The doctor's prescription

The board outside the doctor’s cabin read ‘A chocolate a day keeps pain away but brings the weighing machine closer’.  She smiled and entered in.  “How do you manage to do this all the time?” the doctor asked her. She said, “You’re a brat. You just want to do your thing. Remember what my friend said once? You did hear it. Your job is to just pump blood. Let the head do the rest.” “Then why do you give in to me?” the doctor asker her again. She fell silent. There was no answer. There was never an answer to that question. “Now that you’ve given in to me my dear, do as I say to get through this pain”, said the doctor commandingly. “Here’s my prescription for you, follow them for your good”, said the foolish but smart ‘heart-cum-doctor’. Smart because it knows to cover its arse well (ventricles and chambers in this case) for the foolish mistake it had committed. “2 doses of Old Monk minimum every evening for at least 2 months” it dictated. “Step two”, it said- “Listen to hard rock or metal or psychedelic trance or go another extreme; listen to hardcore melancholic Bollywood songs. Cry as much as possible. Now that you’ve cried enough, step three is to splurge on shopping for things that you would never need in future, but will give you temporary happiness. Step four: Party hard. Now come back and cry again. Step five is simple: You have to sleep. Kumbhkaran in our mythology books didn’t sleep eternally just like that. He was heartbroken. This is an inside story. So sleep like nobody is watching.” “Now, repeat these steps over a long period of time”. She stood up and banged the desk in distress. “Oh shut up. First of all you need to see a shrink”, she retorted aggressively. “You prescribe the same thing all the time, it never works”, she said with disgust. “Ha!” laughed the heart sarcastically. “My job is to make your head go bonkers. Now you know shrinks exist for whom” it said. She packed up her things hastily and said, “You’re impossible. I’m leaving”. “Hey, wait up. Where do you think you are going? Who’s going to pay my consultation fees?” it asked. With a tear down her eye, she said wryly, “I’m already paying a hefty price for your mistake, ain’t I you jerk? She wiped her tears and walked out of the heart’s chamber only to come back again someday.

What an idea, sirjee!

“Try crafting it differently”, a phrase most commonly heard in the creative dept. One would stumble upon it like a stone on the road. 22 lines, 7 hours and yet no conclusion. You cannot see breathtaking writing by simply picking up words from a sentence and rearranging it to form a sentence. This ain’t some jigsaw puzzle Mister! This is exactly why I am referring to them as ‘line options’ because they just remain lines at the end of the day. I remember a colleague of mine saying “the writer in me died the day I got into copywriting”.  The thought freaks me out more than a ghost. Yes, there are mind-blowing, hair raising long copy ads and then, there is scam.  Or they’re there on adsoftheworld. Because most great ideas are killed on the operation table like a dear friend rightly put it. It doesn’t take a minute to press the delete button on your keyboard, but it bloody takes hours of passion and love in crafting that line, which you call an ‘option’.  An idea is pure, raw, innocent, excited and needs some nurturing for it to grow. It’s just like a baby. Why use your ego to kill it before it takes shape? It didn’t do any harm to you. Maybe it doesn’t suit your taste, but you are not the Holy Lord of Creativity who is blessed with some divine creative intervention. Even a peon can be creative. Even the sweeper in your office can be creative. All it takes is just a simple thought. Ideally, there should be some public service ad for this theme- Don’t kill ideas with your ego. I don’t want to stick to A for Apple. I don’t want to read the 6ft rulebook. There is life beyond an e-mailer and a banner. Why do the biggies want to scrutinize a full stop, a comma and a font? Give us some space, give us some freedom, have faith in us even if we’re juniors.  Let us flow. Let us fly. We know where to restrict ourselves. On that note then, let me get back to rearranging words from a line and give you another ‘option’ that you will again delete. While you can go back to scam and win that Grand Prix, which I thought was just a formula one race so far. 

One flew over the cuckoo's nest.

So long I had heard of a nail biting finish, never a nail biting start. I don’t know how the end will be. The morning tea tasted different today. The voices around weren’t the usual ones. I wasn’t on the side where I was asked to produce daily job status reports and to do lists. I didn’t have anything on the ‘checklist’. There were cold stares, hesitant smiles and mixed vibrations from all around.  The workstation had posters of some semi nude women and I badly wanted to tell the world I’m straight. The million dollar question, ‘Art or Copy?’ determines your identity. I knew that instant, that I was standing at the entrance of a new world, a new battlefield and the battle is dirty. After a point, my vision does not consider the countless number of people fighting here daily. Some are dead, some are semi dead and some are alive and kicking ass. I would be considered a part of my army only if I killed a few egos, shed some blood and proved my worth.  I still cannot fathom how I landed up here, but this is where I wanted to belong always. There are a zillion questions that are unanswered. It’s day one in the ‘creative’ side. It’s day one at reality.  I don’t know what questions to ask during briefing sessions, because I’ve been the poor good old servicing fella till just a few days back. What would  my first thought be?  I’m still trembling at the thought of thinking. I have to learn to live the superficial life. Gold, silver and bronze are beyond metals now. Butterflies seemed to have made a home for themselves in my tummy over the past couple of days. New faces. Roads that do not lead me to the yellow and white walls anymore.  I feel like a cuckoo’s young one, who has been abandoned by her mother and asked to fend for herself in the real bad world. So here I go, all set in my new shining armour , with a strong shield and a sharp sword and with a hope that my pen turns out to be mightier than the sword. 

The visibly invisible roommate

Sometimes all you really need is a bed
That can be a friend who lends its shoulder when you're low
Sometimes all you really need is a bed
That can cradle you to sleep like a mother's lap
Sometimes all you really need is a bed
That can be a tissue paper which soaks up your tears
Sometimes all you really need is a bed
To be a granny who reads out bedtime stories

Sometimes all you really need is a bed
That can be your punching bag when you fight with your folks
Sometimes all you really need is a bed
That can be your audience when you head bang to loud music
Sometimes all you really need is a bed
That can be your rough sheet where you can scribble your math problems on

Sometimes all you really need is a bed
That can bloom like a flower garden when you romance with your beloved
Sometimes all you really need is a bed
That can be an admirer when you pose for your own photos on your camera phone
Sometimes all you really need is a bed
That can be a bar table or your discotheque when you're 3 pegs down with your friends

Sometimes all you really need is a bed
That can be a stranger silently listening to you when you're deeply engrossed in your thoughts
Sometimes all you really need is a bed
That can be a ring where you have pillow fights with your sibling.

Sometimes all you really need is a bed
That can be a cooler when your body is burning 104
Sometimes all you really need is a bed
That can be a time machine which takes you back in time when you dig up your vintage photographs n reminisce abt old times
Sometimes all you really need is a bed
That can be a 'betting table' where you place high stakes on the Indian cricket team, that sees you cuss at them or sulk in disappointment when Sachin gets out.

Sometimes all you really really need is a bed
That can silently take it all without saying a word
That watches you grow up
That knows you inside out
That is friends with your friends
That is home for your soft toys
That never asks for your attention
A quiet roommate whom we all take for granted.