Final act!!


"Though this be madness, yet there is method in 't.". – (Hamlet Act II, Scene II)

Act 3:And The Curtain Falls

Scene 1:

Unknown time

Ramgopal found himself in a room. The room was small but decorated intensely as if it’s inhabitants chose to live happily with what little they had and this room bore witness both to their financial turmoil and their strength. A little girl was sleeping on a small bed in the center of the room. She had a doll clutched to her side. She did not move.She did not cry. She was asleep or far worse. Ramgopal tore his eyes off the girl to look at the room. The walls were coated in a childish shade of light pink, but there on the wall was a number written in bright red-31. There was a lamp on the bedside table which was still on and a picture of Winnie The Pooh beside it. Ramgopal was reminded of his own daughter. He went towards the bed and felt the child’s pulse. There was no pulse. She was dead. He hastily removed his hand from the body. Where was he?Who was this girl? He ran out of the room.

He found himself in another room now, slightly larger than the first but still small. This was apparently the living room. A woman was on the couch,watching television. But there was no transmission. All that could be seen was the usual patch of shifting black and white lines indicating transmission loss. The walls of the room were coated with light blue paint.But amidst the blue, a pair of scarlet figures stood out like a fire on water-22. Ramgopal took a good,hard look at the woman.Something was wrong with her. He looked closely. There was a deep gash in her bosom. Her clothes were covered in blood. She had been stabbed to death.

The composed doctor felt an irresistible urge to vomit. He couldn’t stand the sights before him. He rushed frantically to the adjoining room. It was a bedroom but he did not even see who sat on the bed or the paint or anything. He flung himself into the attached bathroom and vomited in the sink. He was panting. He was exhausted.He lifted his eyes and looked at the mirror.On the mirror,once more etched in red were a pair of numbers- 23. He stumbled out of the bathroom. He needed to run. He needed to hide.But where?
Then his eyes fell upon the bloke on the bed and the numbers painted on the lavender walls-12. This man was alive.A welcome relief.He had buried his face in his hands and was crying incessantly. “Who..who are you?Where am I?” Ramgopal managed to let so much out of his mouth. The man raised his head and laughed a cold, laugh-a laugh like the girl in his chamber.

Ramgopal stared at the man who stood in front of his eyes. But he could not believe whom he saw. He recognized all the features-the graying hair, the slight paunch, the black eyes, and the bludgeoning nose. But he still could not believe that he was looking at himself.


Scene 2:


13th June 2006:


8:45 am

Ramgopal woke with a jerk.He was in his lovely home.He wasn’t in his chamber or at that derelict building. There were no bodies or scarlet numbers on the walls. He got to his feet and edged towards the bathroom. He saw himself in the mirror. His face was lined.He looked distraught and haggard.The bags under his eyes had grown deeper and beads of sweat glistened on his forehead. “It was just a dream..just a dream” Ramgopal whispered to himself as he splashed the cold water on his face.


Scene 3:

13th June 2006:


8:45 am


Prakash Singh cast a disgruntled look across his room. The small light bulb was still oscillating above his head. The copy of “Shakespeare” was still missing from his book shelf. His bruises still had not healed. The head of security and 3 guards had beaten him for his “unruly” behaviour. He tried to move his arms but the restraining jacket did not allow an inch of movement.

Singh recollected his conversation with the doctor. “Aah yes the brute stabbed me with that accursed needle,didn’t he now? But what happened to my book..my Shakespeare..my precious Shakespeare..where art thou?” But there was no one there to answer him,only the dirty walls,the small cot, the bulb and the book shelf with it’s missing volume.

Singh shook his head. The daily dose of valium had begun to take its toll. His vision was blurred and his senses dim. In the shadows that flitted across the walls,he saw them-his wife’s blood trenched corpse,his daughter’s doll and her teary face, his career, the director cursing him for forgetting his lines,his humiliation,his arrest,the trial and lastly the face of the doctor who was treating him.

“No,no,no..leave me alone. LEAVE ME ALONE.GOD DAMN YOU ALL.” Singh cried his lungs out. He screamed till his voice broke down but still the phantoms of his past and the vision of the doctor remained-as silent as the blood stained walls of the room in Singh’s memories.



Scene 4:

19th June, 2006

5:19 PM

“Shakespeare” lay open on the wooden table. Singh was staring avidly at the book. He kept trying to free his hands from the restraining jacket around him but to no avail. Ramgopal looked at Singh patiently like a predator waiting for its prey to make a false move. There was a little blood and what seemed like a remnant of a feather on the corner of Singh’s mouth. Ramgopal was filled with disgust from top to toe. “I believe you have had your breakfast,my friend?” Singh raised his brow,as if awoken from a dream, “Oh yes yes delicious indeed” and with a swift lick he cleaned the edges of his lips.

“Why did you kill them Mr.Singh?Why would you kill your wife and daughter?” “So you are aware doctor? I did not realize that you would comprehend that much this quickly!” “Answer me..why?” “Wouldn’t you like to know?” Singh laughed hysterically. Ramgopal leapt towards Singh and grabbing his restrained arms screamed out, “DON’T YOU DARE MOCK ME YOU MONSTER!!”

