28.04.2009.

I was born with... and strength of character.

I have become a man with strength of character…. in my ability today to overcome resentment against others…. to try and understand my anger or grief notwithstanding…. to have a kind eye while recognizing defects and see beyond them.

22.04.2009.

Post Script :

Nimo insists that though his last post bears resemblance to facts, it however shouldn’t be taken as an index into his emotional premises.

Nimo only publishes comments that his whims wish to publish. His whims are born exclusively off his crotchets.

Nimo is not answerable for his actions within the Nautilus Chronicles and selectively without.

Nimo is Euclidean Space.

Nimo is not mortal dust…. has no mathematical formula…. therefore can have no derived values…. is made of no physical mass or particular dimensions…. thus has no unit…. contains no chemical properties.

Nimo is a ratio.  

 

18.04.2009.

Lilac,

 

Love is watching your childish glee when eating the cherry from my ice-cream…. and your call five minutes before mid-night to remind me to wish you Happy Birthday…. carrying you on me back across a mile of sea beach ‘cuz you are afraid of the crabs…. or when gently nudged out of slumber when you would curl up against me….then lying awake watching your silhouette…. bathed in tender shadows of repose…. love is finding your hairs in my pullovers…. your scent on me t-shirts…. or watching the glow of afternoon sunrays melt all over you.… my weakness at welled up tears…. tip over & roll down your cheeks…. waiting at a railway platform and then spotting you amidst the swarm…. love is plaiting your hair…. talc you to sleep…. the numbing pins & needles in my legs from hours of awkward posture cause you were fast asleep….

 

and I can no longer write……

 

Con amore,

 

Jai

 

Here I was….. writing yet another page of my journal. What are these seeping crisscross of futile clawing on my soul?  I say journal because my ‘Nautilus Chronicles’ is not really a blog in the sense of blogs. I want to scream. Not many read the ‘Nautilus Chronicles’ and I like it that way. So far I know only one who has read it the way I urge those who wish to read it. I am a carnival of rust. None.…. not even a single entry is random….. awkward punctuation marks are not chance….. inept spelling mistakes aren’t mistakes….. each tale is a yarn weaved as knit of my legacy.  I want to be drenched in the summer rain. I deleted what could have been one of my best literary efforts ever. I realize I must not….  The letter and the deleted pages were supposed to make a contrast. To hell with contrast. Why do I write in a public forum? Because mischief is my aptitude….. delight even…. I’ve always pondered why invariably the key is always hidden. What if the lock was sent into hiding? I will leave the letter untouched and leave the deleted pages from Somalia untold…. How many nights must I still exist before I’m born?  How else must I die before I believe I died? Make no mistake….. this isn’t the hour of the defeated…..  Requiem.

 

I don’t make sense.

 

I wish I could loose my sanity…. Then I wouldn’t have to care about making sense.

16.04.2009.

 

I am often pulled up for my sarcasm. And I often have pondered why an overwhelming majority overlook the sense of humour and latch on to my sarcasm alone. Here below is a letter I wrote to the Vice President HR of an establishment I once worked for.

 

 

Dear Mr. ******,

My name is J****** M*****. I was once upon a time ages and ages hence a **** employee. I served the company honestly and dutifully from ******* **** to ******* **** and then left to rejoin the merchant navy. Since then I have tried in vain to retrieve my Provident Fund from your establishment.

I hope you remember that I spoke to you over the phone, after being directed to you by the Vice President HR from your *********** office sometime in October 2008. I then personally drove 35 kilometers (one way only) to your office in T**********, R******* to meet you and Mr. ***** ****** to fill up my PF Forms for the fourth time (only). The explanation I then received for a more than two year delay was that my form was first inadvertently overlooked at the time of my resignation, then it was once lost (second time & I was never informed), subsequently (3rd instance) it was submitted to the PF Department without a receipt by your sub-agents and as a result the PF Department (as informed to me, by you) latter claimed they never received it. I hope you also remember your assurance that your department was then (and hopefully still now) being run more professionally with a greater degree of competence compared to the time when my doomed Provident Fund Forms were besieged by misfortune.

