not diarrhea – pages from zackeria’s diary

Diary and diarrhea are not particularly comparable, not at least in any scientific sense. My father always used to say that if there is an elephant in the room, you should point it out. One time he said it while pointing at mother. He slept that night on the kitchen floor and spent the subsequent weeks making his own food. God bless his soul. He cried for days after mother died. I had never seen him cry before, or since. God bless both their souls.

I always wondered how the elephant got into the room. Surely the doors could not be large enough – were they destroyed then rebuilt for the mere purpose of getting an elephant inside? How big would this room need to be? None of the rooms I am in on a regular basis are capable of housing an elephant. The only way I can make sense of it is if the elephant was air-lifted into a room. But then the room would have no roof. Is it still a room if it has no roof? What if it has no doors? Are four walls enough to make a room? What about four lines? A room is still a room without doors, right? Like a rose is still a rose.

One should be careful around elephants. They’re said to never forget. Though if they did forget, would you rather have them forget your kindness or your cruelty? Wait – how do we know if elephants forget or not? Has there been a study? Do they never forget? Are they immune to amnesia or old age memory loss? So what if they never forget, of what use is that? Not that everything must be of use, but still. I use computers to store information, and sure they forget from time to time. But so what? At least they store information in English. What language would an elephant store? How would you ever get that information back? It’s just too complicated.

Diarrhea. The word made sure to find its way into every naggers brain. What is with people and rhymes? Why ever would I be sitting in a tree? Were all the couches and swings taken? And there are so many things that end in the letter g. At some point I couldn’t take it anymore. I had to get back at these people. The school administration never did appreciate the stunt I pulled. No matter how much I tried to explain that the package was just play-doh, mud and a little bit of sulphur, they just would not listen. They were intent on punishing me. In the end they charged me with breaking and entering into the lockers. I told them I found them open, all four of them. They wouldn’t charge me for breaking into the lockers if I was to, for instance, leave a thank you note or some candy. Sometimes you end up getting the same end of the same stick.

But it worked. They didn’t nag me for years after that. I think it was the sulphur.

dil to bacha hai ji

From the same people who brought you the album of Maachis some 14 years ago, Gulzar and Vishal Bhardwaj:

This is a fun and fantastic song. It’s about an older person falling in love. Interesting thing is that Gulzar (dude who wrote the song) himself is 73 years old now. When I grow up, I want to be like Gulzar.

There’s a line in the song that really got a hold of me. But it turns out that it doesn’t mean what I had wanted it to mean. At 1:55 into the song:

kisko pataa tha pehlu mein rakha, dil aisa paaji bhi hoga
hum to hamesha samajhte the koi hum jaisa haaji hi hoga

The lines are in reference to his heart. How he had thought his heart was always guarded and gentle and it turns out that it’s actually pretty ‘naughty’ (that’s how most translations on the net have translated ‘paaji’).

hum to hamesha samajhte the koi hum jaisa haaji hi hoga, the context here is the heart, where ‘haaji’ means gentle/gentleman-like. But the way it is said, ‘haaji’ can also refer to ‘one who performs hajj/pilgrimage’. A pilgrim. A person who journeys and wanders. That’s what I wanted it to mean.

hum to hamesha samajhte the koi hum jaisa haaji hi hoga, I wanted this not only to be in reference to his own heart, but also to refer to the person he was falling for. I wanted this translated as: I had always thought that she would be, like me, a pilgrim.

Still a good song, nonetheless.