Stickers

I'm Lost

Cold. Don't have the keys to go home. My cellphone is out of battery. The late December day has cuddled tightly into the blanket of a winter night.

I wish I was lost

Its not the same when every turn of the way you keep guessing. Unsure around every corner yet you trust unpredictably. You've chosen uncertainty. Live with it. Maybe its the directions given but in that shear sense of loneliness memories guide you ahead.

"Sir, Chicken Qorma, Shawarma, Tikka boti.."

"Nahi. Shukria" (No Thankyou)

I wasn't alone either. Spatulas tapped away as cooking oil sizzled. Cars squeezed into impossible spaces. Plastic chairs lifted up the weight of kilos of Karhai in the stomachs of hefty sum pounds of human. An instant growl from a mouthful of nan/salan celebrating the joy of a wicked pun at one corner and then the quick narration of a newly placed order projected across the streets bustling aura to be received into the ear of a chef still absorbed in the cooking of the last.

They were around here somewhere.

There are always numerous annotations to a vague statement. They leave you to wander if you are the slightest bit concerned, and then to dazzle in the mesmerizing entanglement of what very possibly could be nothing. Yet it is the absence of anything, that worries me.

Wander a bit.

Sometimes... Mostly, things aren't what they seem like. Years of leaves falling from trees whose roots clawed in soil for strength would carpet the surface giving it thorns and an infestation of insects. A short walk, and I found a friend out to find me. In the hussle of unsuccessfully getting my phone to work again, I walked right past him without realizing he was there.

"Ab Mujhe pehchano ge bhi nahi?" (You wont even recognize me now?)

"Now why would I do that with the situation I'm stuck in?"

I laughed and wrapped an arm around him. Traditional gesture. I play along?

"Bus Theek Hai Phir." (Alright then)

Humorous sarcasm tends to work both ways.

He led me to the end of the street where on those very plastic chairs three more friends had already dived their appetites into a pan of Karhai. I shook all their hands, or any convenient way of symbolizing so given their right hand fingertips had been dipped in gravy. Hospitably they all searched around for an empty chair. I spotted one on a table to the other side and went by to ask if it was taken.

"Le Ja" (Take it away)

He wasn't being rude. No. Merely he was engrossed in conversation. Probably I was rude to interrupt. I took the chair back to the table my friends where seated at, pulling it over ones head considering the lack of space, and placed it at an empty spot. They continued their conversation, and I sat silently. Wonder if that was rude too. However my head was no where near being an empty spot it had just filled. Pausing from normal conversation a friend sitting across the table, still with his head down but eyes pointed at me, asks

"Kahan gum ho" (Where are you lost)

"Kahin Nahi" (No where)

---

Unconvinced, he returned to his food, and all of them to their conversation. Funny thing is that now, a month later, no matter how hard I try I can't recall what the conversation was about. Further, I can't seem to remember what was on my mind. That seat might as well have been an empty spot. Physically speaking I might have been there. Similarly in the fourth dimension of time as well I existed. However consider a fifth dimension in the existence of consciousness, then I'd be in a wholly different realm altogether. Indulge yourself for a bit in believing yourself to live beyond known physical parameters. Such that you as an entity, as a soul, thrived before your heart started beating three months down your worldly mothers pregnancy, and will continue so after whichever physical form you are left in, may it be ashes or corpse, blending with nature and its air and dust. Understand then that you travel in this fifth dimension whose essence is the mind, rather than the brain pertaining to all physical states. I did not lie then. Mentally I was no where.

I did however have a matter to deal with. Turning to my friend on my right, the same one who had found me,

"Phone dena" (Give me your phone)

Pause

"Bus pakerne ke liyay manga tha?" (So did you take my phone just to hold it?)

"Nahi, behn ka number nahi yaad araha" (Na, I can't remember my sisters number)

"Bahut achay Ahmad! koi haal nahi hai tera" (Amazing Ahmad! You're hopeless)

That was something he says to me very often infact. Rather to any act of stupidity around him. Many times rightly aimed at himself. The irony is he has a smile on his face everytime he says it. Nonetheless he was wrong, I did have hope. I dialed another number.

