Remembered having scribbled this as a draft of an illustration/comic for an article in the magazine. I stumbled upon this after a long time. Its blogged here to do some justice to the fifteen minutes that I spent on it. [Click here to biggify]
The man followed the old geezer. The old man limped, probably from a bullet wound. It was hard to say, as most of his left leg was swathed in old bandages that looked like they hadn't been changed in years. They walked in silence. The path they trod did not seem oft visited. But it seemed that the old timer knew exactly where he was going. They kept good time regardless of his limping.
The man bowed his head and thought. It had been about two years ago that he had taken on this mission. His peers hadn’t wanted him to. They had more or less accepted that his captured partner would have been killed by now. And even if he wasn’t, the chances that he could be found, and if found, that he would still be sane were very slim at best. But the man couldn’t be persuaded against. He and his partner had always worked as a team. They were the best agents the company ever had. If there was any chance of rescuing the captive, he was their only shot.
The man had left no stone unturned. The capturers knew his comrade was very valuable. And his whereabouts had been kept very private. But years of doing what he did, finding people with information, and extracting it came as a second nature to him. But this time around though, it hadn’t been easy at all. He was one of the top in his line of work, and it had taken him this long to find this place.
He had found the old man in the smallish village at the foot of the small dense hillock, they were presently walking through. The old man was the only one who seemed to have some idea of where the building was, which through the fragments of information the man had obtained, was most probably where his friend was being held.
The old man turned sharply to the left and pushed through an overgrowth of vegetation, and in a clearing, hidden from the path, there was a creepy, medium sized building. It appeared self sufficient from the looks of it. There was a water pump, a generator, cut up wood. But it looked deserted and seemed out of use for months now.
Mostly by habit, the man circled the place once slowly. He found no signs of recent human activity anywhere around. He entered the building and quickly scanned all the rooms. It appeared there had been about three people, mostly guards.
This definitely felt like the right place.
He discovered the hidden door behind the wardrobe quite easily. He had noticed the faint scratch marks on the floor the moment he’d walked in. He shoved the wardrobe aside, picked the lock, and walked down the dark staircase that followed.
There was a very heavy iron door with a huge bar keeping it closed at the end. There was a small latched opening at the bottom which he assumed was for passing a tray of food and water.
He lifted the bar and pulled mightily at the door. It creaked and opened slowly. He stepped inside.
It was the gloomiest room he had ever seen. There was no source of light except a very small opening almost close to the ceiling. There were broken pieces of what might have been a table or a chair once. There were a few threadbare rags in a corner. The rough stone walls all around felt creepy and cold.
There were two things that drew his attention though. One was the faint blood stains on the floor and the wall. It seemed it had been hastily cleaned up after, but he knew where to look, and he found them without much difficulty. The other item of intrigue was a strange contraption that was made of pieces of wood and cloth. It was hanging from an out jutting in the stone wall. It looked like a pouch, with some sort of a lid.
He walked a couple of steps and looked inside it. It was empty save for some minute bread crumbs at the bottom. He shut the lid and looked around the stone walls once more, taking in everything. The he closed his eyes. He thought.
The pattern of the faint blood stains indicated a fight. A fight indicated that his partner had escaped, or at least tried to. But this was a perfect locked room mystery. There was only the iron door and no other points of entry or exit. This did not seem like a place of interrogation, and since it appeared that the prisoner was being held here the whole time, there was no need for any guard to enter the room. He opened his eyes. They rested on the pouch which was swinging back and forth gently
And then it hit him. He smiled for the first time in years.
He heard a sound and turned around and saw that the old man had followed him and was peering interestedly into the room.
The man asked the old geezer – ‘So, partner… what did you do for water?’
The old man gaped and stared at him wide eyed for a few seconds. Then he grinned hugely. He stood up straight and stretched his limbs. He took a cloth and rubbed his face clean. He cast his wig aside and ran a hand through his hair, grinning still. The change was astounding. No one would have believed that he had been a septuagenarian seconds ago.
He stared questioningly at the man, and shook his head in resignation when the man pointed in the direction of the faint blood stains.
‘And?’ he said.
‘And… this, here’- the man said, pointing to the pouch –‘There is no way that you would have been given so much bread every day, that you needed something of this sort to store it in. You ate only a part of the bread and stored the rest here for sometime, didn’t you? And when you had sufficient amount stored, you probably started eating less and less each day, and leaving the rest in the tray. And then, probably, you completely stopped eating the bread given to you. The guards then would have had to come in to investigate or throw your dead body out. That’s how you escaped, right?’
The look on his partner’s face confirmed his theory.