This little insinuation had no effect on the “monster” .In fact Singh looked amused as if he had been challenged to a game of chess.

"If you prick us, do we not bleed? if you tickle us, do we not laugh? if you poison us, do we not die? and if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?".

“Shakespeare again..don’t you ever get tired?” “Tired of literature?!Tired of SHAKESPEARE?!! DO NOT SPEAK SUCH BLASPHEMY BEFORE ME” ,Singh bellowed. “Hhmph..tell me..what did they mean to you,your wife,your child?”

Singh’s expression changed. It was a drastic transformation.His sharp,almost comic expressions were transmogrified into what resembled a most profound sorrow and thorough self pity.

“She..she betrayed me…10 years of marriage..and she ..and she had ..she committed adultery ! She paid the price for her sin! My daughter,my little girl..no..no she was not my daughter. SHE WAS THE DAUGHTER OF THAT TRECHEROUS WOMAN AND HER ROMEO. THEY WERE NOT MY FAMILY. THEY WERE TRAITORS. THEY DESERVED TO DIE.”

“AND SO YOU KILLED THEM?!YOU KILLED THEM BECAUSE YOU COULD NOT CONTROL YOURSELF!!YOU ARE NOTHING MORE THAN A MONSTROSITY,YOU HEAR ME!! A DEPRAVED DEMON WHO SHOULD HAVE BEEN HANGED WITHOUT A TRIAL!”

Singh did not scream. He did not say a word. He just smiled gleefully and then whispered, "A man can die but once".



Scene 5:

19th June, 2006

11:37 PM

“And so they lived happily ever after” Ramgopal had just finished reading “Snow White” to 5 year old Avantika. He enjoyed reading stories to daughter. It gave them a chance to come closer and spend some time together as Ramgopal barely had any other time to talk to her during the day. “That was so beautiful,daddy” the girl giggled and pecked her father on the cheek. “Yes,sweety it was.Now it’s time for bed” He tucked her under the blanket and switched off the light.

He lit his cigar and proceeded to his study. His wife wouldn’t be home that night. She had gone to her mother’s a day ago and wouldn’t be back before the end of the week. He pondered over her departure. A man had called to inform her that her father had had a stroke and had been admitted to the hospital. She said that man was Rakesh her cousin.But for some reason,he did not believe her. As he sat in his study, the spiders of suspicion began gnawing at his thought. Could she have been having an affair with another man? Was the story of her father’s stroke,just that, a story? Could there be a chance that Avantika was not his daughter..? Ramgopal shook his head. What was he thinking? This was rubbish.But at the same time the thoughts persisted..

He went back to Avantika’s room. What if she was not his daughter?What would he do? He touched her soft cheek. He felt immense affection for her but the prospect of her being another man’s child changed his love.It filled him with the poison of hatred. Would he kill her if she was not his child? His hands lingered around her throat.His thoughts wandered from that man’s call,to his wife,to his daughter and finally to Singh. He could hear Singh whispering in his ears “Do it..do it..she is not yours…do it …” “No,no,no I can’t..I can’t” Ramgopal tore himself from his daughter’s bedside and fled out of the room.

The night and his lack of sleep were playing tricks with his senses. All his doubts,his fears-they were all unfounded,all hallucinations. He kept murmuring to himself,reassuring himself as he pushed the plunger of the syringe into his vein. The valium took only 10 minutes to start its effect and soon Ramgopal found himself in Singh’s nightmares once more.


Scene 6:

24th June,2006

1:13 PM

“So let us resume our session Mr.Singh” Ramgopal said jovially as he took his seat. “Aren’t we in bright spirits today?!!” Singh answered. “Yes we are, I believe we are finally making progress ,my friend.” “Oh ,really?” Singh raised his eyebrows skeptically. “Yes,yes now tell me what did you see last night in your dreams?” Singh was flabbergasted by this question. Ramgopal had not asked this sort of question before.

“I saw what I see every night,my dear doctor” Singh peered his head forward and hissed, “the images of the dancing dead” “Aah I see” Ramgopal replied. He was happy today.He had decided that he had had enough of Singh’s Shakespeare, the images of a dead family he had never known, the sleepless nights and the broken needles.He would end it today.He would end it now.

“Tell me something,Mr.Singh what do you think of life?” “Some rise by sin, and some by virtue fall” –“that is what I believe life to be doctor” “Hmm” Ramgopal mused at his own thoughts. They bore a striking resemblance to Singh’s. The chain of similarity would be broken now.

He paced behind the chair and drew out his trusted fountain pen. He remembered the adage “The pen is mightier than the sword” and with a swift thrust he embedded the nib in Singh’s neck. Singh just turned and with a last gasp cried “Et tu Brute?” and fell to the floor, as lifeless as the family he had slain. Ramgopal bent over the body and extracted the pen and then he felt the urge to understand the contents of this man’s mind.He wanted to know what exactly worked in this corpse’s brain while it was still a man.He began bringing down the pen on the patient’s skull till the bone began giving away. He was so preoccupied with his “operation” that he missed the sound of the thudding footsteps down the hall..


