My Travelling Home

I like to imagine I own a truck which I drive in search of stories and adventures. Sometimes I let the truck take me places, as it has a compass hidden away somewhere in its recesses, whose needle points unfailingly in the direction of new adventures. The truck is my travelling home.

Since this is still my imagination being whimsical, why don't I tell you how I collect stories and memories? Cork-stoppered bottles are the only homes for stories, scents and memories outside of our heads. Dangling from my truck is one bottle of contagious laughs, two round-bottom flasks of tales from far off places, one perpetually rattling bottle of interesting conversations and some others of sounds, scents(Read about how to stash away scents here) and colours of skies that I always want to remember. A butterfly net is all you need to catch them.


At some point, I found that the truck started brimming with its own stories. I suspected that they were the ones that made the whole truck smell of ripe mangoes one day and damp earth on another- both scents I had not collected.

If you ever bump into a story wafting around in the truck, you would- depending on what story it was- feel a rush of adrenalin, a burst of wonder, an oozing feeling of peace, a whoosh of contentment. And if you close your eyes when this happens, the story would come to life in your head. It's a good thing the truck lazily drifts in whichever way it deems best when I dive into a story.

I don't know why there is hay in the back of the truck. I wondered about it when I first came to own the truck and even prodded and felt around it, but didn't get to the bottom of what it was doing there. I first thought it was the truck's way of trying to fit in with the other trucks, but quickly dispensed of this thought. The truck thrived in its eccentricity. So I just let the hay be and burrow under it sometimes to go to sleep.

I also discovered the truck has quite the repertoire of honks which it uses on unsuspecting strangers: A thunderous sneeze, a guffaw, a flushing toilet, a squeak, a gulp, a shriek that would make anyone jump a foot, a rumbling gurgle.

If you ever see my truck on the road dear Reader, do stick your thumb out. There is nothing more that my truck and I like than having company with whom to share our stories with.

Let's Fall in Love!

A little squirrel took charge of things and told her friends that they should all be falling in love. She had heard the most wonderful song about it and decided it was something wonderful and that it was about time someone did something about falling in it. Love, that is.

So she marched up and down and tried hatching a plan. The other squirrels were not entirely sure about all this and chewed nervously on a nut while their little friend marched around. They asked each other if they knew what exactly love was and why they would have to fall in to it.
The little squirrel tried explaining, but her head was too full of the song and all she could manage was some energetic foot tapping and a little rump shaking. It was something she just knew.

"You have to let your hearts discover," she told her friends importantly. She hummed a few verses of the song she heard while they looked at each other, puzzled.

The plan began to flourish with many haphazard elements such as moonlight dances and proclaiming one's love from tree tops and it was decided that the grand culmination would be a search for the finest cashew nuts which would be eaten with contentment on a branch of a chikoo tree. All that was missing was the object of her and her friends' affection. This was soon remedied. A young and eager koyal who sang from the tree the squirrels lived in was made to stand in as the romeo.

That evening a gaggle of uncertain squirrels led by the amorous little squirrel fell in love with a koyal who was quite aflutter with all the attention.
"Because our hearts are made of it," the little squirrel told the others afterwards.

(Have you heard Let's Fall in Love by Frank Sinatra?)

Second Summers.

October Heat arrived flustered, a weak too early with a worn out road map and a disheveled hat,  made himself comfortable in a patch of sunlight and looked at Badam trees which were a beautiful flaming red, while noses sniffed in the hope of catching the scent of the October monsoon.

Finger's Wrought Iron Resolve

A long Finger quivered with a repressed urge. It straightened itself out, drummed itself on an ebony table restlessly and then sat motionless. Suddenly, it jerked up and ran, insofar as a finger can run, in a tight circle. This helped. It seemed to heave a big sigh of relief.
A few seconds passed innocently.
The Finger seemed to be swaying. A nervous hum escaped it. This hum slowly developed a nervous overture, a few jittery verses, an interlude, a refrain and a swelling climax. There was no one to applaud it's musical prowess, but the Finger wasn't affected by such trivialities. It was fixed, it had to admit to itself, unwavering on one pressing need which it knew it must not succumb to. It must not. It told itself so sternly.It thought waggling itself admonishingly might be a nice touch, but it couldn't really waggle itself at itself. The Finger flicked at a speck of dust irritatedly. It darted a sideways peek behind it and felt a thrill.
The Finger decided to make a plan. This only took one snickering second.
It turned around, extended itself and...
It was tickling a foot!
The Finger was ebullient. Why had not it done this before?
The foot, however, belonged to Time. It has been advised that it is not wise to tickle the feet of Time, however alluring it might be. This advice, buried under several cushions in the Finger's conscience, might have been what was causing it such agony.
It is not an advertised fact that Time is ticklish. Fingers that had ventured to a tummy or a knee(there are several) of Time always found they had a little too much time on their hands, time which sniggered out of shutters and chuckled out from patchwork rugs. No one had ever dared to tickle Time's feet before.
What happened was this - Time wriggled and bucked and guffawed and roared with delightful laughter and suddenly, there were little bubbles of seconds and hours and minutes, all congealed together and floating about the world. They settled on noses and creeped in-between clams and nestled next to cocoons. And one drifted into a particularly ancient cloud to form a castle in the air.