Torture RACk

I’ll never leave my travel unplanned till all hell freezes around my a***
I’ll never leave my travel unplanned till all hell freezes around my a***
I’ll never leave my travel unplanned till all hell freezes around my a***
I’ll never leave my travel unplanned till all hell freezes around my a***
I’ll never leave my travel unplanned till all hell freezes around my a***
I’ll never leave my travel unplanned till all hell freezes around my a***
I’ll never leave my travel unplanned till all hell freezes around my a***
I’ll never leave my travel unplanned till all hell freezes around my a***
I’ll never leave my travel unplanned till all hell freezes around my a***
I’ll never leave my travel unplanned till all hell freezes around my a***
No I didn’t copy paste that. I deserve typing down every letter of that self induced punishment. It started off pretty innocuously. Just another train trip. Usually it’s from Coimbatore to Chennai but this time it was to Bangalore. Same distance, night train, fair enough. Little did I know what RAC was gonna throw at me. I’ve had one bad experience of travelling in trains that reach Coimbatore after travelling thru ‘ God’s Own Country ’. If that was er... interesting then this was friggin mad. RAC’s a bloody torture RACk!
I tell my Dad late that my travel will have to be postponed by a day. Tickets: unavailable of course! Strike one.
I’m RAC number 13 on Island Express. 4 weeks of nerve-wracking wait later Didi’s department confirms my ticket. S9/16.
Now, 16, what does that mean? Side upper. What does that mean to a 6’1” guy? Friggin pain in the a***. And knee and neck and ankle as I’m starting to learn slowly. Strike two.
Thanks to Nitish and Laloo over the last 10 years, my train arrives on time! I get in and what do I find in S9/16? Sleeping-like-a-log incarnate of Swami Ayyappa on his way to God-Knows-Where in Karnataka from Shabarimala.
Swami, that’s my berth.
Show me your ticket.
Here. it’s S9/16. Get off my berth.
The roughneck in Dad, whose eruption times I’m yet to decipher after 21 long years, gets all aggressive and noisy outta nowhere.
Dad, wait! Let him get off!
Swami descends from S9/Shabarimala slowly. Outta thin air, more Swamis emerge to surround the TTR who has arrived as well. The black shirts, ear-wax-like stink and hair like the strands on a mopper used to clean Shabarimala, I could identify them by the little islands they had formed for themselves on the floor of island Express. Apparently, none of them had bothered to bother Didi’s reservation Dept. before boarding the train. After all, God has His privileges. And so do His minions. One of them proceeds to try n slip a Rs. 50 note into the TTR’s hands.
50? Fifty bucks?? Has God driven you that insane mate?? This guy’s a TTR! The guy who cleans the drain in front of my place takes more than 50 bucks!
Quite unsurprisingly, the TTR boots them out n finally summit S9/16 is mine. But Swami won’t take his things off my berth. He wants more time to go find some place where he can form an island for himself. I’ve already talked to the guy in S9/15 to swap berths with me so that I can avoid the misery of spending the whole night shifting around in the elf-sized berth. The guy looked like a Goblin so 16 was perfect for him.
Now things get nasty. All the Swamis converge on the TTR and ask him for berths. He tries - first diplomatically and then literally – to ask them to f*** off. The Swamis decide that any train from God’s Own Country is their own (They’re God’s minions, see?) and presto! Within 5 minutes, S9 has about 15 Swami islands impeding one and all from moving. Strike Three.
Mr. Benevolent Goblin and Your’s Truly are the only guys awake apart from the Swamis and the thoroughly frustrated TTR. Swamis start ranting about the TTR to us
Third Class TTR... 300 rupees vaangeeetu vezhiya poga solludhu... No one responsibility (Say what???)... [Some tosh in a language I can’t understand]... I have ticket sir... [More tosh in that language I can’t understand]...
Awright, my summit may be pint-sized but it was safe, so thanks Mr. Goblin but I guess I’ll prefer a sleepless miserable night over a watch-over-my-a***-every-other-minute miserable night. So up I go. After all the drama, S9/16 it is.
16! What is it with me and 16! Screwin around with my head ever since coll!
I so hoped the night was over. Then we reached Erode. What’s it with this li’l town? Is it the people or a Tom Roddle like jinx that keeps it’s fetish for trouble so fresh and insatiable?
TTR arrives and decides enough is enough. Yeah, this guy is the exception that proves that rule that every Govt. employee is shite.
Call the RPF. Get out now or I’m getting ur a*** whipped by RPF. Get up all of u! Off to unreserved! Now!!
No divine intervention struck down the TTR as His minions marched off to the Unreserved compartment. Enough... was finally enough!
I got back to my cramped berth and aforementioned sleepless, miserable night.
So why am I going on and on about it? I’ve got 72 more minutes to waste before GoAir takes pity on me and opens the check-in counter. And BIAL’s been benevolent enough to provide me with free internet. But the main reason...? What the hell I’m just plain jobless! :D