Scene 7

6th June,2008

9:13 AM

“Let us begin Mr.Ramgopal” Nandy was behind his former mentor’s desk and the patient before him was the new patient-66. Ramgopal looked wearily at Nandy. His parched lips broke into a wicked grin and his eyes flashed scarlet as he leapt out of his seat crying,

“Why then, can one desire too much of a good thing?
Come, sister, you shall be the priest and marry us.
Give me your hand, Orlando. What do you say, sister?”

Two guards pulled him back into his seat as Krishna administered the valium. “What a pity,Krishna” Nandy sighed. “Yes sir, a pity indeed.”

Well here it is:Act 2.I'll come out with Act 3 as soon as I can!

"All the world 's a stage, and all the men and women merely players. They have their exits and their entrances; And one man in his time plays many parts" - (As You Like It,Act II, Scene VII).


Act 2: The Doctor and The Patient

9th June,2006

Scene 1:

10:19 pm

Dr.Ramgopal was in his study. His wife , Roma had just tucked their daughter,Avantika to sleep.Ramgopal pondered over his daughter as he sat in his armchair,smoking a cigar and reading the file of patient 66. But his thoughts were preoccupied with his daughter. She lay in her soft bed,tucked under the warm woolen blanket ,cuddling her teddy bear.A cherubic smile on her face. She was beautiful and he adored her.

They had had dinner at Le Château that night. Ramgopal,his wife and their child.Every part of the evening had been enjoyable from the food,the music and the mystical ambience at the European restaurant to the long drive home. It filled him with a sense of completion, of satisfaction, a feeling which was about to be shattered.

His study was a large room with five shelves full of books dealing with a range of topics from psychology to literature to travel guides. At the centre of the room was a glass table imported from Sweden and a leather armchair which the rich doctor had purchased a few months ago. Ramgopal was comfortably seated in his well padded chair and was dragging on a Montecristo cigar. There was a light drizzle outside and the only sound which penetrated the silence of the room was that of water on glass. He picked up the plastic covered file placed on his table. Nandy had dropped it off an hour ago. He turned the pages.It contained the cases of patients 50-70.He finally reached patient 66.

Patient Number: 66
Name : Prakash Singh
Previous Hospital: Kerala Psychiatric Hospital
Symptoms : Convulsions,fits of violence,writing on walls, sudden outbursts of Shakespearean language.

“Hmm” Ramgopal already knew all of this.He wanted to know more.He wanted to know what made this man tick.He wanted to know who this man really was.He proceeded to the next page..

HISTORY: Little is known about this man. All we know is that he used to be a stage actor in the mid 1990s.He specialized in Shakespearean plays and worked for the Lucknow Film and Theatre Troupe. However, he was sacked one day after he failed to remember his lines during a play. That very night, he killed his wife with a kitchen knife and poured poison in his daughter’s ear while she was sleeping. He then wrote a series of numbers on the walls of his apartment: 12, 22, 23,31. The police never understood what he meant by these numbers and on interrogation he always screamed lines from Shakespearean tragedies. He was tried in court for double homicide but the defense proved that he was mentally sick and therefore could not be sentenced. He was sent to our institute on 6th June,1996 and transferred to the Delhi Institute on the 24th of May,2006.-Dr.Kumaraswamy,Head Of Department Of Psychiatric Studies And Mental Disorders ,Kerala Psychiatric Hospital.

The cigar dropped from the brim of Ramgopal’s lips, he felt the file slip through his fingers. He was not dealing with just a lunatic. He was not dealing with just a mysterious patient. He was dealing with a man who had murdered his own family..


Scene 2

10th June 2006:

11:14 pm

“So you killed your own family, eh?” Ramgopal whispered to Singh in his small little compartment.”Get off my chair” , Singh managed to reply despite the sedative. Singh like all the other patients at “The Fortress” had been assigned “special rooms” or compartments which were more like cages than anything else. Each compartment was about 700 cubic feet in volume and each compartment housed a bed, a table and chair and a toilet. At this time,Ramgopal was sitting on “Singh’s chair” in “his” compartment. Singh had just been given a small dose of valium,just enough to dull the senses without inducing sleep. A guard was outside the room just in case. Ramgopal knew that this man was a killer but he wanted to know why would he murder his own wife and daughter.Was it done out of sheer rage? Was it revenge? And what about those numbers…? Ramgopal didn’t need to know all this. No,he wanted to know all of this.

