Some things are better left unspoken

The Grief

2012-01-30T09:48:00.000+05:30

That day, his usual prudish, stern countenance was compromised by an expression that no one else was able to fathom. His attitude, which hadalways won him apprehensions and disdain in his team, was clearly missing. Ithad a hint of submission, a touch of sorrow…

For maybe the second time in years, the blinds on his cabin wallswere closed. To everyone’s surprise, he was late and his usual immaculatelydone tie was missing. For the social pariah status he had earned, no onebothered to reach out to him. And for the proud man that he was, he didn’teither.

It didn’t help ease the pain he was undergoing. Not a bit.

He was feeling utterly exposed even with the seclusion hemanaged. When the feeling lingered he avoided everyone’s questioning glancesand headed out. He, broken and visibly tired, started dragging himself. He keptwalking absently and stopped only when he was at the sidewalk of a freewaybridge some nine miles away. Dusk was settling over.

The lamppost there seemed to have been repaired recently. Heknew why…

She was vibrant andcheerful. And on top of everything, she understood his withdrawal, his silence andhis reluctance. They met at a café roughly two years back when their tablechecks were mixed up by the new waitress. It was in that café that their casualgreetings changed to sweet recognitions, occasional lone moments switched to a welcomecompany and acquaintance became fascination.

They were worlds apartbut they seem to work out despite the contradictions. They started dating, fellin love, shared their world and got to know each other better than anyone elseever had. He, in his own silent caring way and she, in her heartfelt way becamean indispensable part of one another. She never judged his wordless nature andhe never had a problem with her emotional loudness. Of the things that they sharedwas her near obsessive gifting ties to him and his long drives at silly hours withher. They were growing stronger each day, almost perfectly.

But then, thereusually is calmness before the storm…

It was in the verysame café that he got down on a knee and proposed to her. The waitress theyoverwhelmed that night with the generous gift would intentionally be mixing uporders and checks for days that followed. They spent the next day together andthen drove up to the lesser visited highway to the hilltop. It happened on thatominous section on the bridge when he lost control of the car trying to avoidan aggressive overtaking vehicle. The car rammed into the lamppost on thesidewalk and came to an abrupt halt.

He struggled out with minor bruises anddamages. She did not…

His entire view blurred because of the tears he was holdingin his eyes. He leaned over the bridge and screamed in agony, or wrath, orwhatever was left of him. It was the perfect transient moment of vulnerabilityand irrationality undermining his reasoning. It was then a street dog fromacross the highway limped towards him. It sat inches away from where he stood.Recognizing someone else’s presence, he spoke, “She spent four months in acoma, fighting for her life. Every single day, I have gone through hell forwhat my fate has transpired.”

He sat down with the dog, still talking, pouring his heartout, grieving and reminiscing as it listened intently. “She died last night. Ican never forgive myself for doing what I did. She was the only one I reallycared about.”

Hours ticked by.

He didn’t leave the bridge alone the next morning. But he did leave alive.

“Sometimes all it takes is letting it out”

The Surrender

2011-12-13T12:37:00.003+05:30

Her curvy figure, draped in a silk negligee, silhouetted at the door. Seductive locks of unbraided hair adorned her face which was beaming with a mischievous grace. Her hands rested on the alluring contours just above her perfect hips. Seconds lingered by as she stood observing him intently, waiting for him to give in to the temptations she must have stirred.

It felt right…

He was lying on the leather recliner in that dimly lit room. His immaculate form and relaxed looks absolutely betrayed the anxiety he was holding inside. His crudely loosened tie, ruffled hair and collar smeared in haphazard lipstick brushes showed signs of struggle. A struggle visibly reciprocated on her lower neck, as far as her dress allowed before, with marks of passion.

He was craving for every bit of her sensual self to envelope his senses in the whiff of fantasies. She was getting restless for him by the minute. The innate him – untamed and ravenous. They both wanted to snap out of reality.

Monsters!
…just waiting to be unleashed.

Before they could be overwhelmed by the tense moments of longings, they were locked in a tight unforgiving embrace resonating with their thoughts. They let their feelings flow through their bodies as their skin caressed against each other’s in a rendezvous of heat and passion.

Their lips touched for a fervent ephemeral moment and then obstinately surrendered to their desperation. Their bodies intensified as their hands worked their way through each other’s clothes until there were none holding them back. The lovemaking switched from chords of a sublime harmony to an orchestra of lust.

Animals!
So ruthless, so wild and so damn beautiful...

The recliner gave way to the carpet on the floor below as they keep devouring on each other’s thirst to quench their own. Their senses were redeemed of the outside world as they thrust into each other’s bodies in a rhythmic motion. It was a symphony of their sexuality rendered in actions. The crude orgy of wild sensation turned the entire room into an arena of lust. The fallen vase, the disoriented couch, the books on the floor and their bodies covered in sweat reflected the ongoing confrontation of desires just too well.

When their bodies separated they were out of breath and satiated. An awkward silence filled the room that was roaring with passion moments before. It was only then he picked his clothes up and walked out. She stood up and started rearranging the place.

He had to be home for the thanksgiving dinner with his wife and kids and she too was expecting her husband to arrive in sometime, if he does.

The broken vase would need some explanation. The shirt he wore would need some work too.

The scent they left on each other would require to be dealt with. After the passion they both succumbed to, agony, betrayal and lies were the burdens to be carried.

Desires…

The Smile

2011-11-03T15:41:00.001+05:30

Her tender smile still took his breath away…

She looked worn out and pale. She was dying, yet she was beautiful.He, refusing to let her go, held on to her hand tightly. The strings of thissublime rendezvous were broken off by cries of a child. When it persisted, he reluctantlyhad to leave her hand. He dragged himself to the cradle at the corner of thehospital room. Standing beside, he felt no connection whatsoever with the girlin the crib.

How could he?
She was the sole reason of his wife’s inevitable death-to-come.

The kid kept weeping, but the thought of comforting her nevercrossed his mind. He absentmindedly pushed the button for staff assistance andturned to the bed where his wife waited. He held her hand again for thatexquisite feeling of belonging. Only this time, he felt her lifelessness inthat murky touch of her fingers. She seemed to have given up while he reestablishedhis disconnect with the child.

That ephemeral precious moment was gone.
It was all blank. Void.
Her visage had rested in a look of desperate longing. The smile that he hadhoped for was missing.

He was broken. He didn’t cry but instead scorned at the weepingcradle. Somehow his grief was overpowered by his unjust anger towards thelittle one. For him, time seemed to have snoozed for an eternity. He was a mutespectator to nurses rushing to the bed, doctor coming in to declare the death, friendsdropping by to offer condolence. The only thought that was interrupting his sorrowwas how to get rid of the baby.

Desolation and desperation surpass all logics and reasons.

The first thing he did after the necessary paperwork at thehospital was to put the girl up on the adoption list. The room he designed and decoratedwith his wife deserved a better occupant than the girl they conceived for shewas nothing but a misfortune. He still needed to keep her along before he wouldbe contacted for custody transfer. Halfheartedly, he picked the carrycot up andkept it beside him on the backseat of the taxi. Her fascinating efforts of airwrestling by moving her arms and legs mostly went unnoticed.

It was a long tough week and the bargain that was forced on hislife had drained everything out of him. He dozed off during the ride, obliviousof the charm that awaited him at the end of the journey. His wife’s questioningeyes and disapproving looks kept following him in his sleep. If only she wouldhave passed away with a smile.

He woke up with the cab driver calling his name out. Hetried to compose his posture before getting out, but his finger seemed to havebeen caught in the cot. It was she who held it with all her little might andrefused to let go. Without a tinge of remorse, he intended to snap his finger outof her little hands. Before doing that bit of callousness he leaned on the cot sittingbeside him and for the first time actually looked at her.

She was smiling and he recognized that smile just way toowell.Her big eyes reflected a heart full of mischief and sincerity – the contradictionshe had fallen in love with everyday.He now felt the touch of her hand – the feeling of belonging wasrestored in that magical hold. An avalanche of tears flooded his tired eyes.

She was just like her mother. When he got out of the cab, hewas holding the love of his life close to his heart. He was never letting thisone get away.

Ever.

Her tender smile still took his breath away…

Aborted

2011-10-02T13:29:00.001+05:30

“So,where do we start from?”

“You tell me”, she replied nonchalantly, knittinga sweater as she talked.

“Howabout from the very start…?”

Concealing a hoard of secrets in its womb,the room was soon enveloped in an eloquent narration of a life, a death andeverything in between. It was a not-so-long one…

“I was never against marriage. Not evenwhen it was an arranged one with a complete stranger much older than I was. I wasonly, maybe a bit obsessively, concerned about my mother and elder brother whoI had to leave behind. You see, my brother’s brain never really took off anddespite exploring all the avenues of income he could only end up as a help at thelocal factory. My family needed me and my humble revenue stream from stitchingand knitting.

“But I had to give in to sentiments of mymother when she begged me to relieve the ‘burden of a 20 year old girl’ off hershoulders. My age and sex were traded for a rather unattractive vile divorceetaking care of the albatross around my mother’s neck. I distinctly remember thefirst time I saw him. He was staring down at me with a glance that I almost felthim crawling under my skin. I believed it would be the most revolting thing Iwould ever experience, but I was to stand corrected…

“Do you believe in omens doctor? I neverdid before my marriage ended up as it did. The howling dogs and broken mirror -they were all around me before I left my maternal house. I was scared when Ientered his house, terrified when I was alone with him in a room, half deadwhen he was ‘done with me’ the first time.

