Anish Nadh’s Blog

It was her maiden concert! Thermal and a Quarter live at Palace Grounds. Everyone were raving about this band! The front man Bruce Lee Mani on guitars and vocals, Rajeev on drums, Leslie on bass and Tony on a guitars. Her boyfriend knew every one!  She tagged along, it was his favourite band. She never really listened to this band or indie music, grew up listening to the South Indian film music that her dad played on a Sony tape recorder. She felt a little out of place. She would’ve preferred a good Ilayaraja or Rahman number. As the band started playing, the distorted guitar and drums gave her a headache! She looked around to see everyone grooving to the music. She tapped her feet and nodded along to fit in, catching the boyfriend’s eye. He smiled at her, mouthing the song Bruce was belting; “ Paper puli ” nudging her to sing the hook. She smiled, looking at him enjoying the show.  She was now getting tired, hungry and her legs were giving up. She whispered in his ear, “Let’s go get s

Satan challenges a guitarist to play a piece of music on paper, failing which, he will take his soul. The guitarist, glances at the sheet of paper and finds it too easy to play. He takes the music sheet, puts it on a table and starts playing.  A string breaks, cutting his finger, mid performance. He bleeds and a drop falls on this sheet, and immediately it transforms into a music note on paper. Now the guitarist has more notes to play. The sheet absorbs another drop, and the music gets more difficult, also thanks to a missing string. Guess what! things gets worse, another string breaks, and another one, and  the notes keep increasing. The guitarist is so good, he’s able to read and play the music even with the broken strings.  Finally the sheet music comes to an end, to his relief, and the guitarist gives a satisfying grin, but one final drop falls on the paper and transforms into a “repeat” sign. And Satan goes “ now play again”. I vividly remember this scene, but I’m not sure if I sa

It was an old well. He was told that his grandfather had dug it up all by himself, who also had a way to find the underground water source by balancing a coconut in the palm of his hands.  Now the well had all sorts of green moss in it, with ferns growing on the sides. The sides were coming off but were reenforced with some iron rods and cement. The pulley, pail and rope used to draw water was replaced with an electric motor that pumped water to an over head tank installed on the roof of his house.  He thanked the almighty for his grandfather’s ancient wisdom and hard work on the well that had quenched the thirst of many generations and even the generations in the neighborhood! 

He was always fascinated by fire. He learnt how to light a matchstick when he was just about three. He drew the matchbox shelf, picked up a matchstick stick and gently scraped on the side of the box with the bulb side of the stick that had the chemicals. Playing with fire was banned.  He skipped a heart beat as the sparks sparkled at the top of the stick. He was afraid but felt accomplished.  There were stacks of dried coconut palm leaves, criss crossed to make thatched roof, grandma’s side hustle. There he was with his match stick. A small spark, lit up in flames! He didn’t worry about the beating he would get later! He was just fascinated and bathed in the heat that emitted from the inferno.  He lights cigarettes now. He does not use the fancy lighters filled with gas. He still uses his matchbox and keeps one close to his heart. 

A sense of worry slipped into his mind as he cut another banana tree to harvest bananas. Both his sons were at loggerheads with each other. He was 63 years old and he didn’t know if he would have the strength to carry on taking care of the farm.  The elder one had a drinking problem. The younger one always wanted money to trade bikes and phones. They listened to him, he listened to them too, but the sons couldn’t stand each other.  He chopped another tree down, careful to cut just enough so the stem would just fold in the middle and the raw fruit won’t land on the ground and get bruised. The harvest was great this year. No wind or rain could destroy the young plants. It survived to bear fruits. Nor did they fight each other. He separated the banana bunch from the tree and called it another good day! 