"Hey"

---

This dimension is called technology. A fiefdom in its own right. I once attended a lecture given by a classical vocalist where he explained a talent of his masters. So wholesome in their art they were that not only did they sing beautifully, their song resonated out far and wide. I think of men, who could bring strict silence into rough shores of noise. Not silencing the activity around them but encroaching upon its domain and overpowering sound by superior sound itself. Its freedom from reliance, but for a listener, its breathing in and absorbing from the tips of veins that blood circulates through till it entrances you and conquers you.

"Bye"

---

The voice was gone. For now at least. In spite of all the sound vibrations a street side has to offer, that voice was the only sound I could absorb. A sound that could entrance me even if I never knew what it meant. And it meant a lot to me.

As we sat there, a generally meaningless amount of time went by. I contacted my sister, the matter was taken care of. More Nans had been ordered because we expected another friend of ours to arrive. I had nibbled on some myself. That's when a little kid trotted our and from behind my seat holding a sort of booklet high in the air announced,

"Gayrionkestickersjahazonkestickersharkisamkestickersjahanbhilagainapnemarziselagainphalonke stickersphoolonkestickers..."

Now all five of us were silent. He had in fact raced through the words as if time wasted in saying what he had to would lead to some enormous catastrophe involving all the stars dropping down unto earth. Two had their mouths full of food but their jaws had stopped chewing. I looked over my shoulder. The kid was holding a large stack of booklets in his other hand, had a dark red sweater on and had small ruffled hair. He had to be around the age of ten. A few of us collectively queried

"Kia" (What?)

He took in a deep breath as if reeling himself up again and repeated

"Gayrionkestickersjahazonkestickersharkisamkestickersjahanbhilagainapnemarziselagainphalonke stickersphoolonkestickers..." (Carstickersairplanestickerssticketsofeverykindyoucanputthemanywhereputthemwhereeveryouwantstickersoffruitsstickersofflowers...)

This time around, less in shock, we replied

"Hamein Kuch nahi samajh arahi" (We cant understand anything)

"Kuch bechna chah rahay ho?" (Do you want to sell something?)

"Teharker, Aram Aram se bolo" ( Stop, and talk calmy)

To these comments he set off on another tirade, but one a little more distinguisable from the previous

"je-mein-iss-he-tarah-bolta-hon-khuda-har-banday-ko-mukhtalif-banata-hai-tu-is-he-tarhan-mujhay-bhi-mukhtalif-banaya-hai-mein-us-he-tarhan-boloo-ga-jis-tarhan-bol-sakta-hoo.." (This-is-the-way-I-talk-God-makes-every-man-different-so-in-the-same-way-he-has-made-me-different-too-I-will-speak-the-way-I-can-speak..)

So convinient to blame everything outright on God isn't it? Yet what he said made me smile. A friend laughed. Another tried to reason

"Dekho, agar tum araam se bolo ge tu logoon ko samajh aye ge keh kiya kehna chah rahay ho aur tumhary maqsad pura hoga. Is tarhan bolne ka koi faida nahi hai" (Look, if you talk calmly then people would understand what you are trying to say and you'll get your point across aswell. There's no use of talking like this)

His efforts how ever only lead to another outburst at which he grabbed his head in exagerated frustration. Somehow in these events the kid had moved from behind my right shoulder to a position more on my left. A friend sitting across the table, noticing something interesting in the kid as he later stated, asked

"Khana khao ge?" (Will you eat food?)

The kid, still standing. Nodded in the negative but there was either certain signs of shyness or a sense of unsurety in his nod. I looked into the pan. There was some chicken left. I noticed the Nan we had ordered was on the table in a plate and warm. I turned towards the kid

"Koi masla nahi hai. Khana bacha hua hai, kha lo" (Its no problem. There is food left over,you can eat it)

The others chipped in their bit of insistance. We managed to pull up another chair from nearby and placed it at the table. Soon, still hesitant and glancing around, he was convinced and sat at our table. In this issue he was rather silent.

"Jo Khana hai khao" (Eat whatever you want to)

"Sab kha lo, koi masla nahi hai" (Eat all of it, koi masla nahi hai)

We placed the food infront of him.