“I had a welcome respite after a few weeks ofharassments at his hands. In a factory mishap, my brother lost his arm. Mymother was devastated. I don’t feel ashamed to admit that I was glad ithappened. I needed those three abysmal days to realize their wretched condition to make sure that I don’t be a burden to them in future. I needed to bestronger at any cost.

“I have a question doctor. Is it a rape whenvictim is so broken that they are incapacitated to verbally or physically resistany sexual assault in wedlock?”

“Err…”

“Leave it. To be honest I stopped feeling anythingafter the first few months of disparaging and carnal treatment of my husband, my knight in the shining armor. It wasonly after seven months that I felt something divine, redeeming…umm…humanly inme.

“I was pregnant.

“Even when the food would taste bad and I wouldbe tired and nauseous all the time, I was feeling amazing. I started knittingagain – for the angel that aboded me. It was all I had to hold on to. The restof the world seemed to have drowned out.

“Being in a remote outskirt of the city, myfirst hospital visit for checkups happened nearly four months after mypregnancy…”

The doctor uneasily stirred in his chair.He tried to say something but refrained.

“They told me that there were somecomplications. They ran some tests and ultimately settled for a surgery. Beforethey anesthetized me I could see my husband’s frustrated face from the curtains.Whatever he was feeling, those must have been the only emotions he showcased eversince I came to know him.

“I knew we were going to make it.

“I woke up at home feeling dead tired. But Istill knew we were going to make it. My kid would be the answer to all my miseriesand redemptions. It was a small but a strong one, just like mother described meto be. My belly bulged negligibly even after many months of carrying my baby. Iknitted and knitted in the time that followed.

“Would you believe it, the first time Istood up to my husband was when he asked me to come to terms with reality and endthe drama? I took all his rage but didn’t stop. We went to see the clinic a fewdays later for routine checkups. When we got back home after the tests, he brokeit off with me. He said I was of no use to him anymore.

“It didn’t really matter. What mattered tome was in me, growing stronger every day. I was back to my maternal home when mybrother suggested that I see you. But you haven’t really done anything but talkto me…”

“Youdo realize that the girl child that you were carrying was aborted long back onyour first hospital visit?”

“So everyone said doctor but I can stillfeel it inside of me. You can argue all you want but you cannot challenge the gutsof a mother.”

“Youcannot conceive anymore. It’s futile holding on. Whatever happened to you wastragic, but you need to move on.”

“So everyone says. But I am a mother. Iknow better.”

She was a complex one but absolutelyinnocuous. She was kept under observation for a few weeks in the psyche ward. Whenshe was released, she was nursing a child who grew with her in time. She didn't need anyone else to acknowledge its existence.

Against all odds, she and her child made it…

Sometimes, insanity is more comforting thanreality.

The Equation

2011-08-13T21:47:00.010+05:30

Sitting on the sidewalk, he wistfully looked at the solitary structure on the lane in the mostly abandoned neighborhood. The two storied villa painted in cheerful shade of blue was nothing but a sham. It had been the perpetrator of all his miseries. His sorry plight was sculpted at the vile hands of those inside. He looked at it, for what was presumably the last time, with a scorn on his face.

He was leaving.

The empty driveway mocked him with the fading memories of his childhood. It felt like yesterday when he swung on its iron gate. His dreams, excitement, happiness and laughter were captured in a blissful semi-circle and ended up with a crash on the concrete road. He smiled emptily at the irony of how everything was ending for him in the very same way – crashing in slow motion. Only that it was way worse than the bruise on the knee back then.

He was leaving empty handed.
Yet he was not leaving anything behind.

He thought of the time he had spent in that house. He still couldn’t digest how fast his life switched from celebration to depression. He was rendered all alone by circumstances beyond his comprehension and influence. The girl of his dreams he was madly in love with left him alone in such testing time. So much for the promise of being there for each other in happiness and in despair.

Love breeds pain. He now understood how.

What ultimately broke him down was the recession that hit him squarely. He was tapped out of resources and his limited skills were unable to find him any avenue of income. His lifestyle was in grave danger as was his will to hold on. He had managed to live through the untimely death of his closest friend a few days back. Now that the walls of hopelessness were closing in, it was becoming increasingly difficult to deal with them without him. He was all alone.

A tear rolled down his cheek.

Helplessness is worse than tragedy.

In the midst of the distant thoughts, he could hear someone calling his name out. It must have been one of the delusions that loneliness conjures. The voice kept getting louder until his thoughts faded away and the reality took over. With a jolt he sprang to his feet to face it with all the fight left in him. It was who he feared it would be - his mother.

“Sweetheart, I have been looking for you all over the house. You are not aware of the ways around the place yet. It has only been three days. Come inside and apply some ointment on your knee. I have some good news for you. The apartments a block away will be ready to move in in another week, you can make some new friends.”

She literally pushed him along as they walked towards the house.

“Also, when you were not around, Sarah called. She is back from her family trip and will be coming over in another hour. She has got hands on one of the puppy from her uncle’s farmhouse – we all can do with another pet after Bruno.”

"But mom whatever happened to increasing my pocket money?”

“Don’t drag me into it. Take it up with your dad. And I am not pitching in for you. You are already getting enough as it is. Why don’t you try the elderly couple living a few plots away for a summer job – mowing lawn and such?”

“But mom…” he started to say something but smiled to himself and refrained.

The big flee can wait for now.

It’s complex being a teenager.

The Catalyst

2011-08-09T14:22:00.001+05:30

She, livid with anger, corroded with angst, stormed in that dimly lit basement. The room, as if convening a mating of despair and darkness in an abysmal cross of solitude, stood brazen. She dipped her shaking hands in the paint kept in the boxes clumsily lying at the corner of the room. And then she let her script loose…

His bleeding hand was in a sublime harmony with his mind which was going numb with frustration. Crimson drops of blood, yearning to embrace the keyboard below, rhythmically dripped from his fingers. The blood trailed right from the wall opposite to the mini bar in the drawing hall. Finer pieces of glass from a ’69 Middleton’s bottle still glimmered there in the light from the display. The keyboard soon became a canvas of bloody fingerprints…

[This story has been published in The Viewspaper. Read the rest here]

The Words

2011-07-18T17:25:00.003+05:30

“Emotions avalanched through her moist eyes as she was caught off-guard by Life. A month after the notice she still was jobless and well, she still had drinking issues. Shattered but resolute she stood in front of the suited officials from the State Care to present her case. But speech betrayed her. The ground seemed to swallow her bit by bit until she crashed on the floor. She was still not letting her children go.

Not yet. Not so easy.

Not without a fight!"

Hank read these lines with divine eloquence. His every word felt like a bullet through her brain. They cheated on her with a morbid sadistic pleasure. She wasn’t just another face in the crowd at the book launch ceremony of the much awaited novel, “Pieces of Me”, by the celebrity writer. She knew she was not supposed to be there and readjusted the stole around her head. She watched in disgust as Hank held the crowd in awe with his discourse. He was the man of the moment.

So immaculate. So inspiring.

So much for the betrayal.

She, at times, instinctively spoke the lines in her head before Hank could read them. She would then smile to herself before his narration would drown it out. Soon, the words stop hitting her and everything became a blur. It had been over six months since she met Hank…

It was a perfect setup for a perfect screw-up in that lazing restaurant at the underdeveloped city suburbs. She sat at the bar, trying to drink her loneliness off. She was 38, divorced, a socially awkward female working as a data entry operator at a banking firm. Hank, sullen and dull, sat beside her. His popularity in the reading community held no meaning at that place, especially after 7 years of his first and only bestseller. However, he was not oblivious to her.

It took all her heart to get over her reluctance and strike up a conversation. Hank had had no interest in giving any cue if it was not for her gauche disposition. She looked interesting. And for a dried up writer who was anxious for an inspiration, she somehow was the holy grail of hope. He latched on to her with all his might. That casual conversation and acquaintance stretched to hours, then days and later months. Four months to be precise.

Loneliness had made one vulnerable.

Need had made one desperate.

She started to think that she had found her soul mate in him. Hank started to believe that he had wasted his energy on a failed experiment. But destiny had something else in store for them. They both were in for a surprise.

The day Hank visited her to break all ties was the day when she finally found the confidence to show him the manuscript of a novel she wrote. She had put herself into it. It was her every intense emotion and every cathartic thought served on a platter. Those carefully stacked spiral bound pieces of paper were going to redeem him of his dry spell and damn her to absolute hell.

With her manuscript in his hands and with a promise of “making sure that she earns what she deserves”, Hank took off. After two months of no contact whatsoever, Hank didn’t come. The pre-book offer on his latest novel did…

So there she was, watching him mock a piece of her heart.

She felt the tempo in her guts rising with every word he was reading. The turning of the pages, the clicking of the camera, the absolute admiration of the crowd was breaking havoc on her. She needed to let it out…

“She pleaded to the cold executives but they did not flinch,” her voice started rising.
“She pleaded to the cold executives but they did not flinch,” Hank’s speech followed…

“She was shaking in absolute submission but was still sustaining the will to hold on” many heads turned towards her…
“She was shaking….” Hank could not ignore her loud voice anymore. His gaze caught hers and his face canvassed fear, anger and angst loud and clear.

