This is the insignia of the remaining battle to reach my office located at the top-floor of a multi-storeyed building, encountered after battling the traffic and parking situation. On reaching my destination, however, I inevitably wonder, “all the trouble to get here?”

My friend, who works in a building exclusive to her company, has a romanticized view of the lift of my building – a social platform where you can meet and greet people working at different companies. I try to see things her way and pleasantly greet the co-habitants of the chamber, but huddled so close together in the closet, I could not look at the faces of the people rubbing shoulders with me and struggled to find some open space in between, finally settling for looking down at the metallic ground and feet, amusing myself by overhearing the conversations around, that I had little choice but to eavesdrop and the music playing in the earphones of the next person but for the benefit of all and by trying to guess the floor at which the next person will get off at.

My reverie is soon broken as the lift sputtered and stopped, abandoning us midway, perhaps in support of Anna Hazare.  I cursed as I jumped two feet, dressed in skirt and heels, to reach the ground as the rescue team opened the door to let us out.

I shrugged away my friend’s romanticized perspective; the lift will only be an  impediment on the way to office!!

“Typical”, I mutter, going back to my work. But then a spattering sound takes me by surprise and I look up to find the brown trail completely washed away. The faint smell of wet earth reach my nostrils, perhaps managing to percolate through the tiny gaps in the window pane of this air tight office or perhaps just my cranial recollection. I yearn to step out and get drenched.

This 6-pager story written in 1922, is about the struggle of an artist to promote his art when it has failed the test of time and the fickle attention of masses.

 The consummate profession, preceded by the preposition ‘A’ in the title,  solely defines the nameless and characterless protagonist and finally consumes him. Fasting is the only art the protagonist knows and proffers, not for a cause but for the mere entertainment of his spectators.  His main ambition is to rise to fame by breaking all fasting records but ironically it is not fame but death that embraces him there and no one even bothers to count his days on fast. His main spectators are butchers who stay overnight just to gorge on free breakfast the next day. Who would like to see a starving emaciated caged man anyways?

In a classic Kafka style, the protagonist is kept in a cage and later the cage is kept in a zoo where the audience prefers menagerie over him. Also as life reins over death and in Kafka style, as animals rein over humans, in the end a restless panther supplants his lifeless form and gets more attention from the crowd.

In this story, Kafka mainly depicts the suffering of artists, cruelty and fickleness of masses, human resistance to change, futility of groundless ambitions. Of course there can be many metaphorical interpretations of the story as well. One possible metaphor could be how machines have totally supplanted humans and animals could be of more use than humans as in cars and bullock-carts have
supplanted man-pullers.

If you have read Ayn Rand’s ‘Atlas Shrugged’, you would know the pertinence of this question that is posed by the author right at the inception of the book and reappears time and again to haunt the reader until it is finally answered, about midway through the book.

Franz Kafka is the John Galt of literature, a name that would haunt anyone who has read literature, even though you might not have read the works of the maestro himself. His works together constitute a long dark shadow that befalls upon you time and again as you make your way through the works of literature and though you may choose not to trace the shadow to its source and not read his complete works, you will not be able to escape the shadow that may appear sometimes only as a dark obscure reference but sometimes clear enough to illuminate the contours of the main work in intricate detail.

I don’t even remember when and where had I first stumbled upon his name but I am certain that Coetzee and Murakami paved my way to the complete works of the maestro himself. On reading about him, I also established a little personal connection with him, getting solace from the fact that he had worked in an insurance company from 1917 till his retirement in 1922 due to tuberculosis. Whenever I sink deep into the mire of money and corporate life and feel that my writing has become insipid, bound by the scope of official jargon, Kafka appears as a hanging branch of a tree that I can grasp and wriggle my way out of the marsh. His unsuccessful love affairs that never ended in a marriage also make me relate to him in a special way that only two freaks disdained by society can relate with each other. I can also fathom his decree of burning his works post his death, though of course the world would have been deprived of Kafkaesque had the decree been followed.

The most striking feature of his writing is his complete disregard for humanity. He totally shatters the closely held belief of “Cognito Ergo Sum” that thinking and culture makes us- the HomoSapiens the more exalted and supreme species than the other (allegedly lower) animals. In his stories, he uses the characters of humans and other animals interchangeably, for instance, in ‘Metamorphosis’, Gregor Samsa metamorphoses to assume the form of a cockroach, one of the lowest form of animals on earth and in “A Note to Academy’, a monkey, the animal considered to be the predecessor of humans, dons the cultural veneer of humans to tell his story. Each story is unique in its own peculiar way, typical to Kafka.