The man smiled again. ‘But water would not have lasted all that long. What did you do for that?’
His partner bent down and lifted a piece of broken wood, and went to the far side of the room, speaking as he went. ‘Knew I should have cleaned up the stains better, but I wanted to get out of this place pretty bad by then.’ He pushed the wood between two stones in the wall and slowly water began to flow along the length of the wood. ‘Slightly cracked a water pipe’, he said, cupping the water flowing in his hands. ‘Discovered it within the first month in this hole itself’
He turned around and faced the man- ‘By the way, how did you know it was me? I thought the disguise was perfect. Not one single guy in the whole village had the faintest idea.’
‘You can’t disguise a person’s eyes’, the man said.
‘... and also… you have been limping on the wrong leg ever since I met you, partner.’
Choose life. Choose a job. Choose a career. Choose a family. Choose a fucking big television, Choose washing machines, cars, compact disc players, and electrical tin openers. Choose good health, low cholesterol and dental insurance. Choose fixed- interest mortgage repayments. Choose a starter home. Choose your friends. Choose leisure wear and matching luggage. Choose a three piece suite on hire purchase in a range of fucking fabrics. Choose DIY and wondering who you are on a Sunday morning. Choose sitting on that couch watching mind-numbing sprit- crushing game shows, stuffing fucking junk food into your mouth. Choose rotting away at the end of it all, pishing you last in a miserable home, nothing more than an embarrassment to the selfish, fucked-up brats you have spawned to replace yourself. Choose your future. Choose life... But why would I want to do a thing like that?
The lines above are the reason this post came into existence. (But in that post.. there was nothing sarcastic.. only the idea of itemization of everyday things was borrowed)
By the way, I never knew there was a second half to the above thing.
So why did I do it? I could offer a million answers, all false. The truth is that I'm a bad person, but that's going to change, I'm going to change. This is the last of this sort of thing. I'm cleaning up and I'm moving on, going straight and choosing life. I'm looking forward to it already. I'm going to be just like you: the job, the family, the fucking big television, the washing machine, the car, the compact disc and electrical tin opener, good health, low cholesterol, dental insurance, mortgage, starter home, leisurewear, luggage, three-piece suite, DIY, game shows, junk food, children, walks in the park, nine to five, good at golf, washing the car, choice of sweaters, family Christmas, indexed pension, tax exemption, clearing the gutters, getting by, looking ahead, to the day you die.
If this was there in the original movie, I don't remember it at all. Just one of those things that are really huge to tweet. Random post. Real heavy lines though. Hail John Hodge.
After having seriously considered putting up a blank post tagged Life is still like that, for about 10 minutes, I thought since all the gchat status message space is being occupied these days... I would just put up random lines here that probably might have been put up there:
These follow no particular order. They make no particular sense too.
Been to Hyderabad. Attended cousin sister's wedding. Came back. That's about all that happened.
Read the Watchmen comics. The only non-manga comics till now. Liked them better than the movie. The movie wasn't that bad to be fair too.
Read Ender's Game. Best science fiction I have read till now. Though the only others I remember reading are Asimov's 'A Child of Time' and Arthur Clarke's '3001, The Final Odyssey'. I do remember reading a book about sci-fi short stories, but its too far into the past and all too vague.
Saw Harry Potter -and the Half Blood Prince in Inox, Forum. Liked Ron and Luna's acting. Liked the scene with the fire and Inferi in the end. The rest of the movie was trash. Re-reading the book to get over it.
One Piece and Bleach manga are reaching amazing heights these days. And if you in any way like anime or manga, I would really recommend that you start on these. Naruto Shippuden is not too bad too. But the first two over shadow this.
Been watching a lot of Joe Odagiri's movies. Yet to see one movie of his which was not downright brilliant. Saw Dream last. New respect for the dude.
Watched the second season of Black Lagoon. Hate that they stopped at that. It was really good.
Watched Trigun. Liked it better than Gun vs Sword, which is of the same genre.
Started watching Samurai Deeper Kyo. Seems better than Buso Renkin. But still don't feel it measures in any way up to most other anime series that I have seen
Read A Dangerous Fortune by Ken Follet. The last paper back I read. Again, since I mostly used to read bits of it on the bus, and it was not all in one sitting, it didn't feel all that great.
Have a Wilbur Smith(Wild Justice) and a Arthur Hailey (In High Places) now. Yet to start either. Miss reading books in one sitting.
Saw the trailer for Dexter 4. Hate that no decent serials restart in the near future.
Listening to Tool after a long time. Sounds good.
And from 11:10 pm to 11:17 pm these are the only things that came into the mind.