There was a single light in the room and beside the bed there was a shelf full of books. These were Singh’s personal “belongings”. Ramgopal got off his seat and walked around the room. He came right up to Singh and asked “Why, why did you kill your wife and child?” Singh’s face was upturned,he was looking straight at the bulb that dangled from the ceiling. He grinned and without looking at the desperate doctor, whispered “Wouldn’t you like to know?” The doctor’s patience grew thin. He strode behind Singh’s chair and took a syringe and a vial of temazepam out of his pocket. He filled the syringe and plunged it into Singh’s neck. Singh whimpered for an instant,the needle took him by surprise. Other than that his face was expressionless. After 5 minutes, Ramgopal went to the shelf and asked again “Why?” Singh answered this time but his answer was barely decipherable. His wavering gaze still transfixed on the bulb,he said “Shakespeare…”. Ramgopal rushed towards Singh and cried dramatically “What? What on earth has Shakespeare got to do with a double homicide?!” He was enraged. This man was toying with him. But it was futile. Singh had already entered “a state of complete sleep”.The dual effect of the valium and the temazepam was probably too much, the doctor mused. He calmed himself and went back to the shelf. It was a small wooden,make shift shelf cramped with dusty,thick books.He hunched on his knees and perused the titles: Paradise Lost, The Works Of Shelley, Sherlock Holmes,Short Stories by Oscar Wilde, Hannibal Rising and at the end of the stack –a very old,hard bound book,it read “Shakespeare”.

Scene 3:

11:49 pm

Ramgopal read the title. “No, he couldn’t possibly mean..”.He pulled the book out of the shelf and stole a glance at Singh. He was still under the effect of the drugs. He looked innocent in his sleep-almost childlike. Ramgopal stealthily crept out of the room. He was a doctor at the hospital, taking some thing out of a patient’s room for examination was completely justifiable but still he felt like a thief under a scanner. He hastily tucked the book under his coat and rushed back to his chamber.


The doctor opened the book and started flipping the pages. The pages of the book bore the tinge of age but it wasn’t covered in dust. The book had been read recently. There was nothing odd about the book except the fact that a number of pages were marked. They were marked in the sense that speeches from particular plays had been underlined. The curious doctor began reading the speeches, one by one:


How weary, stale, flat and unprofitable,
Seem to me all the uses of this world!
Fie on't! ah fie! 'tis an unweeded garden,
That grows to seed; things rank and gross in nature
Possess it merely. That it should come to this!-
Hamlet
Act 1,scene 2.


O Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art thou Romeo?
Deny thy father and refuse thy name;
Or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love,
And I'll no longer be a Capulet.
-Romeo And Juliet
Act 2,scene 2


There's daggers in men's smiles: the near in blood,
The nearer bloody.
-Macbeth
Act 2,scene 3

"Love sought is good, but giv'n unsought is better" .
- Twelfth Night
Act III, Scene I

Dr. Ramgopal stared long and hard at these lines. They were the only lines underlined in the entire book. Ramgopal like any young lad of the twentieth century had read Sherlock Holmes in his high school days and had idolized the genius of the detective who never existed and the case before him tantalized his senses. He was no ace detective but he wanted to try and find out what Singh was trying to tell him. Singh had mentioned Shakespeare and it was perhaps no remarkable coincidence that he managed to find a book by the same name on Singh’s shelf. “Hmmm” ,he grabbed his fountain pen and tore a page off his prescription pad. What were the lines about? They were all from Shakespearean tragedies-1st similarity. The first set of lines represented a kind of despondency,a profound depression. The second set of lines was about a woman’s relationship with her lover. The third set was about betrayal. The fourth was a conclusive argument about love. Ramgopal chewed the nib of his pen, he scratched his head and thought as if his entire existence depended on unveiling Singh’s secret. Then it struck him. He scribbled down the act and scene numbers of the lines but not like the usual act number,scene number but rather together-two numbers side by side,one denoting the act and the other the scene.The numbers read 12,22,23,31. Ramgopal had seen this series of numbers before. He felt an adrenaline rush,he seized his briefcase and rummaged a bit to come out with the file Nandy had handed him the night before. He turned over to Singh’s history. The numbers mentioned by the Head Of Department were 12,22,23,31-an exact match.




Scene 4:

2:01 am

Ramgopal couldn’t believe what he saw. A girl in a pink frock stood in his chamber. She had short ivory hair which covered her eyes and she viciously clutched a doll to her side. With her other hand she clasped her ear and cried. She was crying but her cries weren’t human. They pierced his ears and filled his entire being with a sense of cold dread. He stumbled back. “Who, who are you??” He whimpered at the little girl.

The girl who behaved as if she had not noticed his presence there before smiled. Her smile was crooked yet surprisingly sweet. But her teeth, something was wrong, her canines were pointed, jagged like that of an animal. She spoke “Hello daddy”. Ramgopal could not believe his ears. “Av..avantika?!!” Now the girl started laughing. Her laugh was as unnatural as her grief. It echoed throughout the room, it haunted the world in that little chamber. “Come closer daddy” She drew closer to him. “No, no stay back!” Ramgopal screamed. He could hear a faint ringing sound as she drew upon him but he could not discern the sound.

A minute later he awoke in his office. He checked the time. It was past 2 in the morning. The prescription pad with the numbers and Singh’s case history were still on the table. There was no sign of the girl in the frock. There was no doll. There was essentially nothing at all. “Aah probably dozed off..” He checked his cell phone. 3 missed calls and 1 text message from his daughter “Hello daddy. Where are you?” He massaged his head. He had been up at work too late. The stress had probably been getting to him. He had figured out the meaning of the numbers but he still had no idea as to what they had to do with the murders. “The girl…no it was just a dream..” He packed his briefcase and left his chamber. The Fortress and the Hell Hole would be relegated to his dreams that night. He would sleep at home. But as he drove home the girl in the frock predominated his thoughts and he pondered, “She was just a dream..a hallucination. Wasn’t she?”