“They had to bring in the others to hold her off while they take the kids away, for she put up a tough fight” She was screaming on the top of her voice. The nerves in her neck on the verge of surrendering to her agony. The security was already there to escort her out. Hank reached out to the glass of water and gulped it down in a jiffy.

“They were pieces of her. How could she let them go…” her words died down as she was taken out of the room. Her speech was the only struggle she put. The commotion gave way to absolute silence. There were questioning eyes staring at the “man of the moment”.

Those words were her everything.

She was the most disciplined occupant at the Psych Ward at the State Facility. She would keep to herself and mutter random phrases from Hanks last bestseller – “Pieces of Me”. She made sure it be his last. Her mental condition was instrumental in bringing down the charges against her from Manslaughter to insanity.

Those words were everything for her.

The Choice that Mattered

2011-06-20T10:42:00.003+05:30

She looked nothing less than a little princess in her floral frock. He looked like the sole survivor of a sweat and mud bomb explosion. She was sitting pretty on a park bench overlooking the basketball court. He, with no luck whatsoever for the nth time, was trying to score the basketball hoop which was too high for his own height and skill. She was intently watching him play and wanted to join the game herself. He, realizing her eyes upon him, was getting more desperate for a dunk even if by sheer fluke.

And when he finally got it right, he smiled and swaggered like he owned the world and nudged a look in her direction. She chose to break the ice. “Would you teach me how to do that?” she asked gingerly and he complied humbly…

---

They were the best of friends; they were the worst of enemies. He, now a bespectacled social pariah, was still the one stop solution for all her adolescent miseries. They were not on talking terms from a month since he advised her to stay away from Stan whom she started going out with. That day it was drizzling lightly when he saw her arguing with Stan at their school bus stop. He kept his presence discreet and boarded the bus as soon as it hit the stop. From the window of the bus stirring in motion, he noticed her standing all alone at the stop. It had started to rain in full throttle but he still knew they were not the raindrops that trickled down her cheeks.

He still believed that she deserved it, but he also knew that it was not the time for I-told-you-so. He chose to get off the bus and walked to where she stood drenched in rain and tears. When he hugged her without uttering a word, she poured her broken heart out to him.

---

Those two were the only common string of the archaeology department and technology department in their college. The chemistry between them still worked like a see-saw rhythm – from casual to extremities of love and hate. They would go out to the most romantic dine-outs and strike the most bubbling, informal conversation possible. They would go out to the most chilled-out place and would be lost in a sea of serious arguments. When on a hangout with some close friends, a question popped up about their “status”. She chose to blink an eye at him and declared that they indeed were going out together from quite some time. Everyone drank to that.

While he was walking her to the hostel, he held her hand. It was not the casual touch that she had experienced before. She looked at him, smiled and held on to it, in the same not-casual way either.

---

It was the final day of their college and they both were nowhere to be found during the convocation. However, echoes of their love and agony enveloped the abandoned basketball court. She was to go away to Cairo on an archaeology field internship for a year’s duration. He was to join a banking software firm right in the city’s downtown area. When their names were being announced in the convocation ceremony they were promising each other to make their relationship work from world apart.

They had reasons to let go but they chose to hold on to what they shared. On the other hand, time had other plans for them…

---

Two years of corporate dissatisfaction fueled him to put in everything in the venture he started a month back. It was a cold morning and the only café on the block was stuffed more than usual. He was heading to the door still stuffing his laptop in the bag when someone ran into him. Coffee spilled all over his jacket. Thoroughly annoyed, he looked at the perpetrator and a pang of recognition struck him when it turned out to be her.

He was in that café for an unexpected client meeting nearby. She was there with some friends from her university department.

Serendipity had spoken. They both decided to take rest of the day off and enjoy a homemade latte at the apartment they had been sharing from last six months.

---

Eight months after she left, her internship was extended to another year. He flew to Cairo spending major part of his saving to see her. She was worth it!

Having had enough of the pyramids, she ultimately decided to pursue PHD in the state university and chose to come back with him. He was worth it!

Payback

2011-05-20T11:59:00.003+05:30

“Even the meanest crack when you have a loaded one against their head…” - I swear I could hear my mom whisper it in my ear, again. The gasping from my esteemed guest for the night was intermittently defying the invasion of the deafening silence in the room. If I would have not been holding a 9mm Carbon 15 to his head I could have orchestrated a score from the music it became. I still intended to compose a symphony of death tonight…

He was down on his knees, covered in sweat and blood, pleading for life. The bullet wound on his shoulder was just a polite explanation for his doubts over a petite girl like me even knowing how to hold a gun. He sounded pretty convinced right after. For the man he was, I was pretty sure that bullet wound and the blood must be least of his worries; the gun on the head, more so.

Everything that happened in the past few weeks now feels like a car wreck in slow motion. I can’t remember the last time I smiled or laughed or shed a tear for that matter. My mortified existence found a meaning when I decided to do something about the incident that conspired it all. And so here we were, two adults sorting things out the right way.

What my pleas and tears couldn’t achieve in a month, a gun to the head did in ten minutes. He confessed his actions and was ready to make all amends in his capacity. He also offered me an awful lot of money but he still cannot restore my lost soul. I had waited in his office for several days at stretch, trying to pacify our situation but he didn’t heed me. It’s only fair that I do likewise. C’est la vie, it’s a bitch.

When my mom heard the news that broke me down, she had a stern cold face. But then she had cut herself off from any sentiment that a normal human can portray. My dad, a Lieutenant Colonel, was killed in an army conspiracy when I was just a kid. I remember her putting up a fight, a tough one, which ultimately thrashed all she stood for to ground.

Yesterday, she stood up again on her own for the first time since her arthritis attack four years back. I was curled up in the corner of our snoozing house when she came and thrust the pistol in my shaking hands. The only thing she said at that time was already proven right, for my guest had cracked up. My firearm course at an NCC camp was to come in handy after all.

As he was in front of me waiting for his death, my life felt like a book flipping in slow motion. Time seemed to have stopped. I pulled on the trigger with all my rage, all my might and all my conviction to leave a hole in his head and blood on my dad’s uniform which I wore. I felt my lips curl into a hollow smile with a tear rolling down my cheek…

His soiled police uniform with a newly added star on the right shoulder didn’t look as impressive as it did at the day of my brother Hasan’s funeral. He lived last fifteen days in police custody and ended up with a bullet in his chest for trying to escape. My brother’s body was burned in a furnace, stripped of any last rites, without any notice to my family because “filthy scums like him do not deserve any of it.” Hasan was fourteen, allegedly old enough to be a part of a terrorist group operating in India and devising a plan to blow up the Chief Minister.

He was dyslexic. He was hardly old enough to find his way home from the corner of the street.

A bullet started it all, a bullet ended it. Life…

The Blind Date

2011-02-17T13:21:00.003+05:30

Her big enigmatic eyes held secrets, longings and mischiefs of countless predilection and emotions which no one could ever fathom. Sheer fascination was but an understatement to describe his feelings at the moment. As her lovely face reciprocated the charm of the flickering candlelight, his delightful persona enthused romantic vigor in the rendezvous it was. The evening soon became an array of intermittent ephemeral fantasies.

The quiet walk to her home after the delightful dinner gave them much needed respite from the crowd at the bustling café. While walking alongside, their hands would brush each other’s, leaving a hint of warmth, until he held her hand softly in his own. His hands, caressing down her fingers would leave her a bit incoherent at times in the middle of her speech. They both smiled absently talking about their favorite getaways as they would keep stealing each other’s look.

The walk ended at the doorsteps to her place. Before letting her hand go he leaned in her face to tell what a wonderful time he had had. The receding over-bridge metro train smothered his words in the rattling of engine. He leaned in closer and whispered it in her ears. She smiled gently and kissed on his cheek…

He seemed to be a bit too loud for her liking – his gesticulation, his demeanor and his attitude certainly didn’t help the case. He was trying too hard to be witty but it was hardly working. For him, her critical looks seem to demand much more than being appropriate and formal. Her pursed lips gave an impression that she was judging his every bit. Both were already enervated in the first few minutes for the effort rest of the evening was going to command.

His eyes kept leering away from her face as they talked. He was pretty rude for someone remotely trying to feign interest, if that even was the case. Disappointed and furious she complied with rest of the formalities of the dinner, went dutch with the bill and helped herself with the overcoat before parting with the final courtesy adieu. He, having given up any hope to strike a chord with her, was likewise cold.

She was standing on the pavement, waiting for the cab when he offered her a ride home, his final sincere attempt. She hated his guts but just with a sinking hope of ending the evening on a better note, got in. It was an awkward quiet ride. The only conversation they managed was him asking for directions to her home. If only it wasn’t for the worse dates she had had…

Just round the corner to her home, he took a deep breath and mouthed what he intended to from a long time. It took a moment for her to digest the words. She got out of the car, started walking away but turned and said, ““Maybe we should try it again sometime.” His face lit up with a boyish grin.

What he said kept her smiling until she fell asleep.