And there was a mail titled: "Evacuation Drill - Advance Notification" about a couple of days ago.
Since this has been about the most `happening' thing here for a while now; and since this usually involves some movement away from the well set route from the main building to the cubicle; and since it has been a long time since the last post and waiting for some divine inspiration seems like a waste of time; and since this is compilation time plus since this monitor is a CRT, and also since there is no decent room among the aisles to follow this advice... [The alt-text in the original strip reads: "'Are you stealing those LCDs?' 'Yeah, but I'm doing it while my code compiles.'"] ... I created a new virtual desktop, named it Arbits, invoked MS Word from Linux and started from - "And there was a mail...".
As the story goes, It was just another Thursday yesterday. For all practical purposes, it could have been a Tuesday, and none the wiser. This would be the direct result of all the working days mashing into one entity called the Weekday. And then there is the Weekend entity. And thus the week is constituted. I digress. For good reason though.
As stated, it was just another Thursday yesterday. It was the compilation time again. I had decided to use it to return a library book that I had borrowed. The only purpose the book had served, for about three months, was to add about 138 gms to my bag, but since I had got a much thicker Ken Follet novel - 'A Dangerous Fortune', after serious thought, decided to let this one go.
Along the way from the library, I met with a few people who were on the way to play table tennis, and I decided to go along. We went all the way there, through the drizzle that was falling from the heavens all around us, and just as we managed to find some rackets that could be remotely identified, from a few angles, as being used to play table tennis at some point of time in their lifetimes; this guard runs up to us and says that the centre needs to be closed down as there is a Fire Drill in the main building - which is a five minutes walk away. I go that place to play after more than a month, and I get shooed away because of the fear of a fake fire spreading to an unconnected building, two furlongs way, through the now steadily falling downpour.
The best part was when, moments before we were ushered out, another guard ran into the changing rooms, and together both guards started banging on the door of this dude who was having a bath inside. It's a pity that I couldn't stay to watch the person's expression, as he was kicked off half way through his shower.
I spent the evacuated time sitting near the parking lot, under a sheet roof, watching the rain fall on the parked cars, and waiting for some guard to call me off from there, as evacuation protocol dictates, in no unclear terms, that all personnel should gather only at the front of the building. Mostly, since they were all too busy fighting invisible flames, or pasting post-it notes, all of which were scribbled with the grim message "Evacuation - Fire Alarm. Do Not Enter" on everything that can be called as doors or windows, I was left undisturbed.
Anyway.. the story ends with the guys coming back to play fifteen minutes later, under one huge umbrella, and me joining them... But that would be tagged 'digression' again.
Guess this is enough build-up to copy paste the mail that I had sent to the new hire email group, about a year ago, after a very similar fire drill exercise. The compilation should be done in another few minutes anyway.
The mail follows: ________________________________________ Subject: Re: Rescue Operations - Part 2 From: "P N, Aniruddha" Date: Fri, 5 Dec 2008 21:29:47 +0530 To: [all new hires]
Things learned:
0. In case of a real fire - DO NOT use the stairs immediately. a. Sleepwalking snails cover the same distance in a shorter time period. b. It is just a stampede waiting to happen c. The fire alarms are really loud, and most of those seem to be concentrated near the stairs d. The surrounding people are good conductors of fire
So, this is what you do: Relax in your cubicle and think of a good status message along the lines of 'brb.. building in flames'; check the latest news; random xkcd, or whatever else makes you happy - till the smoke gets so thick that you can no longer see the monitor -
Then: 1. Take the lift. Feel real happy because for once at least you can look at something else except your shoes or your mobile 2. If 1 is not an option, get to the terrace and wait for a fireman with a makeshift ladder - it is way cooler to get down that way. 3. None of the above + no other creative ideas - like using ropes and imitating Tarzan, using Sharingan imitating Sasuke etc. + then give up, put on some music to shut out the sound of alarms, sigh and go to 0. [But by now a., b., and d. are taken care off - so it's a 75% better situation]
:P
Happy weekend ya'all,
Kampai, Aniruddha P N
Statutory Warning: All described actions to be carried out at your own risk
PS: I thought of putting a J at the end of the mail, but I figured a warning would serve a better purpose. ___________________________________________________________ In response to: ________________________________________ From: [undisclosed sender] Sent: Friday, December 05, 2008 4:39 AM To: [all new hires] Subject: Rescue Operations
Can some one summarize how many people got affected due to the emergency? How many got rescued with no injuries etc ________________________________________
This is the... And to all the people who took their time off to look at the blog, comment, criticize, correct, complain, compliment, discuss, debate, elaborate, feign interest, follow, LQTM'd, meh'd, LOL'ed at, snigger, praise, peruse, turn their nose up at, teach.. Thank you! Thank you very much!