I'm taking a break from writing my story now.I'll submit act 2 soon enough but now I just want to write something about never giving up.Many times,speakers at our school chapel have told us that we should never give up hope but I've never really been convinced.I've read about not giving up and all that crap many times over but at the end of it all I just have one question : Why shouldn't I give up?



I think I've finally found my answer.Never give up coz when things go against you,when the world's after your life,then understand this much:Life's bent on kicking your butt,so get up and kick its butt.Easier said than done,eh?Take it from me,life cheats on you big time.This is probably how you feel when you're down:

To be hurt
To feel lost
To be left out in the dark
To be kicked when you're down
To feel like you've been pushed around
To be on the edge of breaking down
And no one's there to save you
No you don't know what it's like
Welcome to my life
-Welcome To My Life(Simple Plan)

But always remember there are other people like you,always remember that one day the world will bow to you.One day everything will be alright.No matter even if you fail 100 times or 1000 times,never ever say die coz:

If you feel so empty
So used up so let down
If you feel so angry
So ripped off so stepped on
You're not the only one
Refusing to back down
You're not the only one
So get up
-Riot(Three Days Grace)

Enough motivational lectures,next up Act 2:The Doctor And The Patient!

There's no art to find the mind's construction in the face!

I'm writing a story at the moment.I call it "Of Shakespeare,Swallows And Sin".It's done in "acts" though it isn't a play.Well this is the first act:
(I'll submit the second act once I'm done writing it.Ha ha)

Of Shakespeare,Swallows And Sin




"This above all: to thine own self be true".-Hamlet(Act 1,scene 3)
Act 1:6th June, 2006

Scene 1

6:25 AM

Another Monday morning, another long hard day at work. Another day,with all those raving lunatics at Delhi Institute For The Mentally Challenged. The name’s just a façade for the mental asylum..but damn I’m running late for work. Maybe something interesting will happen today but then again maybe not, who knows..

And with those words Mr.Ramgopal switched off his handheld digital diary and dashed off to work in his luxurious Honda city. Mr.Ramgopal was considered one of the most established psychiatrists in Delhi. He worked at the central asylum infamously called as “Hell Hole” by many of its former inmates. He led a disciplined, stereotyped life,never swerving, never expecting something out of the ordinary. He was prepared for any eventuality. But the morning of 6th June, 2006 was to be different…

The Hell Hole was a large compound, around 60000 square feet in area. It comprised a large cemented outer wall with barbed wire, two watch towers-one in the north east and the other in the south west, and an immense building sprawling over most of the premises. This building was known among the doctors as “The Fortress”. The Fortress housed the insane, the people who constituted a danger to society because they were mentally “challenged” and those who simply suffered from psychological disorders. There was no distinction as such. For the staff at The Fortress, they were all the same-“mad people” in the words of Krishna, head of security.

Dr.Ramgopal drove his car casually through the heavy iron gates and into the campus. He parked his car in the parking lot and entered The Fortress. Despite having worked 8 straight years at the asylum he still had not gotten used to its eerie atmosphere. It was as if the cemented walls held secrets, deadly secrets..as if the barbed wire had latched onto living flesh and developed an insatiable thirst for the damned and diseased confined to those walls..but the busy doctor had no time for such melancholic thoughts. No, he was a busy man with a tight schedule. The darwaan at the main entrance greeted him with the usual “Namaste Saahab”. Naresh, the darwaan had been working at the asylum for the past 10 years and considered it a kind of royal duty to protect the building from intruders. Ramgopal smirked at the thought of intruders entering the asylum..no Naresh’s purpose was rather to help stop the dangerous anarchists inside from ever getting out…







Scene 2

9:00 AM

Dr.Ramgopal walked through the entrance, greeted the receptionist and walked down the corridor, the corridor leading to his chamber. The corridors of the Fortress reminded him of a place from an interior designer’s nightmares. It was so dull, so monochromatic, so very repugnant to a creative perspective, the floors were composed of solid, white marble kept spotlessly clean by the back breaking labour of the maintenance staff. The walls were painted a single shade of white though age had turned it to a more pitiable grey. Nurses carrying steel trays with syringes and vials swept down the corridor, occasionally raising their eyes to nod the great psychiatrist good morning. Ramgopal enjoyed the attention he received here. He was famous, appreciated and established. He had it all.

He walked into his chamber. The room like the rest of the hospital was painted in a singular shade of grey. But Ramgopal had brought a little bit of himself into the forsaken little place. Upon the wooden table was a picture of his wife and 5 year old daughter-his family,his treasure. On the wall, he had put up a picture of his mentor-Dr.Surendran-the man who had taught him everything about psychoanalysis, Freud’s theories, the Oedipus complex, multi personality disorder and the rest of it. Yes, Dr.Surendran was a great man indeed. Ramgopal took his seat, and began to sip the cup of hot Darjeeling tea which had been placed there a few minutes after his arrival.Just as he began to get comfortable, the phone rang, he picked it up. “Dr.Ramgopal, this is Krishna, we’re having problems with a patient here. His name is Prakash Singh. He’s done..well he’s done something extremely disgusting to say the least. I’m bringing him to your chamber. Dr.Nandy and two guards are coming along.”