“I am sorry. You don’t know why my looks kept drifting when I was talking to you. You are looking so darn pretty that it was making my speech sound like a rehearsed mockery of the language.”

They planned another dinner date the day after…

Only if real life was as uncomplicated as the fantasies one could conjure

The Easy Way Out

2011-01-09T01:40:00.006+05:30

A day after the incident, he stopped talking and only spoke when was spoken to. A week after the incident, he stripped himself of every human interaction. A few days later he switched off the television for good - too much noise for his isolation and too little solace for his plight.

All emotional responses seem to have deserted him too. He didn’t wince when he got a nasty paper-cut from his year’s financial statements, all loosely stacked up on the center table. He didn’t put up any more argumentative fights with the teenagers jamming in the next house on the street. His wife was at her mum’s place for the month. A last few of her calls found their way to the voicemail. Everything around felt just too obligatory…

He used to incessantly stare out of the window of his bedroom, comprehending nothing, thinking nothing, anticipating nothing – absolutely blank. By the standard of the depression the economy had hit, his despair and what was to become of it would just be another block in an insignificant section of the local newspaper the next day.

In his house yard the mailbox stood stuffed with letters, been neglected for days at stretch. Maybe it was just a cursory courtesy he needed to fulfill. After mowing the lawn he cleaned out the trash and picked that pile of letters. He tried not to look at the elderly couple sitting in their yard across the street looking at him. Smiling to anyone would have been painful.

He went inside, switched on the television as the background noise and knotted a noose for himself. As if haunted by a demonic spirit, he was cold, mute and erratically deaf to everything that was happening around him. And that is why he didn’t look at the letter of inheriting a substantial property from his distant grandmother. He missed the news of his insolvent bank being bailed out and getting merged with a government undertaking. The voice message of his wife’s pregnancy went unheard. He always wanted a daughter.

In a jiffy, as if avoiding any last minute doubt that might cross his mind, he was up on the chair, ready to kick the bucket. And so he did, a lifetime of successes and one huge failure was left at the mercy of gravity and a rope. If only it would have broken the damn neck instantaneously…

There was over a minute of desperate struggle. While his mortality was left hanging by a thread, his eyes almost popped out of their sockets, his legs moved to the rhythm of frantic agony, the veins in his face shamefully participated in that orgy of crude misery. Then it gave way to murky stillness.

A second later the rope snapped and his body hit the floor below. He gasped incoherently and eventually loosened the death grip off his neck. He got up after an hour of reflection, introspection and coming to terms with reality. Those kids next door needed another earful after which he needed to call his wife back.

The gloomy winter days play weird tricks on your mind sometimes.

The Redemption

2010-11-11T20:39:00.001+05:30

With an unrelenting knot in her guts, she watched the dusk settle over the highway fork. Desperately trying to compose every last piece of herself, she finally took the ominous split leading to the incoherent reminiscence of bygones. And for what was going to be the last time, she trudged through the half-forgotten stretch to her home…just in time for Christmas.

The highway gave way to an unassuming road leading to a suburban gamut of dilapidated structures. She reciprocated rather coldly to the memories every other element there unfolded in her mind. She almost didn’t smile at her group’s graffiti from childhood days still intact on the corner departmental store’s wall. Her out-of-place sedan generated much fascination in the humble neighborhood though, but despite the quizzical looks there was no visible pang of recognition in any.

Christmas lights recessed at a snoozing old house, the missing piece of her puzzle. She parked her car and after what felt like an eternity, opened her eyes and got out. She approached the door with unyielding footsteps, walking down the memory lane as if it happened yesterday…

The eleven year old withdrew from the brawl which was getting uglier by the second. Like every other time, she hid under the bed and buried herself under a pillow stack, encompassing every sorrow, every fear and every despairing tear within. She winced at every instance a woman’s frantic shrieks would be heard, drowned under the sound of the Christmas carol playing at the nearby church. She tried not to listen but still kept listening hard, hoping the cries would stop…

The next morning she reluctantly pulled herself out from under the bed, hopelessly optimistic of things being alright. She dragged herself to the kitchen, her emotions on the edge of her heart, her assumed sanguinity at the brink of her consciousness. And in sheer disbelief, she looked at her mother who was unconvincingly trying to belie the bruises on her face with a void smile. Just like every other day…normal. Her mom having surrendered herself to the fate went on with the daily chores. Her step dad sat in a chair in the backyard, his alcoholic stench still cloaking the house, refusing to budge.

She could not even knock at the forsaken door when an elderly woman, almost instinctively, opened it. Before words could be exchanged her frail face relieved in a smile which could have had lit a thousand suns. And there was the nervous recognition at last. The bruises on her mom’s cheek reflected much more than her tearful smile did.

A chair creaked in the backyard. The smile vanished in a blink…

Living in that home, something inside her died every single day. A year later she ran off, only twelve then, never to return. But she knew better…

Her step dad was not worth a confrontation. His bend stature silhouetted at the door when they left. It was his time to accept the fate.

Sting!

2010-09-27T15:54:00.005+05:30

“I love you!” she felt the words hitting her like a slap across her face. Said with a feigned sincerity, she felt the depravity and vileness in his vocabulary drowning her in a sea of emptiness. She smiled coyly, effortlessly, staring him, her seductive glance signifying much more than he could every fathom.

She had heard almost every conceivable confession, every possible compliment that a man would mouth to a woman he doesn’t love. She had coldly felt every accidental touch of hand that suggested something more than an innocuous contact. She had sensed every rude eye, leering at her, piercing through her clothes, making her feel naked in a swarm of people.

Almost waking up from her reverie of distant thoughts, she became suddenly aware of the heartfelt bullshit he had been feeding her after his immaculate confession. Her lips curled in a hollow smile, giving a cue to his intentions, inviting him to a world of possibilities with no strings attached. It was the time to retreat to a place more private than the corner couches at that snoozing smoking bar.

They walked to her car parked at the deserted end of the lot…the dim basement lighting shamefully reciprocated her grim thoughts. While her black dress perfectly emphasized the skin it adorned, he was getting mesmerized by the perverted thoughts of elaborate fantasies…

She could hardly close the doors of the car before feeling his resolute hands on her bare shoulder slipping to her back. She shuddered at his stench enveloping her, stripping her of her self while she still wore that mask of inviting look on her face. He leaned in her face, the lust in his eyes driving every fabric of his being at that moment. And that is when the crew barged in…

She was escorted away from the spotlight which was soon taken over by the man’s fiancée and the show anchor. She perfectly knew the foulness that was to replace her blocked identity during the airing of the show. Sadly she didn’t know where to draw the line.

She patiently waited for the backstage team to pick her up, some 200 m away from the epicenter of the drama where the channel’s TRP was being churned. It was time to go back to her modest flat, back among her wannabe model roommates, back to her struggling empty existence. She hoped to get a better assignment this time than seducing another guy to be scalped on the whims of a paranoid girl.

The Letdown

2010-09-10T16:03:00.010+05:30

[Disclaimer: I hope this does justice to his plight…]

A lost lock of hair fell on her face and his intended fleeting glance, captivated by the charm enthused, lingered for a few seconds more. Ever so, he would fantasize about lacing that strand off her face, his fingertips gently kissing her dimpled cheek. He wished that for that ephemeral moment, her eyes would betray his surprise move and reflect the warmth of the love he felt for her. As always, upon realizing his stare, she strained to conceal the smile her lips contorted in.

He never consciously realized when his innocuous liking for her turned into an array of fascination. It was hard not to give in when that magic persisted for years, even when he could only long for her for every excruciating second at the school they were in. She wasn’t the most attractive girl but certainly the one he coveted to be with. But before he could muster the courage to give words to his feelings, they parted ways to deal with their own lives after school.

Staying away from home, that bashful schoolboy turned into a confident young man in due course. The entire time that he ripened to be what he had become - remained a hole in his heart. The gravity of her memories and his trysts with the fairer sex in those five post school years drove him to the point of revering that adolescent unspoken love to uncompromising divinity. He yearned to be with her more than ever.

For what was meant to be, with the world closing in, he was able to find her eventually upon his return. The burden that he had been carrying for years finally found a meaning too. To his surprise, she wasn’t particularly unruffled at his proposal. Soon after their mutual confessions of overwhelming feelings for each other, they started going out. Blinded by ardent enamor, the time they spent together was nothing less than a fantasy ride galloping months of acquaintance in what felt like days. Then the reality struck. Hard.

The truth got better of the dreams that he had chiseled for her. It was hard for him to fathom his disillusioned thoughts of her being perfect, for like every human being she was not. His world kept tumbling down but he was already trying to move on as was she after realizing the disappointment engulfing their relation. His craving for that look in her eyes ebbed at a desolate note when they formally parted amidst tears.

He was invited to her wedding a year later. Not a shade of regret shadowed his demeanor when he congratulated her on the ceremonial podium. However, a wisp of smile did light his face up when, for the last time, he looked in her eyes…there was not a hint of regret in them either.

There are two greatest misfortunes in life - one is not getting what you want and the other is getting what you want.

