the MIDDLE Path by Aniruddha Banhatti (howl and other poems TXT) 📖

totally forgot what it was. The only thing I remember about it is that it was a very good story. Great works of art are often lost to posterity because wives insist that hubbies take a bath before putting pen to paper.
Then came the poetic days. Everyday, I would give birth to 3¬-4 fine poems, not free-verse, mind you, but genuine poems with rhyme and meter and all the trimmings. Thus I am very creative when I am cycling to nowhere in my room. The only thing is no one knows about this creativity except me.
Today musing thus, I decided to put all this in words before it is washed away while taking bath, and the result, dear reader, is before you.
Wait, what do I hear? Oh, it's the wife shouting, and now I must go for my bath or there will be an earthquake.


Humor in T-Shirts


EARLY in the morning my favorite reading is T-shirt litera¬ture. To begin with we had clas¬sics, which being in Sanskrit, Latin or Greek, are all Greek to most of us. Have you ever tried to read Shakespeare? Do you mean to tell me that you can understand Shakespeare without referring to the notes? Here Shakespeare-lov¬ers may take issue with me, if taking issue is the correct phrase, but I want to make it clear that I have nothing against the bard. What I mean is the average Eng¬lish speaking person of the now generation won't understand the lucid prose, let alone appreciate it. Paul Simon for one was engrossed in reading the literature on the subway walls as we understand from the song 'the sound of sil¬ence'. Then there is the toilet literature at par with pornography, With T.V. and video nobody reads very much nowadays except sub¬titles and ads in the lower strip of the T.V. screen. The spoken lan¬guage seems better off these days than the written language. Long before the advent of T.V. and video, the printed word had invad¬ed the fabric of civilization. Thus coming back to my favorite reading, namely, T-shirt literature. ‘Normal is boring’ and ‘Let's pa—arty’ seem very tame. Before that I remember 'Caution on curves' stretched across the sumptuous belly of a middle-aged lady, was funny, but the same message stretched across the bootilicious booty of a booty-full girl took my breath away! But definitely the era of funny messag¬es is over. Previously we had an inkling to the wearer's personality from the messages they sported on their T-shirts like ‘Anything once', 'Eat, drink and be merry for - tomorrow you may diet,' 'Too hot to handle', 'If you can read this print then watch out for a slap' and the like. Now mostly we see some product or other advertised on the jogger’s chest. The place of funny messag¬es is taken by serious ones like 'Save the earth', 'Green Peace Warrior' and the like. As one humorist remarked, humor is becoming scarce in all 'walks' of life, so why should the 'jogs' of life be exceptions?

Musing thus, I was walking in the opposite direction of the joggers, reading their T-shirts, when a message flashed across the next T-shirt, 'Don't look for a joke here, the greatest joke is inside your own shirt!’

Now I have turned my attention to truck-literature!


Oh! Perfect peace!


LEO Tolstoy was a real genius –or was it Shakespeare? Anyway, what’s in a name?- Not because my thoughts coincide with his on the subject of relatives, but otherwise too!
I can almost imagine him when his mother-in-law must have left him after a prolonged visit. The great man must have been sitting in his armchair with his feet on the mantelpiece, lighting his pipe at two in the morning with con¬tentment after a night out on the tiles with his contemporary literary boys. At such a moment he must have uttered the famous line,
"Oh! Per¬fect peace, with the loved ones far away."
A week before, as I rang the door-bell after coming back from the office the door opened and there was the massive form of my mother-¬in-law blocking the door. It was rainy season. Without moving to let me in, she stood there staring at my shoes.
"Wipe your filthy, muddy shoes on the mat before coming in," she roared.
"I don't want any mud-stains on my drawing room carpet."
That was good. That. was rich. My drawmg room carpet, indeed! The carpet in question had set me back by the amount I had earmarked for a good stereo system, and now suddenly it was her carpet. Due to her stare my shoes and socks started emanating steam, and before her precious door¬mat would start burning, I wiped and wiped my shoes on it. When they were clean enough for her, she budged to let me enter the house.
From that day onwards I could not move a finger without starting her running commentary. My wife had already changed sides and after each commandment thundered at me as if I were deaf, started adding, "I always tell him so, mom, but he never listens." Et tu, my loved one, I said in my mind. Every morning the breakfast turned to ashes in my mouth. But even the longest road has a turning, and that day as I was taking the right turning from the bus-stop, with my head bowed down with the weight of woe, I bumped into Baldy, the shrink, or psychiatrist, as he prefers to• call himself. Baldy is my boyhood chum. Now he has become a psychiatrist and earns something sinful from the guilty rich who have amassed their riches by grinding the face of widow and orphan in the dust.
He was getting out of a bungalow and going towards his car parked on the opposite side of the road, and on the way I bumped into him.
"Oh! It is Banya!" he shouted in delight. "How nice to bump into you like this!"
Finding no corresponding response from me, he scrutinized my face. The haggard look, the black circles below the eyes, he saw it all.
"Come, come," he said, "Tell me all" So lea¬ning against his car bonnet, I told him all. He laughed lightly.
"I will tell you how to get rid of your mother-in-law," he said, and poured his scheme into my eager ears.
Next morning when my loved one put the plate of half-fried eggs and toast before me, before I even touched it, my mother-in-law boo¬med:
"Do not dip your toast in the yellow of the egg. I can't stand the spectacle. Eat like a gentleman. "
My wife added, "I always tell him so, mom, but he never listens. He even licks his fingers afterwar¬ds."
Then there was a loud crash. I had thrown the plate right on the wall, smashing a picture
of violet colored roses, which I never liked. My mother-in-law looked at me with her eyes protruding like a snail's. I hurled my chair back and towering over here, shouted:
"Don't look like that at me, or I will ..." and lift¬ing her tea cup scored a bull's eye on another picture frame.
Rest of the things happened as per Baldy's speculation. He was called. He examined me. He advised my mother-in-law and wife to leave. He said that I needed solitude for a few weeks. He promised to visit daily. Now my mother-in-law and wife have left. Baldy keeps his promise. Every evening he visits me and we remember the good old times over a drop of something.
Today, he has just left. It is nearing mid¬night. I sit here with my chair drawn near the window, put my feet on the sill, and heaving a continued sigh, say to myself,
"Oh! Perfect peace, with the loved ones far away!"