“Why? What exactly has our friend Mr.Singh done, Krishna?? Anyways , bring him into my chamber and I’ll see what I can do.” Ramgopal put the receiver back,clasped his hands and laid back in his recliner. Prakash Singh was a new patient. He had been admitted last week and Ramgopal had only heard his name. He had never met the man before and for some reason beyond his comprehension he had a feeling in his stomach to rendezvous with Mr.Singh. Ramgopal opened the morning paper, he usually had to read it at work as he was always in a hurry in the morning. He was a believer in astrology and though not a complete fanatic about the thing he certainly thought highly of it’s concepts and principles. He was a Leo and quickly turned to the Daily Fortune section. His fortune read “Be careful what you wish for”. His eyebrows contracted in doubt, he sifted to the headlines and remarked “Strange..”



Scene 3


9:13 AM
The door of the chamber slammed open as two guards entered, briskly, holding onto another man. Krishna stopped at the door, “Doctor, you’d better be cautious with this one..he’s a rogue…a monster I tell you” “Thank you for the warning Krishna, now if you please ,take your guards and kindly exit my chamber.” “I’m leaving doctor but the guards are staying. Please allow them to..it’s for your own good”. Dr.Ramgopal was visibly irritated but he chose not to engage in an argument with the head of security. He acknowledged Krishna’s warning and turned to face his guest.The guards placed him on the chair directly opposite to the doctor and stood by the door, hands held together, staring at the patient with eagle eyes, waiting for him to make a suspicious move. Dr.Nandy, stood beside Dr.Ramgopal’s chair. Nandy was Ramgopal’s protégé in the same way as Ramgopal was Surendran’s.He was young, much younger than Ramgopal-a mere 23 year old psychiatrist fresh out of medical school, with high aspirations and the vigorous will which defines the modern youth. He had a youthful face with vivacious dark eyes behind ivory spectacles and a charming smile. His black hair was perpetually on end as if he had been electrified the minute he was born. He looked at his mentor, the senior, respected, established doctor and the creature before him-patient number 66-Prakash Singh.

Dr.Ramgopal put his hands together, leaned forward and rested his chin on his folded palms. He stared intently at the man before him. The man was in his mid forties, perhaps a few years younger than himself.He was dark skinned and lean with very little muscle and not an inch of fat.No he seemed to be more like bone and sinew stitched together in a messy sort of way. His eyes were drooping as if he was sleeping but his head moved this way and that as if awake. “Tranquilizer???” Ramgopal asked curtly. “Yes sir, Valium,0.5 mm syringe. I administered it half an hour ago” Nandy replied eagerly. “I see, half an hour,hmm,the effect should wear off any minute now..”.Ramgopal was correct, within the next ten minutes, Prakash Singh was staring wide eyed at the two doctors before him. He had a scarce amount of hair, barely a few tufts of grey and black scattered across the head. His face was lined, he looked haggard, but his eyes, they were light brown and lent an innocent feature to his otherwise inhuman aspect. He was draped in the usual white pajamas and shirt with his number on his shirt pocket right beside his heart. No, he seemed to be just another maniac to Ramgopal. “I see you are awake Mr.Singh so let us begin. What exactly have you been upto?” Ramgopal took a sip from his cup of tea as he asked this question. Singh swerved his head from side to side,but this wasn’t the valium,no this was just his fancy. A guard spoke up, “Sir..I..I ..for the past few days..patient 66 has been keeping rice grains near his window in an effort to attract birds..at first I thought that this was normal behaviour..but this morning..I..I saw a swallow at his window..he ..he grabbed it and and swallowed it whole…” he broke off,because before he could finish his sentence Ramgopal shouted “WHAT?!!” and the hot tea ejected out of his esophagus like water from a fountain. The tea fell on the floor and suddenly Singh jumped out of his chair and fell on his knees, trying to lick the tea off the marble floor beneath their feet. The two guards leapt from their positions, pulled him up and placed him back in his chair. But no that was not the end of it, even as he was forced back into his seat, even as he was restrained he screamed, but it was no ordinary scream. He screamed Shakespeare :

“Why then, can one desire too much of a good thing?
Come, sister, you shall be the priest and marry us.
Give me your hand, Orlando. What do you say, sister?”

Ramgopal was stupefied by what he saw. He didn’t recognize the play. He simply realized it was Shakespeare from the language and the style Singh spoke in.He pointed at the tea and then at the guard who had spoken referring him as “Orlando”. “Wh-what is going on here Shankar?!” .Nandy was shocked but his level of astonishment was definitely less than his mentor’s. There was something he knew.He spoke up, “Sir,this patient,Mr.Singh is a bit of an anomaly. If you will step outside with me, I’ll gladly explain to you what little I know.”And so Nandy and Ramgopal wearily walked out of the famous doctor’s chamber and into the corridors of the asylum but as he left the room, his eyes met Singh’s. There was a ferocious gleam in those eyes. Their hazel luster had been replaced by a crimson tinge and a devilish smile played on those broken, pale lips. No, Ramgopal mused, no this was not just one of the “mad people” at the hell hole and no this was not going to be an ordinary day….