The High [v 2.0]

2010-07-27T11:30:00.002+05:30

He sat leisurely, content, with an innocuously sinister grin on his visage still adorned by the hue of his felony. Those who watched him in horror shuddered to the edges of their benumbed emotions. The clouds of smoke emanating from his prized cigarette engulfed his remorseless face in the realm of solitude. Seconds ticked by, as his demeanor stripped him of the last bit of mercy anyone could have had mustered for his plight-to-be. Cops rushed to apprehend him as he devoured that ecstatic feeling…

For the first time, he had sensed a liking for killing in himself. He was at the epicenter of the turmoil surrounding the murder of which he was the soul witness. Given the hype the case had been, he was in the sweet spotlight. It was a good break from his shattered lonely life. He, obstinately, would relish the attention when being ushered by the police to the courtroom from a swarm of reporter shooting questions and thrusting their microphones towards him. His euphoria was however short lived and not long after the verdict of that case was announced, he retreated to his hermit life.

Lost in oblivion again he felt an incessant pain ripping his patience and conscience apart. Approvals apart, he just needed raw attention now, like a dope. But for what he was not, that dope was hard to come by. His desperation reached to a point when his mind went numb with only one screaming thought…

Surrendering to the inevitable, on a fateful day he picked a baseball bat and drove where his intentions took him, exhilarated of what he was going to do next. And then, he bludgeoned, he swore, he was feral – until only one was left standing in that room which was thundering with shrieks and despair calls seconds before.

He picked the phone up, the tip of his nose dripping a harmony of sweat and blood, and dialed the News Channel’s number. A wisp of smile appeared on his dry lips as they contorted in a tedious curve of forceful flippancy of his actions. He was selling his horrendous deeds and he got the best deal he could have had hoped for. He didn’t bother to change his clothes smeared in red.

He was escorted into the News Studio with a contingent of crew advancing a regal reception most people could only wish for. Soon there would be a swarm of reporters lining up outside that building along with a team of police vans - for the gravity his confession was to carry. It almost felt like a déjà vu. Dressed up ordinarily with a cotton shirt tainted in blood, he swaggered towards the stage. As he wanted, the center table had a pack full of cigarette with a lighter. The No Smoking sign at the side wall was still reluctantly intact. And then he assumed his guts and spoke…

Sitting in a jail cell, he scanned the newspaper and found his name was missing that day. He scorned in frightful agony and grumbled – obscurity was knocking at his doors again…

The High

2010-07-19T12:40:00.005+05:30

Seconds ticked by, as his demeanor stripped him of the last bit of mercy anyone could have had mustered for his plight-to-be. He was high…

He picked the phone up and dialed the News Channel’s number. A wisp of smile appeared on his dry lips as they contorted in a tedious curve of forceful flippancy of his actions. He was selling again – his horrendous deeds this time and he certainly got the best deal he could have hoped for. He didn’t bother to change his clothes smeared in sweat and red. The TRP hungry News Channel’s car would be there any minute now.

He was lost in oblivion again and there was this incessant pain that had ripped his patience and conscience apart this time. He needed attention like a dope. For the loser he was, that dope was hard to come by. He tried to sleep but his consciousness would keep cheating on his subliminal thoughts. Giving in, as if surrendering to the inevitable, he picked his baseball bat and drove where his intentions took him, exhilarated of what he was going to do next. And then, he bludgeoned, he swore, he was feral – until only one was left standing in that room which was thundering with shrieks and despair calls seconds before.

For the first time, he sensed a liking to killing in himself. He was at the epicenter of the turmoil surrounding the murder of which he was the soul witness. Given the hype the murder had been given, he was in the spotlight. It was a good break from his shattered lonely life and he relished every second of it. He used to get a high when he would be ushered by the police to the courtroom from a swarm of reporter shooting questions and thrusting their microphones towards him. His euphoria was however short lived and not long after the verdict was announced, he retreated to his hermit life, calling unknown people from 8 till 5.

Sitting in a jail cell, he scanned the newspaper and found his name was missing that day. He scorned in frightful agony and grumbled – ready again to do what he was best at…

PS: The italicized part runs in reverse chronology, but of course, you know it already :)

The Syndrome

2010-06-15T14:19:00.001+05:30

It was only after eleven days that the police rescued her from an abandoned warehouse at the outskirts of the snoozing city. The man, who tipped the police, claimed that it was only a matter of chance that while scouting by that place he heard her desolate muffed shrieks and found her clumsily chained to the gas pipe.

He claimed that when he found her, she seemed to have had given up all hope of survival. But if it was not for the ultimate rendition of her survival instinct through the hoarse vocal chords reverberating in the mortified establishment, she would have been dead by then.

The perpetrator of her kidnap was nowhere to be found. The forensic sketch drawn, based on the description provided by the shell shocked girl, proved to be of a little help. It ended up being stranded under the pile of like wanted cases.

Her parents, indebted to her rescuer, loaded him up with grandiose gifts of gratitude. He however along with that, flagrantly, kept his contact with the girl, almost his own age, he helped salvage from the unforgiving chain of events.

The girl, driven both by thankfulness and her own visible veneration for him, kept her side of the acquaintance with him. And not long after, they both started going out together.

As any other perfect relationship, they had their differences, differences driving them up the wall, differences echoing their complex rendezvous into a whirlpool of allegations and secrets that were kept and negotiated with. There was an elephant and it started making room for itself a year after the fateful incident that brought them together.

She prosecuted him to be her kidnapper, her Stockholm syndrome having finally worn off. He as if expectedly woken up from a reverie of distant thoughts, claimed that it was her idea to get kidnapped in the first place, in the bigger scheme of things…

They both were old enough to conjure credible lies and display deceitfulness to degree that any scorned human mind can portray.

A formal decision hung in an abyss of reasonable doubts and lack of evidence for either allegation. Their parents fought baffled for their side of the argument. However, the catharsis of those mountainous secrets ultimately seemed to have brought them together again.

They lived happily every after with each other, having faced the confession and renunciation of the guilt they carried.

The boy who dropped out

2010-05-19T16:30:00.001+05:30

He panted as he rushed up the flight of stairs. His stout short stature was certainly not helping.

A grinding sound emanating from above sent tremors running down his spine. Then there was a fumble, the platform shook and he thudded flat on the ground, groaning on that moving staircase.

Third week, and he had had enough at Hogwarts.

The Cursed Apple

2010-04-28T14:15:00.000+05:30

She used to walk past that cute guy to catch his attention.

He hardly could control his jitters as she would walk past his cubicle.

One fine day she was looking nothing less than a princess and he was sipping coffee from his mug. Her sight made the overwhelmed him splatter everything on his MacBook Pro.

The sparks are missing since.

Limericks

2010-03-31T10:38:00.006+05:30

Sporting a new found interest in limericks

George of the Jungle

One fine night and unusually high on weed,

He charged desultory, threw up and peed.

Created a bungle,

In the wild jungle,

Until he got crushed in an after-hour stampede.

Alien Invasion

Heading towards the building, sharply dressed,

Above me a UFO hovered, that abominable pest,

I solemnly swear,

It abducted me there,

…and that’s the reason Sir, why I missed the test.

Busted?

His mother, said with a crude unpleasant scorn,

“Disappointed I am for the day you were born.”

Before he admitted defense,

He ran upstairs, visibly tense,

To check if it was his test or his hidden stash of porn.

My Attempts at Haiku

2010-03-22T10:30:00.001+05:30

I underwent four stage of trying my hands at Haiku –

Longing submission

Cruel summer knocking.

Confused looks.

In the examination hall.

Deemed veneration

The moist sky

Dripping the droplets

Off the lonely rainbow

Assuming reality

Monday.

On my cubicle walls

A design document for next release.

Utter frustration

A never ending meeting,

And a sad

Agonizing insomnia.

Not sure if I will be writing Haikus again.

The Buyout

2010-03-04T11:31:00.000+05:30

[Based on a real life incident]

All three made a run for the multiplex after a chaotic hour-long metro journey only to find out that the movie show has been cancelled because there were no bookings.

“We are taking three tickets, fire the show up now.”

“Can’t do, sir. Occupancy is still too less.”

“Minimum how many people will suffice?”

“Five!”

It was an absolute audi-buyout at the multiplex.

PS: The intermission was cut short upon booing protests from the occupying audience.

The Sticker

2010-03-02T10:44:00.001+05:30

He stood infront of her house for over an hour. She didn’t come down but her dad did and reprimanded him generously.

Amidst scores of scorned disapproving looks, he got through the ogling session at the mall. He tried several phone numbers at night but disappointment answered everywhere. It was a tragic day.

Next morning, when washing his bike up, he carefully wiped clean the bunny logo from the hood. The new day called for a fresh beginning.

PS: Seriously, what’s the deal with every second bike, on the Delhi roads, sporting the playboy logo?

The Lonely Rendezvous

2010-02-22T12:00:00.002+05:30

They stepped out of the vehicle and a few cantered towards him. With exasperated eyes, he cowered.

It went well – there were blithe smiles and playful laughter all around him, he was more than happy to be a part of it.

Then they started leaving. He, enchained to a tree beside the roadside highway restaurant, craned his shackled neck to reach out.

Vehicles zooming past drowned his desperate bark in a sea of crowded loneliness.