Second Coming: Chapter 1

Chapter 1

It was just another day. Sunlight on his bed was where it should be at 8 in the morning. The usual sounds, a cacophony of morning news shows, devotional songs and cooker whistles. The usual people, mothers running behind their children and getting them ready for school, the retired school teacher hidden behind The Hindu in the portico of the house opposite his, men and women returning home from their morning walk or a game of badminton. The same Bru filter coffee with sugar just a bit less than what would make it sweet. His companions: well pressed formals and his brief case. Dosa and sambar for breakfast as it was on 5 days every week. His Honda Activa from home to work as on all but one day a week. Same faceless strangers on the way and the traffic signal. It was just another day.

Senthil Kumar was a good man. He worked as an accountant in a good company, earned well, took care of his family and was a model citizen where ever he went. People liked him and respected him. He had his principles and had lived by them thru his none too flashy but content life. He paid his taxes and voted regularly though he refrained from all sorts of politics even in his neighbourhood. He was the kind of person who would be revered when present and forgotten the moment he left.

For Senthil, it was just another day as he eased his Activa into the parking lot and stopped at his usual parking spot. This was one daily activity that always gave him the jitters. In spite of complaining time and again, his company had not built a parking area for employees. They had to use the public parking lot two blocks away. Like any public place in this part of the city, one could see local vetti pasanga (as all ‘decent’ people called the young men who did nothing all day) hanging around with their gangs. Senthil hated these wastrels religiously. According to him, the World would be a much better – and cleaner – place if people like them didn’t exist. Every time he saw them, he felt his personal little World threatened just by their existence. This opinion of his wasn’t helped by the fact that he had to walk past them twice a day to get to his vehicle. He would hold his breath and onto his brief case, look straight ahead and walk past them as if they didn’t exist.

* * *

The engine coughed, jerked twice and then gave in, dead. Senthil was not a man given to swearing, he simply called on God’s name whenever he faced a situation that would make others swear their guts out. This was one such situation. It was 6:45 PM, the Sun had gone down and the last rays of light were vanishing by the minute and it was time for him to go home to his wife and kids. And just as he reached the entrance of the parking lot, the engine coughed, jerked twice and then gave in, dead. Right in front of the vetti pasanga gang. Senthil froze. For a few seconds, he couldn’t get his hands off the handle bar. It was the kind of situation he had prayed to avoid and now he was right in the middle of one. He could sense half a dozen pairs of eyes on him and felt a cold shiver in the small of his back. He felt like a goat trapped in a den of wolves.

He tried the auto-start button a couple times, nothing. Wondering why Shiva would put this obscene obstacle in His devotee’s way, Senthil got off his Activa and tried the kicker. Nothing. He could sense the walls of the parking lot closing in around him. The middle-aged man that he was, Senthil knew he would never be able to push his scooter up the ramp and on to the street. All he could do was stand there, hoping for a divine intervention to get his scooter started.