This is what happened when I tried to login to my twitter account: Name this pic: I could only come up with: 1. Twitter : A whale of a problem 2. Twitter : Sleeping with the fishes 3. Twitter : Four moronic birds 4. Twitter : Fail Whale
Firefox usually updates automatically every time there is a new release. The only difference is the look of the home page this time around:Looks like it came right out of a sci-fi manga.
PS: The only difference from the other version, that I can see right away, is the 'Open a new tab' button on the opened-tabs bar has gone pale, compared to the bluish color previously. PPS: Everything else feels the same. PPPS: YAY! that its been raining cats and dogs for about two hours now.
PS: Found half of this list lying around... just added whatever else came to my head. PPS: The list doesn't include other famous titles like Dragon Ballz, Samurai Champloo, Cowboy Bepop, Inuyasha, Fate Stay Night, Full Metal Panic, Full Metal Alchemist: Part 2: The Brotherhood, Gintama, Seirei no Moribito, Code Geass, Detective School Q etc. 'coz I haven't seen enough of these to fit them into the list. PPPS: Got nothing good watch right now. Looking around for some decent anime (not necessarily from the list in PPS). Suggestions welcome.
The man knew this place like the back of his hand. He probably could sketch each rock, every tree, the anthills present here from memory. He trod the pathway unfeelingly today. Mechanically. Noticing nothing. His legs carried him without any conscious effort on his part.
He swayed a little as he walked. He gripped the bottle in his hand tighter. It had been a long time since he had been to this place. He stopped a moment and took a deep swig of liquor from the bottle.
Random scenes started floating in his memory. He started to walk without realizing again. He had always been lonely in his life. But he had never felt alone. It was only after he got married and had his first child, he had realized that his life had really been empty till then. He was happy for the first time in his life.
The scenes in his head ware clear and the images lifelike. He was holding and feeding his son while the toddler was gazing at the moon. He was holding his kid’s hand as he walked his first steps. He was blowing air into the wheels of the tricycle, as the child impatiently danced around him. He was teaching him the alphabet from a ridiculously huge chart. He was trying to explain division as repeated subtractions. He was correcting the loops in the ‘g’s and the ‘y’s in the boy’s cursive writing book. He was waving his son a bon voyage, as he left with his mother on a ship - a trip on the sea - which had always been the boy’s dream; using all the strength he could muster to keep his tears hidden. He could, as clear as day, hear his son’s choked voice assuring him that he would explain in detail every little thing that occurred on the trip. He could see his wife smiling, as she put an arm across their son’s shoulders. He was watching as the ship drifting away beyond the horizon.
The images became muddled and blurry then. It was like in a tragic movie fast forwarded. Headlines from various papers about the shipwreck. Delays in the search and rescue teams. Body counts. Missing people. His son and his wife among the feared dead list. Mourning and cries. His first drink. His tenth. His hundredth…
The cold sea breeze hit him then. That broke the images and brought him to the present like magic. He stared into the calm sea for a while. His mind was surprisingly clear for the first time from a long time now. He had always loved this beach. He had fallen in love with this place about the same age that his son had. The family used to come here as often as they could. This was a secluded and an unheard of place. It always felt peaceful here. He felt that he belonged again. The raising and falling of the waves calmed him. He stood there for a long time. He slowly began to feel that he could heal. That, at last, he could accept that his family was gone.
By force of habit, he raised the bottle to his mouth. The moment the liquid touched his lips, he felt disgusted with himself. His child would not want to see his father like this. No one would. He had let his sadness ruin his life long enough. He ran a few steps on the sand and threw the bottle as far as he could into the sea.
He felt strangely light. He took a huge breath and exhaled slowly. He could feel the pain of his loss start to ebb away slowly. He sat down on the beach and looked at the reflection of the moon on the waves in the distance transfixed. The waves lapped at his feet every now and then. He felt that he was a part of nature.
After a long time he decided to leave. He would change everything. The beach had done him a world of good. But there were just too many memories here. He decided that he would go to a far off place and start a new and sober life all over again.
He stood up and turned around. The bottle lay in his way again. The sight of it somehow made him angry. He picked it up, all set to throw it into the sea again.
But this bottle felt different. It felt slightly old. He looked at it. It was opaque, dark and corked. It was not the same bottle that he had thrown away. He pulled the cork off, and realized that it had a letter within.
The moonlight was not really bright. But the man didn’t really need anything more. He did not even need to read till the end of the letter.
It started – ‘To Daddy…’.
He could recognize the loop of the letter y in his sleep.
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