”

“Totally jealous :D”

“So what are you doing now?”

“Wondering if you would rather send me a picture of yourself instead of your boy friend.”

“Now? But I am already in the bed. Staring at the fan go round and round.”

“Yeah, bet the fan is hitting on you as well.”

“LOL :D”

He wondered if that really did make her laugh. She had a wonderful laugh which was unrestrained. A nice loud laugh that came from the inside, he wondered if this was one of those ones.

 “I am feeling sleepy now. Do you want me to call you to wake up in the morning? “

“No.. It’s better to stay awake till 5 than to be woken up at 5. Good night, sleep well. You and your pillow.”

“J”

And the screen went blank as he locked the phone. He had close to three hours of time to kill before he would have to start getting ready to leave for work. He wondered how he should spend those three hours. He got up and went to the bath room to wash his face. He turned the geyser on, and let the bathtub fill with hot water. He went to the kitchen to grab cold can of cold cola from the fridge to drink as he spend time on his laptop surfing the net. He fired up his mail and facebook, and started to read a blog posted by his sister. It was a small piece of fiction about story challenge to be written on the theme of having received a picture message in the night.

He smiled. Here was a story he was more than happy to write.

Written in response to Creative Writing Challenge: 2AM Photo

Inspired from The Message

(High on) Happiness

Have you ever had one of those days when you are happy? Not just happy, but high with happiness? When things just fall in place, when you meet nice people, eat good stuff, today was one such day.

To recount what lead to this day:

•  I spent one entire weekend with mom without either of us saying anything stingy at the other.
• We checked out some houses (we’re house hunting for a new place)
• Mom made dahi puri for me in the evening. Now dahi puri is unhealthy because I have a sore throat, and the chutney and cold curd would not do me good. But eating unhealthy food is fun and she made it because I asked her to.
• I spent some wonderful time at ‘The chocolate room’ in Ahmadabad. I had a large black coffee, an almond cold coffee, and a Chocó-chilli sandwich. It was a wonderful sandwich it had chillies and chocolate scrapings in it. The chocolate would clash with the chilly and it was oh-so-good. I got a nice table all for myself and wonderful internet speed to watch some of my favourite anime.
• I saw this poster while searching for a new poster to buy. It gave me a sense of reassurance, that there is more to me than some of the problems I had recently started thinking on. 
• On the way to Baroda from Ahmadabad I got a bus that had half the seats empty. I could sit on an entire three seat row all by myself and read. When the bus conductor turned off some of the lights he let two lights on so that I could read. He then got up from his single seat and sat on another empty row seat. Those of you who have travelled by GSRTC busses know of this seat. It is the single seat at the entrance which has handle bars in front of it for people to hold on to while climbing on/off. So when you sit on this seat, you can sink in a little and rest your feet on this handle bar. Such a comfortable position to read in. 
• The window in front of me was open with a just little tiny gap that let a cool breeze in. The breeze would hit my naked feet and make me feel as if my feet were in a river of flowing cool water. And the best part was that no one complained about it or asked me to shut the window.
• I thought of two women whom I admire. One is ofcourse this wonderful doting big sister whom I love as much as I can. The other is of course the is B to my A, the Alpha to my Omega, the Sheila to my jawani, the fevicol to my photo. They just cheer me up.

Now my views on god are not that religious. But if there is a god, I would give a nice tight hug. I would tell him to take some time off and come with me for drinks, my treat. I would ask him to listen to this song (Emotional Attyachar (attyachar is Hindi for torture) from Dev D). The song in itself is a sad song; however it has a special place for me. I had gone to watch this movie in a single screen local cinema house because we couldn’t get tickets anywhere else. Now this song has a nice beat to it. When this song came on screen I was just tapping my feet being as reserved that I am. But some guys in the audience just thought “Chuck it” and got up started dancing to have a wonderful time.

So the idea is to ask God to chuck it and not think of the people who are doing all forms of torture in his name. You know take a vacation with your goddess, and go relax and recharge. If you made this world, we gave it shape as it is now. You don’t have to take it on your shoulders.

