Since I've exhausted all my money... words are all I have to live with. Of course I can't eat them (Hopefully I'll get to that point some day). Over the course of my short life, I've always had this recurring idea. I wanted to make my masterpiece. Something that I could leave behind after I died, but of course, when I thought about it when I was seven, I just wanted to be cool. I have been, unsuccessfully, for the past 22 years of existence, trying to write a book. And its not like I havent tried; Case in point:
The Summer of '99:
We were kids, and didnt particularly like class, so 5 of us decided to do something fun. We were playing Pen-Fight (Its cooler to play, than it sounds) in the lsat bench, when I told Wasi, Abishek and Aswin (My friends from school), that one day the sun is going to become huge and swallow up the earth (I read an article about Red Giants the previous Day). Me and aswin were fond of The hardy Boys and the 3 Investigators, and such novels that starred High School kids. We lived and breathed Frank and Joe Hardy. Suddenly I had a brainwave. We will write a book. A book about 5 (Started with 3 kids, but soon, Muneem and Ranjith joined in) Adventurers, that survive the odds, and stop the sun, before all of mankind was doomed. We called ourselves, The SuN BlAsterS.
We quickly decided on what our roles would be:
Wasi : The strong man - tough on space aliens, with a heart of gold
Aswin and Me: The Brains of the team, extremely Agile - We also got the girls ( Ok so I short changed them : But you know what : "Mera Bat, to meri Batting")
Abishek and Muneem: The Logistical Support; The pilots of our Space Ship (the SB III) and rad riders of the space bikes(Sparrow and Sidewinder).
Ranjith: The most secret secretive spy that we had. Under Cover, silent, stealth operative, who operated in shadowy invisibility.
So the next semester, all we did was occupy the last 2 benches, and think about the plot. Aswin was incharge of writing, I was incharge of ideas, and making the story sound cooler, and do justice to every one's role in SB (ehehehehe!!!). A month passed. We had battled a fleet of mutants on earth, and were currently near asteroid JX-7. The plan was to attach rockets to it, and push it towards the sun, to buy us more time, and maybe attach a nuclear payload to it, to, err, well... Blast the sun (Hey! we had to live the name). Thanks to the meddling of Muneem and Aswin, a 6th person had to join the little team tht I was so protective of. Brian Lara. I said: Brian LARA....? WTF? What? How? But the words had been penned down, and I was the one who said, that which is once written, may not be altered. Any way: So we were on our way to the sun; to blast it.
Word began spreading about our epic adventure. The SB became celibrity in class. People thought we were cool, in actually writing a story about ourselves, and having cool names such as Leutinant Ajwad, and Flight Commander Abishek.
Ranjith was approached by Deepak for their Entry into SB, which was categorically rejected by me. But Wasi... Wasi was angry as hell. Ranjith had broken into and shattered some of the sanctity, and reverence that had once been associated with SB, by even considering a 6th member: As if Brian Lara was'nt enough, I said. A fight ensued between Ranjith and Wasi... and Ranjith was out. It was a shock for all of us. SB could not continue without him. He was part of the original 5. I was broken. My dream, shattered. I felt a weight in the pit of my stomach. That thursday, I bid SB farewell, and so was born, eventually : tHe 4 cLaWs.
The 4 claws did'nt really work out. Spinoffs generally dont. But I had a greater tryst with writing about a year later: Me and Aswin became the 3 I investigators :). Thats a story I shall tell later.
Till we meet again: Laterz and Aadaab
Aj
