A poet batting on a slippery wicket

 

The tiles are getting so oily smooth in fashionable houses that I have to walk like a heavily pregnant penguin waddling on the Antarctic ice to avoid a fall. But we are up for leaving a grand impression on the house fashion scene, or for that matter in all types of fashion in all spheres of life. That's being cultured; otherwise you are a Sentinelese prehistoric tribal in the Andaman and Nicobar chain of islands. In fact, the floor tiles have become so slippery these days that I feel like a goat being taken to a slaughter house if some fashionable person invites me to their house.

But credit goes to we humans. We are a gutsy race. We take risks. We are ready to take the risks of broken bones for being most fashionable in the neighborhood. And so many slip and break their bones in fact. What floor is any worth if it doesn't carry the slipping potential and break bones and wink with a flashy smile as you fall? And we shouldn't forget that broken bones are a boon for the medical fraternity.

What car is worth its tyres if it can't go like a rocket and carry the prospect of trampling as many as possible on its glorious journey? But the naughty trampling cars are a boon for the insurance industry. Isn’t it?

What music is worth its rhythmic hop if it can't burst a few eardrums? What dress is worth its salt if it doesn't make you look like someone from the farthest galaxy? And the dress that actually covers the body is no dress, it's an old hag. So poor clothing is up for a big challenge. It has to show all and still appear to hide everything. So we are busy fixing it. It's a very serious question. How much of cloth goes off from the bum-side to cover the soles of feet. Or how much goes from the chest to cover armpits. One half of the mind working overtime to bare all, while the other half trying to devise an airy dress to avoid a complete fall. Imagine how much creativity it requires! What an art man!

And what is this boring, old-model plain skin? It's a big canvas for art. Why waste paper for painting when we have our dear skin ready for the sadistic pleasure of the tattooing needle? So human body is the canvas now. Some tattoos go deep in the skin in proportions to the transient emotions in the heart. But we have shifty hearts. So when the clouds of emotions scatter and take a new shape, the poor tattoo taunts as a sign of infidelity. So it has to be vanquished. So tattoo removers have become as important as tattoo makers. The other day when I put out my hand to give some money to a beggar I got a shock. He had a dragon on his hand. He appeared so empowered in comparison to me. My poor non-tattooed hand won't dare to go ahead. So I just walked away. When I see people with their sophisticated tattoos coming on the way, I involuntarily find myself moving away in awe and wonder to give them space to walk. They appear a completely new race to me the old model. Maybe tattooed bums, biceps, breasts and tummies have gone berserk and are now revolting to claim new versions after getting fed up with their boring old self.

And what gun is a gun that can't pierce a hill from a distance? So the human mind is making the best of a gun. But then what bulletproof jacket is that which can't stop a cannon ball on the chest. So one half of our collective brain is making the deadliest gun, while the other half is busy in making the best of bulletproof jackets.

We are a very busy race. We can't stop. We have to scatter litter in the first place, so that we can devise the most efficient ways of waste management. We ought to rechristen ourselves as busy-sapiens now. We have to first go into war and killings and then make UN and the entire set of peace talks and diplomatic corps for peaceful negotiations.

I sometimes wonder maybe we are basically looking to create more avenues for problems, so that the genius of the human brain can be actualized in managing those problems. I think the autonomous human mind is smartly using the slavish human body for experiments, like we do with the toads on dissection tables, putting us in weirdest situations just to find whether there is a solution to this and that. What an experiment going on! It really is a big drama.