Two Wobbles and a Slap

2010-02-12T12:35:00.000+05:30

[Guest post by Vineet Sharma]
(Content Disclaimer - Post contains words considered profane and offensive)

Started off to come to Noida at 11am, thinking hah.. fuck HCL. I never knew fate had the complete reverse in mind (Karma strikes back). As soon as I started cruising along DND flyway, after meandering through Delhi’s fuckin traffic, I couldn’t help but notice a car with a flat tire parked on the side. A thought (Why did it have to!) crossed my mind, Hah.. It’s been a while since I got one. As soon as I paid the toll, bike’s rear went haywire. I said to myself.. “Oh FUCK!” it meant only one thing.. A mothafuckin flat tire! Damn it.. I stopped and pulled over to the side.. The helpful guys from DND came over and asked me to wait for their help-van. I said “Good that it happened on DND, Now I am their responsibility :D”

My joy was short-lived, 15mins, turned into 30mins.. the guy came over and said in an apologetic voice “Sorry pal.. You ll have to drag it till Rajnigandha because an accident has taken place and all the staff has gone there.” Why did I not see this coming? Fuck! I started dragging the wretched bike once again. Close to Rajnigandha Chowk, a guy asked me “Puncture?” I said “yeah, what do u think?” Pull over, I ll have it fixed in a jiffy. I was glad.

This guy comes over and takes the rear wheel out of the bike and then tries to remove the tube.. 5 mins.. 10 mins.. 15 mins.. It aint comin out.. I asked him “Are you a newbie at this, newbie?” Pat comes the answer “What are you saying sir? Haha haha” Then finally the guy came over and said, “Naya tube dalega sir. This one’s over” pointing to a half a cm long cut. I said “Fine, I want to get this over with quickly. How much?” “180 only” he said. My friends know that I prefer to live on plastic and yes, you guessed it right.. there was no cash in the pocket and (predictably) no card swipe machine (POS: Point of Sale, acc. To the terminology). Fuck!

I strolled down for another km to the nearest ATM and after waiting for 15 mins for my turn (the guy ahead was only checking his balance.. Asshole!!!), took the cash and went retracing back to the bike. Now, I some how went to see what the newbie was actually doing. I asked “What the fuck are you doing with this old tube?” “Sir, there is a puncture in this ‘new’ tube.. yeah it is ‘new’ and I don’t have anymore ‘new’ one’s” Gazing at the open viscera of my bike and whatever I had endured all this while, I said “whatever man.. Just relieve me ASAP but I only pay 150 bucks. He agreed and took another 45 fuckin mins to put the tire back on into it’s place. To my horror, he said in all his politeness, “Sir, my pump isn’t working; please get the air filled at the next gas station”. “Are you out of your sane mind, Mister” I said. After much delay, he agreed to use his ‘faulty’ pump. Finally, some air in my tire. Fuck!

After paying that guy I rode off towards my place. Guess what happened now.. 2 kms hardly and I get the dreaded feeling again, the rear of the bike going haywire! What the fuck did I do wrong.. Oh lord! (I am largely an atheist :D) Thank heavens the place where I stopped had this puncture wala by the side. I narrated my entire sad story to him while the expert that he was, changed the tube of my bike’s rear tire for the second time in a matter of 5 mins. He only took 5-6 odd mins. Then he asked me to slap and abuse (told me exact words that I should use.. I guess I ll pass writing those :P )that newbie for him, the guy who brought a bad name to the puncture walas and report him to the place. I agreed hesitantly.

I went all the way back to that guy. He was snacking on something. I had his tube in my hand. He came over and I gave him a nice tight slap on his left cheek. He knew why I did it. I said “my money” To my surprise, he handed it over in a flash. The little kids around started laughing at the newbie puncture wala. I guess he had learnt a valuable lesson in customer satisfaction today (courtesy me :P). So, after this I stopped by at the expert puncture wala and told him all I had done back there. He liked everything about it and let me off. Hah, end of the ordeal. :D

PS: Captain Haddock would have said ‘fuck’ every time but for the sake of our childhood, it was replaced by “Thundering typhoons and blistering barnacles” :)

God Personified

2010-02-09T09:17:00.000+05:30

“I thought you said this bug cannot be fixed because of system limitation.”

“Well, err, you see we overlooked some bits, but as it is now - the bug stands resolved.”

“Do you have a better explanation than what you just conjured?”

“Definitely! You know how god works in mysterious ways. Being a software engineer is just a tad far from being a god.”

[Amen to that]

The Closure

2010-02-08T10:33:00.004+05:30

She was the most irksome obnoxious girl he knew. She would do things that would drive his unassumingly unruffled temperament off the edge into an abyss of annoyance.

“What do you mean you forgot to collect your shoes from there…” he snapped.

“Well, I just did.”

He remained quite for a moment, smiled and then took a u-turn from the next crossing. It already felt like reminiscence.

PS: On an unrelated note, my sis is getting married on 14^th February.

The Curse

2010-02-02T14:49:00.001+05:30

He had the license to kill, a grim one.

As an executioner, he was the one pulling a fateful lever and seeing the life drain out of writhing bodies suspended mid-air.

He finally rested in a remote government hospital with an acute arthritis, agonized every wake.

He just wanted it to end, but his license had no say against the law.

Silent

2010-01-25T15:49:00.003+05:30

“Sir, The name of the company is Gawk TPM Pvt. Ltd. We want the wire transfer in favor of the same account.

“Let me spell the name out for you. G as in gnat, A as in aisle, W as in wrestle, K as in knot, T as in tsunami, P as in psalm and M as in mnemonic.”

He is currently jobless…

Pareidolia

2010-01-22T10:36:00.003+05:30

She always prayed to be famous someday.

Being not very bright, she was rejected from all viable career options, married off early to save embarrassments to the family. It didn’t go well.

Chronically depressed, she jumped off her flat's terrace. Blood oozing out of her dead body contoured a Hindu deity. A classic pareidolia!

Her prayers were answered.

Broken!

2010-01-21T12:15:00.001+05:30

He was the mischievous little one in house – breaking things and getting rebuked every time.

There was an abrupt end to this routine when he fell and fractured a leg which was covered in plaster for 12 weeks.

Post convalescence, a vase slipped off his small hands and broke. His mom scolded him with a smile that could have lit a thousand suns.

The Haunted Mansion

2010-01-19T11:20:00.003+05:30

The dilapidated wooden door opened with an ominous creaking sound. Scared, she entered that barely lit dingy room.

A ghost came out of nowhere and startled her. She almost shrieked. He started following her, apparently, still trying to reignite the fright.

“Where’s the way out?” irritated, she asked.

“That way madam”, he answered.

The mall’s haunted house was a royal letdown.

The Clone

2010-01-15T11:24:00.002+05:30

The moment he laid eyes upon himself in that facility, on a blurry camera feed flickering with intermittent static, he knew he wanted to switch places with himself.

Barring the unending but now diluting protests from Human Rights for Clone Activists, the In Vivo Corporation’s revolutionary money churning facility, to harvest organs from one’s clone conceived for those whose pockets could afford it, was gaining unprecedented popularity. The basic return on the indemnity accrued was truly realized when the clone would be used to treat a disease making transfusion/transplant from an exact match inevitable. And almost everyone who could pay for it, wanted to live longer.

The clone facility was a technical marvel in itself. Stretching across acres of area, its compound was a self contained city, only underground. It was an impregnable fortress holding a gamut of clones waiting to be dissected to serve the purpose they were created for.

The occupants of that facility were kept mentally blank. They would undergo repeated selective neuron blockage to make them non-receptive to emotions and feelings. So far, apart from a few peculiar cases, the operating neurologists were able to contain any major anomaly in clones’ head. For that, the clones underwent periodic brain scans so that any variance in brain activity could be accordingly subdued.

It was smooth sailing before he plunged to fulfill his resolute idiosyncratic fantasy...

Having hit a jackpot in recent stock surge, he had more than enough to splurge. The asset management consultant he hired advised him to buy an insurance policy at In Vivo. So he did, only that along with the policy, with the help of an insider, he managed to tap transmission of one of the camera feeds in which he spotted himself prancing within the felicity dorms. The moment he saw his clone with the adulated rich celebrities he could only dream of meeting, he knew he wanted to switch places.

A fortnight later he met with an accident and while his limbs were intact he lost precious quantity of blood. He insisted upon using his policy for blood transfusion and despite heightened reluctance and tacit disapproval of his doctors, was transferred to the In Vivo’s facility because of the critical blood loss he had suffered. He was seemingly unconscious when he was brought in but his plot was going on in full swing.

A day later, he was discharged, his blood restored but he still looked under a shock. He left a frail clone, sucked of its blood, behind…

It was only after a week that an occupant was dismantled at the In Vivo’s Facility for showing alarming signs of neurotic activity. The owner of that clone went missing after a few days.

They called it the In Vivo’s massive cover up but, of course, enough evidence never saw light of day.

The Vendetta

2009-11-07T10:57:00.004+05:30

His arm, still in the convalescent stage, hurt badly but it was not his muscles that were driving him at that fateful instant. He knew what he was doing was utterly blind but the rage he had cultivated over months was now taking the better of his judgment. He kicked for the third time clumsily on the bike’s kick-starter and the vehicle squealed meekly on the busy intersection he was standing at. He adjusted his jacket, momentarily feeling the barrel of the gun he carried in his inner pockets. He still remembered that face…

He just had the finest talk with his fiancé on phone and he couldn’t help but smile like an idiot sitting in his car. The car zoomed past the hoard of the urban jungle to a gamut of street-light lit highway and he accelerated at a comfortable pace towards the next dip.