Today is also an eventful day for another reason. The father of the Delhi-Gang Rape case victim shared his daughter’s name (Jyoti Singh Pandey). He said:

“We want the world to know her real name.

“My daughter didn’t do anything wrong, she died while protecting herself.

“I am proud of her.Revealing her name will give courage to other women who have survived theseattacks. They will find strength from my daughter.”

The word Jyoti is a Hindi word which means light. For some people, this case gives light and heat and casts out darkness and fear. Now I don’t her personally, but I cannot help but feel sorry. That in a free nation, this is the price she had to pay for being free, for just wanting to live her own life. You had every right to live on as you wanted, but a bunch of men thought you wanting to be free was an act of defiance against them, and raped and beat you to a painful death. They and other such people wrongfully believe that just because of being a woman, women have to yield to them as they wish.

I do hope that whether you’re reading this or not, whether we know of each other or not, that you have an equally wonderful day in your life. 

Reading

There are advantages of having friends who share your passion for reading and among other things you never run out of good great things to read. Today one such friend Ritu shared an article on facebook (which she was kind enough to tag me in).  It is “Which kind of book reader are you?” by the Atlantic Wire. The article goes on to describe different types of readers and their reading habits. Are you the one who will purchase books and then end up with a backlog or are the one who has them only to display them? And so on...  What about me, do you ask? (Well you are reading this, and should you continue to read this entry I gather you are interested in it.)

I have picked up books for various reasons. Quite a few of these books are in my cupboard because Landmark (the book store) is exceedingly close to my apartment. So every few days I find myself strolling in to the store because I ran out of stationery supplies, or need something for work, or am drawn to the large number of books there.  If there is a sale I pick up some of the books I have been wanting to read and since there’s a neat deal I stock them in my cupboard. Sometimes it is because I visit the store out of boredom or habit, and flipping through the books I find something that amuses or touches me. Then of course there are the recommendations from friends.

This has lead to a huge backlog of reading for me. Books that have been read for only a few pages before they were put on the table and then inside the dark forbidding chambers of my cupboard because I got busy with something, or found something else to read. Evil, I know. This is not just fiction but books on engineering and science that I picked up because I enjoyed reading about the subject, some management books that I refer when work gets boring and philosophy for my desire to study more upon it.

Right now I am reading ‘Krishna Key’ because I got it for review (yeay) from Blogadda.com. Since I am to post a review on it for receiving said book, ‘Fifty shades darker’ has been put on hold along (because I enjoyed reading ‘Fifty shades of Grey’, and wanted to continue the story). There is also ‘The Toyota Way’ which I am reading to learn different approaches that I can use at work. There is ‘God is not Great’ lying on the table as well which I had picked for light reading (and mom got scandalized).

Then there are a select few unique books that have not been completed for particular reasons. I received ‘The girl who kicked the hornet’s nest’ as a gift from Ishaan Lalit, and I read the first three chapters before I felt that there was too much a back story being referred to. Wikipedia enlightened me with the fact that since it is book 3 of a trilogy I got the feeling of missing the story. Although I thought the story would be revealed in detailed flashbacks, I have kept it aside for after I finish its chronological predecessors. There is ‘Love, Loss and Acceptance’ by Shail Di which I am keeping aside for reading when I can do its verses justice.  And finally there is Thermodynamics because I can’t wrap my head around the change in heat of the room when an air conditioner is turned on while a draft exists on the other side of the room. The AC is on, it is cooler, I am thankful, please get lost. Maybe It has also to do with the idea that I flunked the subject the first time I took it in college.

And before signing off for this, I would like to tell you about this little thing I have. I just love caressing and smelling books. Sometimes I pick up books and ruffle through the pages and smell the air as the pages flip by. The rustling noise and the sight of the pages go by is just so wonderful. I don’t do it all my books, but one day the mood strikes to do so and it always manages to make me sigh.