Only for men


AT the swimming tank we are the regulars. Myself and a few others. For years it has been a ritual, swimming in the same tank. The one with the curly hair got married last year. Only then I came to know that his name is Sandeep.
Otherwise we are the ‘strong and silent’ men. We take our showers, say hi-hello to each other, dive, surface, and resume our strokes earnestly.
That day Sandeep waited for all of us. When I finished swim¬ming and went to the shower cubicle, he was waiting for me with a forlorn expression. He waited patiently on a wooden bench while I hummed a popu¬lar tune amidst a shower. When I shook off the last swimming tank algae from my hair, he came for¬ward a little hesitantly and asked . my name.
When I replied, ‘Aniruddha’, he took an envelope from his bag, wrote ‘Aniruddha’ on it with-out even enquiring the surname and gave it to me.
“You see, I am getting mar¬ried”, he said sheepishly.
“Oh, it's all right,” I assured him, "Don't apologize. Me, I am al¬ready married."
"Oh", he seemed relieved, "Do come for the wedding. It is not during our swimming time."
Before the day of the marriage we 'strong and silent men' for the first time acknowledged each other's existence. We learnt each other's names.
We contributed generously for the wedding present. Thus, with Sandeep's marriage our friend-ship reached the second phase, i.e., we knew each other's names but not surnames.
It was a bit like Hindi films where people are known by their first names alone. At the marriage, Sandeep introduced us to his wife. "Raveena, these are my swimming tank friends, known to me for five years. Aniruddha, Mandar, Arun, Samar, Nikhil, Joseph, Mohammed and Hythem", he waved his hand In a broad gesture but I am quite sure that he knew not who was who.
After about a month, Sandeep again surfaced at the swimming tank. Everybody congratulated him but he was not to be cheered. He looked bowed down with the weight of woe, to borrow from Wodehouse. None of us thought it prudent to pry out his thorn. But after three tumultuous days, while washing himself in the shower cubicle next to mine, he came clean.
"Anlruddha", he said (he did remember my name), "My wife wants me to teach her swim¬ming. I asked her to learn from some female coach during lad¬ies hour, but no. She is jealous of this one hour alone at the tank I spend and she wants to inter¬fere with that, too. I love her, but will be the last not to admit that she's extremely possessive."
Being an experienced married man, I knew about these things. I rubbed myself with soap and bubbled with laughter.
“Oh! This is just a passing phase" I lectured. "There Is nothing to be afraid of. Bring her here. I guarantee you that she won't last more than a week. She will herself give up the idea."
"Do you really think so?" San¬deep groped for soap and asked me searchingly. "Of course", I said confidently.
For a week or so we somehow tolerated Sandeep giving swim¬ming lessons to his wife in the shallows. Then one day ,she ven¬tured into the deep end, sank, swallowed a liter or two of water and stopped coming from the next day. We heaved a combined sigh of relief and to this day we are a group of 'strong, silent men' who come to the tank regularly, nod to each other, dive, surface and start treading water ear¬nestly!


Pucca Puneri


WHEN I started living in Pune, I was a bachelor. So the first thing I liked about the city was the tea-shop epidemic. Out of my hostel room and on to