Old Mathai turned around and looked at the house he had built one last time. He did not like living there anymore. They always shouted at him and tried to change him, he knew he was a being a burden to them.  He had packed his old suitcase, which he received as a compliment when he purchased gold for his daughter’s wedding. He packed one mundu, two white shirts, his penknife, his glasses, a torch, a tin of talcum powder and his old leather Bible. He also powdered his neck, tied a handkerchief around it, put on his shirt and mundu, slipped into his almost worn out sandals. This was his style. The add on was an umbrella he purchased for this purpose.  It had a “J”  handle that doubled as his walking stick.  He paced slowly through the dusty road, felt the heat from the sun. He opened his umbrella, which was his only shelter now and walked towards an unknown destination.

 Joseph picked the phone, and murmured a no so confident “hello”. He listened intently and then raised his voice! “What do you mean you fell out of love?” There was some explanation given from  the other end.  He smashed his phone as hard as he could on the marble floor with the same intensity he had used to break the coconut at the temple. All he was left with were some broken coconuts, a broken phone and a broken heart. 

Jessie was shocked to read the court notice stuck on door of the house, she had just inherited it from her granny.  The house was being forfeited due to non-payment of the loan used for her granny’s geriatric care. She was both sad and angry at the same time, to walk into a space where she had made a lot of memories, only to find out she had a week to pay thirty lakhs to keep the house and the property it was on,  The house was old, it had red oxide used for flooring, the thatched roof was replaced with the tiles only a few years ago. It even had a wooden attic, used for storing coconuts and doubled as a false ceiling to cover up the roof.  She came back the next day with Roshan, and wanted to show him around. They explored the house, the veranda,  place where her grandfather sat for tea and paper, the living room where an old broken radio was kept, bedrooms, the kitchen that even had the stone grinders her mother had used. The house  was infested with spiders, ants and all the crawlie

The guests were coming and Suni assumed the task of catching and killing the rooster. He had years of experience catching them, and a knack of pinning their head down with his toes and separating the head from the body using his trusty old foldable pen-knife. The knife’s handle was carved from deer antlers which made it a very rare possession. It was worn out with heavy usage but was kept very sharp. He used it for everything almost, from trimming his nails, to sharpening pencils for his kids, to making brooms from coconut palm leaves, to opening beer bottles and beetle nuts, yes everything! It was his extended arm.  The rooster was a tough catch, oldest and the biggest one from the pen, the Giriraja breed. He held the feet of the struggling rooster together, with his strong hand and reached for his pen-knife with the other, tucked in his lungi. He bit the blunt side of the folded blade to open the knife, lowered the struggling rooster to the ground, stepped gently on the head with his

She did not look too happy with the person staring back at her. The first thing she did was to wipe the glass, it did not help.  She grabbed her phone, opened Snapchat, noticed her overgrown eyebrows and the thin line of moustache under her nose, thanks to the pandemic and closed parlours.  She searched through the filters and found one she liked called “pink rabbit”. The filter gave her pink bunny ears, lipstick, a cute pink heart-shaped bunny nose and sparkles. She tilted her head, drew a pout and clicked a picture. Satisfied; saved a copy and sent it to Dheeraj. 

He noticed her in the audience! Was that her? Yes it was! She looked different, better than she ever did! He lost his presence and played a wrong chord that invited unpleasant stares from the vocalist who almost screeched out of pitch. The drummer didn’t seem to notice any of this but the bass guitarist was hiding a smirk.  He looked for her again in the audience but, couldn’t find her. Where did she go? Is she grabbing a drink? Is she with someone else? It was so difficult to focus now, and BAM!!!, went another wrong note. He gathered himself to compose his thoughts, closed his eyes, focused deep and connected with the music, and said to himself “The music and I are One” when her face appeared to him, she had one of her playful eyes that said I want you… when the vocalist asked the band to stop; “Cut it guys”  he grabbed the microphone and announced to the crowd  “This was our last song and we are looking for a new guitarist” 

 It was 12:00 noon. He checked his watch again, as though something was wrong with it. He paced through the pavement, back and forth. Restless. His fears were coming true! He began to break a sweat, it trickled through his side burns. He felt it draw a line on his face. He checked his watch once again. He bit his lips hard! He pulled out his phone, opened the app, looked at her picture one last time, went to the settings and hit ‘delete’.