As a personal ode to him, I have embarked upon a project to all his short stories in the coming blog entries.

Everyday I wait; wait for the drops of respite from the sky to come and wash away the fatigue from my face and fill the open cracked mouth of parched earth!!

“I don’t know but it sounds splendid.”

Isn’t it ironical that the benevolent King George VI had to struggle to overcome his speech impediment as his people stuck placards of “God help the/ our King” all over the city whereas his contemporary, Hitler won over masses by the sheer brilliance of his oration.

Doesn’t this reflect on our shallow judgment of character?

Aruna, who has been in coma since 1973, is still allowed to struggle for life but the poor ones are not allowed to struggle for more than a month.

Isn’t this a complete sham by SC and abetted by the media? If they have to legalize then why do they not legalize abortion, which will save many a burden of raising (or disposing) a child born accidentally or out of the wedlock? But instead they legalize Euthanasia in  a country where deaths are merely statistic figures that are understated.

We looked at each other. “Isn’t this place too private and quiet for tonight?” With a shrug, “Let’s have one drink and decide what to do.” So we ordered our first round of drinks. Overjoyed at having some company, as festive nights make one feel miserably alone, one of the waiters scurried to the computer screen, scrolled for a peppy number, clicked it, increased the volume and then stayed there, searching for the next song to appease us and make us stay. I had an idea, “Can I connect my ipod? “Sure”, he smiled cheerfully, with the weight lifted.

A couple walked in. I thought with dismay, they might not like my taste in music, which ranged from Pink Floyd to Nickelback, from Madonna to Beatles but was certainly not in sync with the popular choice for the festive spirit of New Year. The couple quietly sat at another table and ordered their round of drinks. After a couple of shots the girl started dancing, dragging the boy with her. After a couple of more drinks, she dragged everyone including the waiters to the dance floor and here we were dancing to the tune, enjoying our private party where each individual mattered and no one threw up or stepped on else’s shoes.

Another couple, with interlocked bodies, walked in, perhaps scouting for the privacy of a room without having to pay the price, but the girl of the first couple was too drunk to heed and dragged them also to the dance floor. They soon exited our pub in search of a private corner in a secluded place or in the midst of a frenzied crowd.

The clock struck 12. Fireworks lit up the sky and resounded in our eardrums. We hugged and wished each other and turned to bid farewell to the couple but the girl would not let us go. They paid for our drinks and bought a bottle of Champagne. We resisted but the girl protested, “he works outside India and earns in pounds”. In her present state, it was not possible to argue with the girl. We meekly followed her upstairs to their room and then stayed up all night, drinking champagne and listening to her narration of their love story.

We finally fell asleep towards the crack of dawn but the morning sun soon bore into our eyes, forcing us to abandon our slumber. The couple was gone. We scorched the hotel and enquired but no one at seemed to remember him or her. We enquired about the pub waiters and learnt they had been temporary staff filling in for the New Year’s Eve and had not left any contact numbers.

Was the couple just a figment of our imagination? Can’t be, right, if all three of us remembered them? But what if the memory was a story we had concocted together in our inebriated state.

“Look, I have a photograph on my phone!” “But this is of the other couple, looking for a private space.” “When did we click pictures with the other couple?”

he rushes to the car, eagerly welcoming the guests, diligently showing them around and sharing his knowledge, clicking their pictures and doing anything in his might to please them in order to earn his only respite: the tip paid by the tourists at their own discretion. Mahajan does not ask for a tip and happily accepts whatever is offered to them as his fate with his head bowed in reverence. He waves goodbye to the tourists with a warm smile shouting the parting words, “Please do visit again, perhaps in monsoons, when the water fills up the canyon.”

Such little is known about this spectacular canyon composed of igneous rocks of granite ad quartz and which forms the passage through which Ken River flows. The Government is doing little to promote this beautiful place where the only means of livelihood is tourism or improving the means of transport to get there so that the number of vehicles improves. In developed countries the Government pays compensation to the unemployed citizens of the country whereas in India the Government can’t pay a meager salary to its own employees but can spend crores of rupees on Brand Building exercises like the recently held Commonwealth Games. If Government doesn’t pay its employees like Mahajan who are striving hard to earn their living what can one expect from the Capitalists!