Scene 4

10:17 AM

The two doctors stepped outside Ramgopal’s chamber and into the corridor. “Enlighten me,Shankar” “Well Sir,I don’t know much about umm Mr.Singh except that he was just transferred from Kerala’s Psychiatric Hospital a week ago. Since he’s arrived, he’s been doing strange things.” “I can see that Nandy! He just gulped a swallow, licked tea off my floor and started reciting Shakespearean gibberish!” “Sir, the swallow he gulped this morning, I found out from Krishna that this has not been the first such case. Ever since his admission, he’s been luring birds especially swallows to his room somehow and then he’s gulped them whole or bitten their heads off..his entire room is full of feathers,talons…and other entrails” Ramgopal was disgusted. What he had just heard,made him wish that he had skipped the two biscuits he had had with the tea. They had just made an upward journey to his palate and the feeling was very unpleasant indeed. But he controlled his shock. Practioners of psychiatry must be accustomed to as little show of emotion and astonishment as possible. It was an unwritten rule. He put on a grave expression and asked Nandy as they strolled down the empty corridor “But what about that that speech..it was Shakespeare..I’m sure of it..but why. it doesn’t make sense…unless he..he suffers from mpd.Is that the case Nandy?” “Sir,we are not sure about that yet. I’ve considered that as a possibility but we haven’t had the opportunity to run extensive tests on him yet. After this morning’s incident Krishna saw it fit to bring him to your notice immediately, I couldn’t disagree seeing that he had slaughtered swallows prior to this and so brought him here.” “I see,well he is still a patient here at the asylum and I will do everything I can to cure him of his disease!”Ramgopal said with the air of one proceeding to fight a great war for fame, glory and all that is good in the world. “And I will help you to my fullest ability” Nandy beamed. He would work with his idol, his hero, his mentor in what would certainly be a most difficult case..


Scene 5:

12:25 PM

Dr.Ramgopal re-entered his chamber, he bade the two guards leave the room. Their faces were clouded with doubt but it was their job to obey orders. They did just that. Nandy had gone for lunch. Ramgopal would have gone too but after hearing of his patient’s exploits, the thoughts of chicken biryani did not arouse much of an appetite indeed it rather augmented the nausea.

Ramgopal took his seat and looked at his patient. Singh had calmed down, he had bowed his face downwards and looking intently at what seemed to be a cockroach under his chair. “So Mr.Singh is there something about you that you would like to tell me?” No respone. “Come on Mr.Singh, there must be something that you would like to share-any hobbies, food preferences, anything?” Singh simply smirked; the doctor already knew his “food preferences” but no other response. “Mr.Singh my job here is to help you, to make you understand that you’re sick and to cure you”. No response. “Oh I see, perhaps I am not dealing with Mr.Singh, so there is another of “you”. MPD, just as I thought.” At this Singh finally responded, he leapt out of his chair another time, with such animal like speed that it caught Ramgopal with complete surprise. He banged his fists on the mahogany table, twisted his face to the right and spoke or rather hissed the words out. His eyes were hazel again, but the smile playing on those lips, that fiendish smile remained. “I am not a man with two personalities my foolish friend, I am simply me, I hope you understand that doctor!” With that he fell back to his seat and folded his arms together. Ramgopal took a few minutes to recover. He stared at this man,he said he did not have multiple personalities, he spoke so sanely right now, what was going on? But before he could analyze his own thoughts, Singh strode up to the window and just as before with a thick Yorkshire accent and powerful expressions he cried:

"Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date".

Ramgopal pressed the buzzer and two attendants entered. “Take him to his room” Ramgopal said shortly. The attendants took Singh away who was still raving about the beauty of the summer afternoon or something totally beyond his understanding. Ramgopal opened the drawer and took out a strip of paracetamol for his headache. He swallowed the tablet, grasped his burning forehead with one hand and took out his speakerphone with the other. “6th June, 2006.I’ve just talked to Mr.Prakash Singh aka patient number 66.I believe it is a case of multi personality disorder yet something ..some part of me..perhaps instinct tells me that it is not so. No, this man is perfectly sane and at the same time completely out of control…”

Ya know there are times when we actually hurt those dearest to us more than we can imagine.We make them cry and we feel so dead inside.We don't do it intentionally,but it just happens.We do stupid things,stuff we shouldn't do but we can't undo them once they're done(confusing,yes?Ha ha ha)

I should know,I hurt a friend this afternoon.She means a lot to me and I made her feel bad because I was going over the top.I guess I've done that many times before.I got her into trouble,made her do something she did't want to do(DO NOT TAKE THIS IN A PERVERTED SENSE!!!)and basically hurt her many times over and I'm sorry for all of that.Sometimes being too passionate,being too earnest can hurt others.I guess this is a part of changing and so a part of my blog.I've changed in the way that I know how it feels to hurt someone you love and now I'll do everything I can so as to never hurt her again(if she accepts my apology this time around that is!).So,this is a poem for her

I'm Sorry

Maybe I didnt it say it enough,
maybe I said it a little too many times,
I dont know how to say it,
but I want you to know that I'm sorry.

