Zabraku

Now what’s that? Well it’s a name of an entrepreneurial venture started by one of my friends. A website designer was contacted and within no time there were 46 users. Well none of them knew why had they registered at all and majority was friends and friend of friends. My friends boasted of Zabraku as being the top search result as if there were million other things in the world with this weird name.

Well before every one of you googles “zabraku” please finish reading this. So one fine day some glitch occurred in the web page and the programmer was nowhere to be found. And so my friend himself night out-ed and learnt something about webpage designing. As a result, there was no place for users to log in. It was like; Come to the home page, stay for some time, realize that nothing further can be done, go back to your work. I sometimes try to imagine if such thing happened with google or yahoo. For the content of the webpage initially the idea was of video sharing by college students, then it moved on to “hot or not” and then many such things. Finally my friend realized that the bout of enthusiasm, during which the idea of zabraku popped up was all but over. And then we fulfilled the duty of being good friends by suggesting that it should be turned into a porn sharing site, with absolutely free service. We just didn’t want to see our friend upset. Also that he should keep his name anonymous and that the word should be spread to every hostel. A rumor had to be spread about the creator of the webpage.

The venture didn’t even start formally but it certainly fulfilled the duty of Corporate Social Responsibility, by bringing smiles and laughter to the faces of souls marred by grading and GPA’s. Hail Zabraku.

Better option

Anshuman had left for office. Sitting in her porch, relaxing after the morning frenzy, Sushma picked up the local hindi tabloid. Skimming through the front page her eyes fell on a column on front page. “गाँव के युवको ने किया चक्का जाम” it read. First line had the village name, which seemed familiar to her. A boy aged 11 from this village had met an accident 3-4 days back and he eventually died in the government hospital. Villagers cried foul over the lack of care shown by the doctors. The only thing which caught her attention was the village name. She stressed her memory and then it clicked to her that ammaji was from the same village. Ammaji, who previously worked at her parent’s place, had been around since childhood. After her marriage to Anshuman, they moved to this place and so did Ammaji, due to nearness of their house from the village. Sushma was more than glad, as it was never easy to find a good maid. She folded the paper and then looked at the clock. Still lot of time, she thought. Once Anshuman left for office, she would wait for ammaji to come so that her time would pass hearing to gossips and worries of ammaji. After cleaning jobs were over, ammaji would help her preparing lunch. Anshuman used to come home for lunch and so the preparation for lunch would generally start as it approached 12.

Ammaji was done with cleaning. She was sitting and chopping onions, unusually silent, indulged in herself. Sushma had waited for her to talk, but realizing that it was an odd day with ammaji she decided that she should start herself.

“Someone from village died?” asked Sushma
“Yes” answered ammaji
Why didn’t they take him to some good hospital?
Who would pay for it?
Were doctors really negligent, how did he die?
They didn’t even start the treatment, till crowd gathered and did hungama
This is really bad. Tabloids said he was hit by a truck
Yes
May god bless his family; tell me if they come for any help to you, I will try to help
Hmmm
It was already 2 now and Sushma was tired as well hungry. It seemed to be a hectic day in office for Anshuman. And the wait seemed impossible to her now.
“Ammaji what’s the matter with you, why are you not talking today”
“What should I talk?”
I said tell me if anyone from the family of deceased comes to you for help, I will try to help
They have been helped
Who helped them?
God
It was so irritating now.
What rubbish are you talking?
“I know what am I talking”, said ammaji. “The family was in huge debt, they are total of 6 in the family. Last year his father borrowed huge sum of money and the crops failed. Not a grain to eat. For some days villagers helped them but to what end? He came to find some small job in the city. Then he met this accident. From where would they bring money for all the treatment when they are out of ways to survive? And treatment for what, so that still there is someone to be fed. Finally God intervened. This was a better option than to die of hunger”

“Have you gone mad?” such words never ever came to her for ammaji. But then she was overwhelmed with the description because to her simple mind it just seemed so horrific. Doorbell rang. Anshuman had returned for lunch but Sushmita was not hungry at all.

This Holi.

This holi was special. It had “bhang”. And associated with it was the insanity of my mind. I should tell all my readers about the effect of bhang. It is the state of trance associated with bhang that is really beautiful. And this state of trance this is what happened. While coming back to my home, an idea popped into my mind. The idea was to pen down all the thoughts that my mind was generating. I told this idea to my friend. I told him how I want to write about it. As soon as I came back I put pen to paper and started noting down.
And so it started like this (each gap is representing an arrow).

Blog.................... How will I put it to paper................... Oh my hands are shaky.............. How will I express my idea............. I make a theory about how this story originated (now that’s really insane, anyways keep reading)........ He is getting bored ( me and my friend had decided to sit in my gallery and talk)................. Never mind he will laugh after reading the blog. Most of the time it happens that we get annoyed by our good friends without realizing that they are doing good to us in long run......... Oh shit , I lost 2 ideas............... Will I become a famous writer? I should write the names of all those friends who will feature in this blog............... Lets write. No I may hurt people.............. But lets make things clear…. Oh leave it .. Devil wins............. यार ये इंग्लिश बहुत गलत हो रही है, अगर तेजो जैसे लोगो ने पढ़ लिया तो खूब हसी उड़ेगी............... But its fine, above line must have made many of my friends laugh (who have some serious doubts about my English).................... Oh God, lemme remember all these thoughts, and even in hell I will make you laugh (poetic)..................

After this I gave up writing and started calling people so that they can remember all what I was thinking. Meanwhile I still felt one thing which I will share here. While I was writing my thoughts on paper I was, most of the time, thinking that how will I express them? Wont people laugh on me and all such sort of garbage. And then I came to realize that most of the time we are more concerned with this garbage rather than the pure thoughts which our mind is processing. It was so nice to realize the fact that at least in trance I was able to concentrate on all these thoughts which were insulated from all the external influences. There were many thoughts which came to that time and I felt that I should keep some of them to myself. Seldom my mind is so free to express itself.

P.S . All my friends should consider themselves lucky to have received call from me on that day. And those who didn’t receive just don’t feel bad about it, within 2 hrs of the start I was asleep.