Although I have had already explained it to the lady (VP HR) I spoke to in the *********** office and then to you and to Mr. ***** ******, let me reiterate - I do not live in India any more & my picayune fortunes do not permit me to fly to India frequently to sign Provident Fund Forms. I was on vacation in October and you assured me that this time if I dissipate a portion of the precious time with my family & take the pain to drive to your office and duly fill the forms, you will ensure that they are followed up / submitted properly and obtain a receipt. I must concede, that you did and Mr. ***** ****** did email me a copy of the receipt and also mailed the hardcopy to my residential address in Kolkata / India. 

But alas! The windmills of the clerical gods turn not in my favour. After a considerable period of time (I restrain myself from counting days & months) I have now received a letter from the Provident Fund Department stating that my Provident Fund could not be released as I quote - "THE AUTHORISED OFFICIAL OF THE ESTABLISHMENT NOT ATTESTED THE CLAIM"

My relative in Kolkata has kindly scanned and sent the documents to me. Attached please find the same for your kind perusal.

Let me assure you I am not upset. I am not angry either or agitated even. Are you wondering why not? For the sake of my General Physician. He is a genial old Welshman & would be shocked to find seismic fluctuations in my otherwise perfect BP. Despite feeling weak, helpless & enervated, in spite of cowering infront of this insurmountable obstacle of incompetence and apathy I still manage to have faith. However I do shiver to think what would have become of me if I retired from **** as a feeble old man and had to run to so many pillars and posts to retrieve my Provident Fund.

In the mean time I assure you I am in good health and not old and feeble, thus if you could kindly point me to the right direction of the right pillar and post, I pledge, not only to run to them but I will put any possible Herculean effort to move those pillars and posts to retrieve my paltry sum. I had logged every call made to your office and the references, dates and names of persons I spoke to. Though I am in the UK now and do not have them here, if you need I can have them scanned and sent over to humbly serve as 'Aide Memoire'. 

Please do try to forgive me for my obvious sarcasm. I couldn't help but use humour to pacify my dismay at this inescapable tragedy. It is not directed at you in person. Please understand it is not the money which bothers me so. It is the lack of empathy for ex-employees, apparent absence of a sense of responsibility and I shall not go to the extent of questioning competence.

I also wish to bring this to the notice of higher management. I will remain forever obliged if you could kindly forward me the email addresses of the AVP & VP Human Resource, Centre Head in Kolkata and that of the India Head of Operations.

At the terminus let me again apologize and beg forgiveness for being voluble & if my words have in anyway offended you.

Yours sincerely, 

 

J****** M*****

COPY TO: Mr. ***** ******

05.04.2009.

 

“ 21 in 4 ”

 

Last night I was touched by a trivia……. a trivia of a moments unbidden free spirit, uncontrived…. unconstrained eagerness of youth ....of ‘21 in 4’. A delight that I now am incapable of….. and thus so cherish. 

It is only half a decade and a little over another three 365’s that I too was ‘twenty one in four’. My childhood did not die a natural death with the coming of teen age…. nor did my teen age fade with the dawn of adulthood. By the time I was twenty one I had had the sense of unlimited power that the first feel of a ‘G3’or a Kalashnikov in your hands provide…. and the much deeper, profound understanding that the same feel of that same Kalashnikov or the scopes of a MSG90 leaves you with……when you have become wise not in proportion to your experience but to your capacity for experience...... and some more come to think of it.

I too “Profess to wish those words unwritten” – Yes. Shall I give my ‘Ratio Decidendi’? Yes I shall …. I must in order not to allow an ‘Obiter Dicta’ misconstrue my act of deletion as “Actus Reus” and “Mens Rea” as part thereof. 

Forgive my sarcasm. 

I laughed heartily at the unrestrained spontaneity …. I liked it…. It made me feel good…. It made me happy…. It makes me happy to see the other possess what I don’t…. doesn’t matter if I can’t…. Someone can and that can make me happy. 

I thought it best to remove any mark of the beast, as I wished not to mar the innocence.... the free willy frankness of youth untouched.... a lovely gift I did not have,  with the consuming remnants of my realities.... the passion of resentment…. the quick recoil of sarcasm of those called - 'The been there and done that' types .  And now do I not sound ostentatiously learned? 

I wish I were.

 

Is this coincidence… or is it April? This post reminds of one I wrote last April.

North England / 5^th April / 09:37 British Summer Time