He looked in his rear view mirror and saw a truck and its two high beams speeding in his direction. Switching on the turn indicator he steadily swerved his car to the right lane and all of a sudden felt a gentle jerk. Seconds later he saw a bike dragging past his car, totaled and acrobatic in its stance – desperately waiting for a halt. The bike driver, abstractly covered in crimson blood hit the edge of the highway right infront of him as he pulled on his brakes frantically.

He pulled up in shock still in disbelief, trying to belie what just happened. As he sat shook up, a mob started building up on the road, stalling the heavy Delhi traffic but hardly bothered. The next thing he remembered was his car surrounded by a dozen men who pulled him out of the window and dragged him on the road. He didn’t quite remember how he took it but he was thrown in the center and anyone who could reach him, hit him black and blue with every ounce of frustration they carried. Righteousness disheveled by a bunch of self-righteous onlooker…

The ambulance carried two from the spot…

Among a score of clenched fists and gritting teeth, he remembered a face distinctly as he lay on the hospital bed. He remembered the man with that face running towards him from the roadside kirana shop on that highway dip. He remembered that man’s forceful kick on his already dislocated chin, stench of his foot overpowering the enormous pain for a split second. He remembered the sadist smirk that lit that face up while he covered with his hands in the air, cringed at the corner and pleaded frantically to deaf ears.

Under the helmet he wore, his eyes had dried up – both of them, deep red and fighting the exertion the bike ride had given him. His loaded revolver now felt heavy on him. Unable to control the bike with his feeble arm, he veered sharply on the highway – a car overtaking him from left honked and turned away in nick of time but still made a contact with his bike. At the speed he was at, that touch was enough to leave the bike in a frenzy whirlpool of elaborate spins crashing him towards his death. He hit another car, got dragged under its wheels for around hundred meters and just lay there when the car stopped, still conscious but not moving.

A mob started building up…
A shot was heard…
The ambulance still carried two…one of them dead this time.

The Bad Day

2009-10-21T09:41:00.006+05:30

He looked by his side for a longing few seconds. The day wasn’t so bad after all…

His mom, holding the lunchbox in her hands, called out after him as he made a run for his school bus honking incessantly at the society’s gate. He got on the bus thinking he just escaped the inevitable doom his mom’s experimental sandwich would dawn upon him, but it was too early for the celebrations. The (stupid?) driver, out of courtesy (?) held the bus for his (hot?) mom to reach and hand over the dreadful bite, served with a generous topping of scorn.

Then the nightmare started and everything wore a shade of gray around him – ruining the day beyond his imagination.

He forgot his Math’s homework at home and was asked to write it four times for the next class. He tipped over a desk and fell on the floor infront of the girl he was madly in love with. He could hear her laugh and was so embarrassed that he stayed on the floor hiding his face for so long that everyone in the class was around him – concerned and enquiring. He could have had stayed on the floor all day and could have waited for everyone to leave after school if it was not for the English teacher who walked in with a sadist smile and an artillery of surprise test in hands.

Hoping to gain an ounce of satisfaction out of it, he decided to cheat in the test. But the book he skillfully managed to open with feline stealth got stuck against the gum sticking to his desk. And when he tried yanking it off – it gave up and ripples of treacherous sound reached his teacher. She stood over him, surprisingly, liking his gauche antics. Her lips curled in a tortuous vortex of momentary insanity. He shuddered…

While everyone was in the playground downstairs, his childhood was getting trampled at the hands of a vixen, a poor excuse for teacher. His argument of “atleast getting the text book” was thwarted by her self-righteous idiosyncrasy, at a peak now when the absolution bell was just round the corner.

He managed to reach the playground right before the day-off bell stopped ringing. Furiously panting, he requested the last kick from his classmates. And when he got one, the bloody ball landed right in the no man’s land which was separated from their playground by a wall.

He cursed the world in an anguished monotone with every possible swear word his limited vocabulary would allow. As he slipped off the edge of the concrete wall towards the assumed-to-be-wild side, he noticed the mommy dog’s red eye glaring towards him. Chucking the idea of collecting the football he hung over the edge with mommy dog not wasting a second to jump up and make the idea of suicide much more welcome to him.

Mustering every ounce of effort in whatever was left of him – he heard the buses leaving the school premises and when he finally managed reaching the civilized side (?), adorned with the whiff of unwanted adventure he got in, he was standing there alone.

Walking lazily towards home, he mused yet again for the awful day it had been. As he was on the verge of giving up his desire to live – he heard the sweetest voice in the whole universe. He turned around to see the cutest girl he ever laid eyes on, running towards him –

“Hey, are you heading to MontVert apartments? I have seen you there. Can we walk along? That cruel English teacher made me write ‘I will behave in class.’ hundred times for a simple prank. Can you even believe it?”

“Err…well…yeah!”

“Great. You look terrible by the way. Do you have anything to eat? All that writing has got me tired.”

“Umm…I guess I have some sandwiches left with me.”

He took out the sandwiches his mom packed him for lunch and shared one with the prettiest girl he knew. He was short of words, of breaths and of moments he wanted to spend with her. They both walked very slowly to their apartments and all he could manage was listening intently with awe to whatever she said.

The sandwich tasted just fine…

The Bow

2009-09-22T23:30:00.003+05:30

With a gush of ominous wind, her hair swarmed gracefully in streamline curls off her beautiful face. Standing on a cliff, she faced her nemesis with a proud demeanor that could have even undermined the most powerful god. A furry of arrows, gathering a death-wish every second, zoomed towards her through the gloomy air saturated with mist. Unperturbed and with eyes closed, she kissed her ruby blade, still dripping the crimson blood of her foes, and assumed her warrior stance. The inevitable collision happened…

He couldn’t hold himself anymore. The overpowering scent of cheese hath him by his palate and his wits and he had to give in to the temptation, even if it meant falling in the trap set for him. Scurrying around the dingy basement, loaded with enough props to construct a real castle, the mouse found his way to the mouse-trap loaded with cottage cheese and unforgiving fangs. With a smart angle, he cornered it and with as much elegance as he could muster, dived for it…

At the end of the attack, her only discomfort was the bug she swallowed during the fight. She had trampled the whole army over, leaving the ground a lot redder than it was before. She now stood in front of the lava river which oozed out steam fissures…breathing painful lifelessness into those who were foolish enough to try crossing it. She ran a few fine yards and then threw herself right at the middle of the river, her arms and legs hinging upon the boulders that survived. The pivot she was standing on surged upwards and her feline curves, angled awry, accelerated towards her death…

The monster got the mouse. His poor tail was injured in the attempt to garner the treacherous cheese. He licked it for sometime, the hair on his face now smeared with his own blood. Rattled and saddened, he limped towards the corner to find a way out of this maze. He climbed the table, still hobbling, and travelled to the other end trying to pave his way through. He stumbled upon the rear edge and ended up on a steamy surface pelting hot vapors. In terrible pain, the mouse darted towards an escape route and suddenly the surface he held started rising…

She had surpassed every impediment that had come her way. The molten lava river noxiously stood behind her, still cracking and challenging the dare she managed. Her vision softened as the mist lifted and the elixir rose from beneath the surface…

The hair on his body had burnt in an absolutely painful fashion. He dipped his body in the water bowl he found on the platform he clung to. The platform rose in an amphitheater but the mouse was oblivious to anything other than the pain he still was bearing…

She faced the elixir and her countenance rushed emotions from pride to that of fear. She yelled out the loudest shriek which reverberated in the darkness. There was an ugly, burnt but alive mouse in the bowl with patches of blood all over its body. As it moved, she slipped backwards and crashed over the props on the stage. She pulled on the thick rope her hands could find and the entire setup somehow gave up. Among falling furniture and the commotion was the curtain which swiveled and covered the arena.

The yell shook him up. He ran with all the might he could muster. There was a roar of laughter and incessant clapping in the crowd that sat in the theater. Taking a moment out of his escape, he ran towards the center of the stage as the curtain fell in the background. Reflecting a royal pride, he adjusted his bruised body and faced the gathering – and then the mouse bent a little and took the bow. The thrashing continued in the background as he left the podium to conquer another.

“Pretense doesn’t define a hero.”

The Telepathist

2009-08-29T08:09:00.001+05:30

“Let’s play a game. Shall we?”
“Sure. But it’s not going to be pretty!!”

He woke up with a weird sense of perception. It could have had something to do with the neat vodka he gulped last night. But strangely so, the extra-sensory powers usually tend to wear down with time while in this case it was just the opposite. He climbed out of his bed after half an hour effort to slide open the curtains with his brain waves.

Realizing he was already late, he quickly got ready to pick his daughter up from his x-wife’s place. In their divorce settlement she got the kid, the house, a brand new boyfriend, the alimony and he got a weekend every month to spend with his daughter. He also got his much wanted freedom, the dog he later named after his x-wife’s new boyfriend and oodles of loneliness.