I'm sorry for all the stupid things I say,
I'm sorry for all the stupid stuff I do,
If time could be turned,if I could take back the stuff I said,
If I could stop those tears before they ever started,
I'd sacrifice everything..
but i cant..all I can say is i'm sorry for the stupid things I say

I wish I could retract,
I wish I could take back,
I wish I could stop those tears,I wish I could turn back time,
I wish I could sacrifice everything,just to see a smile on those lips,
I wish you'd hear me out when I said sorry..

But no you just walk away,never turning back,
never hearing the words I have to say,
but I'll scream them out,I'll keep saying them till the blood in my veins runs dry..
I'm sorry..



Hope it works!!

Right,the first post was sooooooooooooooo very cerebral and theoretical and well I felt like it was too much considering that I'm a bit of a clown.

I know this does not exactly make a world of sense but my second post is dedicated to someone special.So this poem is for her:

City Lights

Walking down these streets,
all the city lights,they shine so bright tonight.
I see an old man at the corner of the road,
sitting right there in old,shabby clothes.
His wrinkled skin,his frail hands,his bony brow..
i see them all..i feel them all...all under the city lights,they shine so bright..


I pass by the supermarket,the old chinese guy's counting the cash,
I see him pull out the counter...he's so shocked and surprised..
he dials a number..a police number i see..
i see the face of his store assistant..a kid about my age..he looks so scared..
i feel his fear..i know he did it..it shows so clear..
so much desperation....so much poverty. all under the city lights, they shine so bright.

There they go, the punks from my school,paying their cash,
taking those vials..they plunge those needles in. digging deeper..deeper and deeper
i wish i was one of them..they're so "cool",i wish i was,i sure do,
but nah i'm the "good guy" at school,the guy with the grades,the guy with no darker shades..
i feel their cries..i feel their desires..i see their needles..all under the city lights,they shine so bright..

I see a woman, I’ve seen her before. She lives next door.
She's wearing red tonight..such a seductive hue,
she's with another man tonight, man cant she make up her mind,
but it's her job,i guess it's fair,i see her go with him in his big,black car..
i see her fake smile..i see her cosmetics..i see his eyes full of lust..all under the city lights, they shine so bright...

There's the church,with all it's pleasant folk,
There’s the priest,he's a good man I know..
but they all praise a God...a God I cannot see..
A God I question..A God I cannot be..
Nah I'm just me..I feel his faith..I see his hope...all under the city lights, they shine so bright..

I'm at my apartment again..
it's well past midnight..but these city lights..they just wont stop...they shine bright all night...the steel behemoths of this..lifeless city..untold tales..and desperations hidden in big,black cars....i take off my jacket...i switch on the radio..
they're playing "Re Education" for the thousandth time....I switch it off again..the beats in my ears...the rain's lashing at the window..but these city lights,...they shine so bright..

I take the pen and sit at my desk..just one last verse..just one last line..
I can't figure it out...it's beyond my grasp..i turn the pages..i find a picture..
i look at that smile..those ivory eyes..the faint dimple..and now i know...i know my last verse..i know my last line...i write it down...and as i scribble down the title"City Lights"...i admire my work..but the poison is taking it's toll....the city lights..they don’t shine so bright any more...



The poem is kind of about the lives of different people in a city-a city with lights but no hope.

Every morning your alarm rings, you try to throw it into the trash can before realizing that you have to get up or you'll be late for work. You force those limbs to move, make the strongest possible caffeine possible just to shake off that drowsy feeling when you open the door and collect the morning paper. You take a sip out of your favourite coffee mug and read the headlines...

You spit the coffee in your mouth out at the cat who jumps and starts running around the kitchen, behaving like it's got ants in its pants(if the cat actually wore pants that is)But you don’t need the coffee any more. The headlines do what the coffee couldn’t-hits you so hard that you jump and hit the ceiling(or just “wake up”)-Obama wins presidential election.



Something of the sort happened to me this Tuesday. Now Obama’s victory didn’t come as much of a shocker to me. But perhaps subconsciously I wasn’t willing to accept that there would really be a change in the American presidency.

All humans are like that. We aren’t willing to change unless we're forced to change. We don’t want to evolve unless we're forced to evolve. We resist change because we’re too comfortable in our own skins, in what we know and what we understand. To contemplate of the existence of something beyond our grasp of comprehension would be equivalent to forcing our minds to change.

But we all change in the end no matter whether we like it or not.I should know...
That's why I'm calling this blog METAMORPHOSIS.

And what better way to start this blog than talk about Obama. So on ending note:
Obama is more than the manifestation of Martin Luther’s "dream". Obama is more than America’s president. Obama is more than just a man in office. Obama is more than just the change America needs. Obama is the change the world needs. Obama is revolution. Obama is the symbol of what "metamorphosis" means.