The mobile made a merry beep. Sameer scuffled over the bed, scrambling for the damn thing. A rude jerk from the indulgence of an early morning dream. The blanket seemed to pamper him and for an instant he thought there would be no place on earth more comfortable than that. With eyes half open, the eyelids playing a tug-of-war with itself, he pressed some random keys on the mobile. The bright light of the mobile hit him on his eyes and for once he hated himselves for buying a nuisance. 4.40 am shouted the device. Which meant he was 10 minutes behind schedule even before he had woken up. He got up, threw the blanket to the other side and walked towards the window. A bird flew across the horizon. He felt as though the sky was a huge screen and someone was projecting the bird’s image from behind. A silhouette. The morning was still in deep slumber. Nothing seemed to disturb it.

Sameer walked across the room to the basin. There he stood looking at the mirror for a few seconds. He had slept at 3 the same morning .The thought of which made him want to slump back to the bed again. A million other thoughts populated his mind in an instant like the products of a fission reaction. None seemed urgent, none was important. His hands seemed to be a mechanical robot, brushing the teeth for him. By the time he had finished, he was awake. He splashed a handful of water on his face and again and allowed it to work its magic on him, the way it does to flowers. He could instantly feel freshness all around him. He left his face undried , allowing the drops of water to do a face massage while it rolled from the forehead , over the eyes along the nose to the chin and below.
He changed to his tracksuits, slipped in the sneakers and was ready for the morning trot. The mobile beeped again, this time a missed ring from Nayan to inform him that he was ready too. They met below the building, smiled a good morning and set off.

They talked as they jogged. The early morning breeze swept gently across their face, over the forehead and the hairline, in an attempt, they thought, which defined their face from the rest of the body. They moved ahead, sometimes in a silent competition. They kept moving, the legs tired but the mind at its briskest best. A realization of how the mind tires one’s body more than any other part and how the mind propels you to keep moving how much ever any other part is tired. A testimony to the power of man’s will power. A thought of a navy diver from the movie “Men of Honor”. You don’t stop until your mind decides to. One’s mind. One’s god. They looked at each other. They exactly knew when the other wanted to stop. Silent conversation.

You stare at the monitor. You are compelled to write. You are pregnant with ideas. They all seem to be so clear till the moment your fingers touch the keyboard. Everythings gone. All you are left with is some very vague pictures of your originally clear ideas. You have it in your mind, still. You try to translate them into words. You can't find the right words. Every line written seems like an accomplishment. You read back. The lines seem to be just rot. You delete everything. You start over again. Now you are even more compelled to write. Now you cant complete even a line. Every single word has to be thought of. Every sentence has to be painfully strung together to make them sound coherent. You wonder why you are taking all the pain. But you can't go away. You thought you were good at something and you can't even do that. Writer's block phoenix says. But im not even a writer. Im nowhere as good as some others. Atleast you could express. Now you can't do that. You think everyone else is good. You don't think you are bad. But you think everyone else is good. Doesnt help you. In the meanwhile you realise some new ideas are trying to find their way in. Into your head. They seem to grow by the second. You sense them, you feel them, you think over them. You feel liberated. You wanna record these atleast. You run to the computer. You type the first word. The fingers seem reluctant to move. You push them hard. Somehow, one's fingers dont get along very nicely with one's ideas. Your head is pregnant again. You stare at the monitor. Helpless.

Banda n Adi - Episode 1

The people mentioned here is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to anyone living or dead is purely the writer's lack of imagination.

Adityaraj had the makings of a poet. He was sensitive, observant,
philosophical,rational and all that except that he dint write poems. He was considered to be a great listener among his group of friends.The one who could be approached when all one wished to do was whine. He was healthy and well rounded too, as people would euphemise his framework. He had a head to go with his extravagant body. No, he was not a fathead. In the contrary, he was as smart as any guy would like to be. He had an aura ( for some reason, my dictionary defines aura as: " A sensation that precedes the onset of certain disorders such as a migraine attack or epileptic seizure. Well it also has another meaning which is," An indication of radiant light drawn around the head of a saint ". I obviously, meant the latter ) about him that charmed most of the guys he met. It wont be wrong to say that he was conscious of this charm and charisma and was at times nonplussed about himselves. Good enough, for a young chap like him the excitement was quite natural.
All said, like everyone,Adi, as he was fondly called had his share of worries too.Or was it craving? Maybe craving. He craved for a distaff shade in his life. The shade which when absent in a virile makes him seem the most uninteresting and boring. As boring as the straight line. Adi craved for the curves.But,the ascetic personna he was, he never let the craving get the better of him,atleast in public places and wag his tongue and go "woof-woof" when a female figure passed by. Not until he met a certain gentleman called Naveen.
Naveen or Banda as he is popularly known was one tall, dark and handsome (TDH) hunk every girl would drool over, ideally. He believed that too. But then things that are ideal remains that. So by 21, it was no surprise that Banda had developed a tendency to whistle over his shoulder and appear all orgasmic and sometimes moan too when an eve passed by. All too involuntarily. A " 'hey, I'm Naveen' - 'hey, I'm engaged' " convo had become all too common to even become part of a joke when his group met. But, that dint dishearten him. Infact nothing ever disheartened Banda. He was the eternal optimist. The guy who believed that there was a great barn of horses nearby when he was drowned neckdeep in horseshit , the guy who called spade a spade. Such an extraordinary individual was difficult to be missed even in a huge crowd. So it was only a matter of time before Adi met Banda. Both were in the same college and both were extraordinary in their own rights. Now mathematically, a negative and negative makes positive and a positive and positive also makes p. So put either way ,the confluence guaranteed a summation of ideologies and other states of the mind which was sure to,if i may use the word,bother a few. So when Naveen talked about the Tarannums and other bar-girls, when he drooled and whistled and howled and moaned at every passing female, age being not a bar here, Adi merely seconded him. At times they could be heard debating over what the girl who just passed by should have been wearing (looks, dress all considered) for her to look more sultry, among other issues of contemporary importance.
Time passed by thus and both the protagonists were having a ball, in the sense fun, that Banda hollered something which made the ascetic one smile a pleased smile. Whether he kissed Banda on his forehead would remain a mystery. Banda had hollered out a plan. A plan to go to Goa and do some "soul searching" there.

End of episode 1.

p.s: Because the writer expects hostility from the protagonists (yeah yeah they are fictional all right, but you can never say who feels offended) he deems it best to present an episode wise account of the two friends rather than packing everything into a single post and getting mutilated for life. err...mutiliation in capsule format is not something that the writer is new to.