Part 9 – Caw-Caw
Here’s to the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs in the square holes…
Steve Jobs
Ernest Hemingway and his third wife Gellhorn Hemingway visited my one bed room house (as I said it is an outhouse at the back of my parent’s house) and I gave them the 5 second tour which started by showing the bathroom, and concluded immediately with the bedroom itself. They liked my room and commended me on how astonishingly dirty I kept it. Ernest Hemingway noticed the old typewriter on the table and immediately went and sat himself on the chair and started punching the keys. Then, he was sucked into the typewriter and he disappeared. Gellhorn Hemingway went next, she typed a few words and without saying goodbye or sending me as much as a flying kiss, she too was sucked into the typewriter and duly disappeared.
I woke up and for a full 5 seconds I held onto the dream as best as I could, hoping it really happened, as it faded quickly into oblivion. Then, seeing the brightness of the world outside and hearing the chaos of the streets, I realized I was late for work.
‘Shit. What’s the time? What’s the time?’ I asked myself as I searched for my phone in a dazed frenzy. I found the phone and noticed that the time was 11 AM. I was 2 full hours past my reporting time.
I had absolutely no motivation to get ready and leave for office. But what would I tell my manager? I couldn’t possibly have put the blame, yet again, on traffic. I mean, no one can come in four hours late unless they had left house at least one-two hours late on purpose. I could, on the other hand, consult the services of grounds of health. I could tell my manager,
‘Listen Mr. Manager, I am not feeling well today.’ And there is absolutely nothing he could do right away.
Of course, he could take his sweet revenge later on, but not immediately anyhow. My chain of thoughts were broken by the incessant caw-caw of a crow outside my window. I peered out my barred window, to see the crow sitting on the seat of my scooter. It looked awfully like the crow which had come in my dream where it led me to Bellandur Railway Station ( and I had boarded the train and gone first to Freedom Park, then Cubbon Park and finally Bangalore Central Library where I saw a book written by me titled ‘Preeti’…), but then, I realized, all crows look the same.
And this was no dream either, I was wide awake, still reeling from the weird dream about Hemingway, and so I was a little intrigued by the crow at first. As I continued to observe the crow through my grilled window, it suddenly stopped cawing and looked me straight in the eye, and said,
‘Caw-Caw. Caw.’ And somehow, I understood that it meant, ‘Follow-me, idiot.’
My life, as you might already know, was not so eventful, and so, one fine morning, when a crow asked me to follow it, I obliged. Without brushing my teeth, and without changing into something ‘acceptable’, I ran out of my house and mounted my scooter. The crow sat on the handle bar and it was not one bit afraid of my presence right beside it. When I started my scooter, the crow stopped cawing and pointed, starkly so, its beak towards one end of my road and I started my scooter in that direction. And so, with the crow sitting on my handlebar and giving me directions with its beak, I made my way to wherever it was taking me. People on the road stared at me as if I was a maniac with a pet crow – a warlock! One person, when I was waiting in a traffic stop, even managed to come upto me and ask. ‘Saar. How did you train the crow to sit on the scooter?’
And I replied to his astonishment, loudly,
‘Caw-Caw,’ which in crow terms meant loosely, ‘Fuck off’ and he promptly did do that.
After about twenty five minutes of driving in the beak’s stern directions, I realized that the crow had brought me straight to Freedom Park. And then, the crow said these last words and flew away,
‘Caw-Caw. Caw-Caw’. And this translates to, ‘Barrack-E. Go-Fast.’
Freedom Park was once the actual Bangalore Central Prison and it has seen, amongst many others, as its prisoners, the likes of Late Atal Bihari Vajpayee (Former Prime Minister of India). It has also seen on its grounds, the famous Anna Hazare’s India Against Corruption campaign take strength. It was once a notorious prison, and now it stands as a popular sightseeing place for tourists and also popular place for protestors of all kinds voicing their displeasure with whichever government is in power. Few of the old barracks where the prisoners were lodged in common areas still stand today as part of the exhibits, Barrack-E is one such exhibit. There are, as I remember from some online pictures, few mannequins dressed in prison clothes, kept in the Barrack-E for visitors to see and get a feel of how it would have been…
I ran, like a prisoner would once have run, towards Barrack-E and reaching the place, I found that, along with the mannequins, there were few actual humans sitting amidst them inside the barrack. I found that the iron gate to the barrack was open, and I went in. One of the people sitting there saw me and made a,
‘Shhhh.’ Gesture with his finger on his lip and then he indicated that I better take a seat soon.
And so I did, I took a seat next to one of the mannequins and faced towards the back of the barrack as everyone were turned that way.
I had no idea what they were waiting for, or what awaited me, but soon enough, I would find out. A gust of wind blew through the iron gate and blew over us all. Then, reaching the end of the barrack hall, towards which side we all faced, the wind stopped to deliver us its sermon. It began by saying,
‘All of you gathered here today, including the lifeless mannequins, want freedom. The crow is my servant and it brings me people who seek freedom. My name is Bangalore Wind and henceforth you can all call me, B-Wind. So, are you guys ready for the class to begin? Any questions?’
I was about to let out a fart. And one guy sitting next to me raised his hand and asked,
‘B-Wind, how much do these classes cost?’
And for that the Wind replied,
‘No cost. I only ask that none of you fart and ruin my spirit. I don’t care if you come without brushing teeth, or you come in torn clothes. I only ask, again, that you don’t fart.’
I couldn’t hold my fart any longer, and thus I farted. B-Wind immediately noticed the ghastly scent and said,
‘Okay. Arjun just farted. Today is his first day so I forgive him. So, class! Shall we begin!?’
And we all shouted with a resounding, ‘Yes!!’
“Yes! That’s the spirit. Today’s class tries to answer a simple question, ‘What is freedom?’…”
And so, having woken up late, and having bunked office without even informing my manager, I found myself in Barrack-E of an old jail complex wherein the Wind itself was delivering a sermon on Freedom. This was the day after Preeti had slapped me. Sweet deal, I though. What made it sweeter was that there were so many others just like me, seated all around me, who wanted freedom and who, also just like me, had followed a stupid crow to come here.
Cheers to these people, who do stupid things without caring what others think. The round pegs in the square holes. I am one of them. And today, unwittingly, after taking directions from a random crow, I had found at last my lost tribe.
Part 10 is coming soon 🙂