Senthil felt rather than see the young man behind him. He braced himself for a knife slitting through his kidney. Or a kick to his knee that would make him fall down and make his Activa go hurtling down the ramp. The eventual mugging, kicking and bloodshed played out as a horror movie in Senthil’s eyes. Dear God! Please let it not be the case! I can’t pay the hospital bills if they hurt me and take my money. I can’t stay away from work for more than a week without getting fired. Please Shiva! Save me! Don’t throw me on a hospital bed! I have to take my son to tuitions every morning! I can’t get hurt now at any cost! Senthil was not a man given to violence, so letting go of his vehicle, turning around and sinking his left fist into the rough neck’s face never occurred to him. He braced himself and waited for the worst to strike...

Second Coming

Presenting my latest ongoing joblessness: short story/novel/piece-of-crap 'Second Coming'.
It's my first ever 'official' work so rough edges galore. I'll be putting up the chapters as soon as I'm done with them. Your comments will, needless to say, improve the quality of every upcoming chapter. Thanks in advance. Happy Reading! - Arunaldo

More Lunacy Of Not So Long Ago

I dunno what to tell you...
But stuck to my mind are you, like glue!
What to do? I ain't got a clue,
But thick and fast do your thought accrue...
And big time am I feeling the blue,
But it ain't Swine flue,
It's just you :)

This is going to hurt just a little bit :) Why Arun??

He knew exactly what she wanted. Though she looked frightened every time he took out his little brother, he knew she had been waiting for it with a mix of anxiousness and expectancy all these days. He had been waiting for it too, like he did with all the ‘customers’ who visited him. He simply had to make them feel better, it was his profession and he loved every moment of it though he made some customers wait. But tonight, the waiting would bear fruit and climax in shrieks, sobs and liquids.

He had known her for some time now. They lived in the same area and his place was a particularly famous one. He had seen her throw anxious glances at his sign board and he’d flashed one of his trademark inviting smiles at her. He knew she was curious to know what happened inside the closed rooms; for a girl of her age, she must’ve fantasized about the instruments he would be having for ‘special’ customers. Perhaps, she wanted him to use them on her too, he wondered.

She was, by general consensus, a careful girl, not given to mindless activities. She had seen his ‘office’ quite a few times from the outside. Once her Mom had caught her staring at it and she had received a sound telling off from her, “Be a good and girl, and you’ll never go there!” She had crossed herself and moved on. Only till she heard about him from one of his more ‘loyal’ customers.

She could see it was not good for her but inside her an insatiable desire to explore his office had taken centre stage. From what she had heard, there was none better than him to help her explore.

That evening, he knew she was hers. She was there waiting outside his ‘working’ room, waiting for him to call her in. He wondered what she would think of his working room consisting of a small table, a rack for ‘instruments’ and a bed.

She sat there anxiously, waiting for the kring-kring of the bell that would summon her in. She was so nervous that she had chewed off all her finger nails; she was clutching the side of her chair so tightly that her fingers had gone numb. Deep down inside her, a voice whispered that he would take care of all that tonight.

Finally he called her in. She wouldn’t look up at his face. Was it starting blues or a sign of things to come? He started off slowly, ‘exploring’ her eyes, mouth, wrists and working his way to her breasts with his ‘instruments’; she was delicate, quite evidently a first timer. He instinctively knew what she wanted. And he was only too glad to oblige. He took off her pants, turned her around and made her lie on her stomach. Her face was sunk into the pillow, hiding a thousand emotions that if seen would make him a very satisfied man. His most ‘favourite’ instrument was loaded and ready to ‘explore’ her interiors. He leant closer to her and whispered, “Hang on honey, this is going to hurt just a little bit”. The time had come for the final act.

He was a skilled physician, he knew the exact spot. He inserted his syringe into the vein in the 6-year old kid’s buttock and as she let out a single shriek of pain, he was done; the liquid interchange was over and both of them climaxed in one’s screams.