He was just feeding his poodle when he heard a *woof woof*. It was definitely his dog but he didn’t see it bark. He looked around and saw nothing, covered his ears with his hands but still heard the *woof woof* loud and clear reverberating in his head. He was visibly flustered but he still had a grip on himself. He was not demented, not yet.

He locked his house and hurried towards the garage. His neighbor, who was mowing his lawn, noticed him. “Hey, how are you?” the neighbor said. Before he could reply, he heard him saying, “…and how is that hot wife of yours?” Shocked, he stared at the neighbor, who evidently didn’t say the offensive part of the conversation. That’s when it hit him; maybe he was hearing other’s thoughts. To take a shot at it he plainly replied – “I am doing good…and my x-wife is doing fantastic.” He saw embarrassment in his eyes as his neighbor turned away in awe without saying another word.

He could feel his heart pounding in his chest as he excitedly took his car out to exercise his newfound power. He drove slowly down the road, taking his time hearing thoughts of other people and feeling swell about the might he had been blessed with.

It didn’t quite work out the way he expected it to. He painfully sensed the rage, the frustration, the lewdness and the displeasure emanating from every human being. The hostility he could hear in almost every thought made him feel vulnerable and naked. He tried hard to shut them out but couldn’t. Soon he felt as if he was at the mercy of his so assumed power.

He reached his x’s home, mentally worn out and frightened to face any more veraciousness of human character. He knocked at the door, found it unlocked and entered the home to be greeted by all his friends, colleagues and family for his surprise birthday party. Even before the wishes began pouring in, the thoughts did…

“So what exactly did you do? Was truth that uncomfortable for him?”
“It wasn’t the truth he was hearing, just his deepest paranoia, only loud and clear this time.”

He sat in the psychotic ward with his arms hugging himself tightly. A nurse approached him with the daily medication. He could hear her saying – “If he isn’t mad yet, I will make sure he becomes one.”

“Loneliness is a bi*ch.”

Why so Impersonal?

2009-07-22T13:08:00.002+05:30

Way back in glorious years of late 20^th century, my notorious friend and I were riding high on the unicorns of creativity. It was a bumpy ride. Glum dissatisfaction crept in even when we shook the fundamentally overrated principals of discipline and sincerity of our alma mater.

We needed to vent it out in an elaborately constructive way which meant more than just eating pretty girls’ lunch and pushing our competent teachers to the brink of absolute hopelessness in life. So, it was unanimously concurred that we will pen down a poem which will be the definitive exposé of our classmates.

We titled that fateful poem as – ‘Our Loser Classmates’ with a little subscript ‘see how much they suck’.

Probably, we should have considered consulting a publicist before picking up such a candid title but we already had well spent our pocket money on buying chewing gum to complete our ultimate collection of tiny comic strips. I now believe that 50 bucks would have got us a pretty lame publicist anyway.

That innocuous but bold poem remains our best masterpiece till date. The awesomest thing about that literary breakthrough was – it rhymed. Not once, nor twice, it rhymed after every few random lines (Hah, this line rhymed too). I decoded its rhyming scheme to be abcddcadfb…followed by lots of random alphabets.

A few verse that I could distinctly remember from that legendary work of art™ -

This guy in my class, his name is Raman Salooja,
He never tells but he secretly ogles at Pooja.

She is chirpy, she is awesome, she is Preeti, the Ms. wise,
Did she ever tell you that she has repeated class III^rd twice.

The fighter, Rahul the ram, the one with high held head,
I overheard his mom talking once, he still wets his bed.

Once the poem was publicly published and read out loud in activity class it created waves, drew criticism, upset many and brought ear to ear smile on two glowing faces for nothing less than a month. Long live our constitutional right of freedom of expression.

Upon severe accusations and condemnation we thought of screening the poem a bit, but this idea was later discarded for the following verse doesn’t sound as cool as the lines above, does it™?

Jitesh is the best in class but totally out of luck,
*All his friends call him a shameless stupid %$^&

We finally had to bury this ingenious piece of creativity once the commotion reached vice principal’s office. So much for the right of freedom.

I vowed that all my creations henceforth will have anonymous characters even if it makes my narration too abstract and filled with sad pronouns.

Hence so impersonal.

*The rhyming word was ‘buck’, a shameless stupid buck, in case you are still wondering.

The Intersection: Revelations

2009-07-16T20:39:00.000+05:30

(This is the concluding part of a 2 episode series. For the first part – click here)

The night crawled upon the murky neighborhood. She picked up her MP3 player and pulled out her lab-coat gearing up for the fifteen minute walk to her home from her hospital. Life as an intern at the newly build medical wing was trying, including the unfriendly locality she had to cross on the way back.

Out she came, adjusting her pullovers to the cold empty night she was walking into. It was dead silent apart from her MP3 player tuned to her favorite FM channel playing in her ears. As she walked towards the main crossing she pulled her overcoat’s hood on her head, wrapped her arms around herself.

The fog portentously covered the area, made it feel like more than just another night-walk to home. With nothing in sight she walked straight ahead on the road and continued briskly towards the gap in the median. Suddenly her FM faltered and the momentous silence almost screamed in her ears.

She noticed a car zooming straight ahead towards her on the road. Suddenly, the car slowed down and her heart almost leaped out of her chest. Unable to make up her mind she baffled between the sidewalk and the divider. All the commotion gave an elaborate motion to her gauche escape from the predator in the car, now speeding insanely towards her as if determined not to let her escape.

As the car sped past her, she hurried towards the divider. Before she could even cross the road, the car stopped just meters ahead of their rendezvous point. Her blood froze…

She was panting when she finally managed to hide behind the metro pillar on the divider. It was then she realized that her beloved MP3 player was lying in the middle of the road. The car still roared at a distance waiting for her to come out of her ambush. She took a deep breath, closed her eyes and made a run for it.

Luckily, her nemesis gave up the pursuit and the car finally moved.

A narrow escape. She didn’t dare to look back; fled the scene with her remaining few guts and a sleepless night afterwards.

(As interpreted by me after listening to my friend Sumit’s harrowing experience)

The Intersection

2009-07-16T13:59:00.003+05:30

Disclaimer: The characters, places and events mentioned in this story are inspired from a real incident, well, actually, inspired from a claimed-to-be-real incident.

The deserted stretch, deep in a slumber, unassumingly betrayed the bustling city that trampled it frantically in the day. A car approached the intersection at a cautious speed the thick fog cover of a chilly winter night of Delhi would allow.

As it advanced towards the crossing, the driver faintly noticed a female figure amidst the mist walking ominously towards him in the middle of the road. Her hooded posture was upright and stance was frigid. The white aura she wore while she almost floated made a chill run down the spine of the driver. He slowed his car down, not sure if he did that to avoid running over her or to just delay the inevitable rendezvous he was inching towards. The car’s FM chocked at the very instant.

The figure, as if under a demonic possession, sprung in sudden motion. Moving menacingly right in the middle of the road doing a dance of mortality, it leaped and quivered towards the divider and the sidewalk. Flustered with fear the driver accelerated in desperation and managed to just drive past it speedily. His leap of faith just seemed to have paid off as the FM somehow regained consciousness.

Still trying to accelerate while keeping an eye in the rear view mirror, he wiped the beads of perspiration off his forehead. The car suddenly hiccupped and stopped. He checked his ignition switch, looked in the rear view mirror and saw nothing. His blood froze…

Frenzied, he turned his keys in a series of anxious coercive attempts. Painful seconds ticked by as he kept noticing his car’s reluctance to start and glimpses of that scary white shadow in his now-covered-by-heavy-breathing-mist rear mirror.

Finally the ignition gave in under his persistence.

A narrow escape. The driver didn’t dare to look into the mirror; fled the scene with his remaining few guts and a sleepless night afterwards.

(As narrated by my friend Sumit after one of the days on which he had to take off late in the night.)

(This is the first part of a 2 episode series. For the concluding part click here)

Does anybody know Mohammad Aslam?

2009-07-10T09:56:00.003+05:30

Physical appearances can be deceiving, (and mostly because I don’t know how he looks) that’s why my nationwide search for Mohammad Aslam is based upon certain circumstantial evidences. Here goes:

#1 Mohammad Aslam has defaulted on the loan he raised from Citibank.
#2 He owns a “Hero Honda” bike and has skipped his last 3 months installments.
#3 He is a self employed entrepreneur, working as a “Chudiwala” (a bangle salesman).
#4 He has a hyper irritating and pretty persistent sister and a nephew.
#5 He gives my mobile number EVERYWHERE as his direct contact number.

I would have never bothered with this wild goose chase with some random dots to join, if things would not have turned so purple from the last few days.

The worst part, whenever I pick any call for Mohammad Aslam, I am treated as a conduit, a collaborator in the defaulting Mr. Aslam has managed to pull off. Rightly assumed, it sucks royally, especially when it happens in middle of my sleepy mornings.

So do let me know if you know a person fitting the bill. A sigh of relief will be hard to come by without his disappearance from my life.

The Charm

2009-07-07T16:51:00.001+05:30

His head was spinning discreetly in numbness. He got up with a sudden startle and his head hit the base of the bed above. Everything was a blur…it was calling him and he had no choice but to yield to it.

He revised the map again – the moving forest, the deep valley, the river and finally his destination – the elixir of life guarded by hell hounds. His expedition has taken the form of an obsession after initial setbacks, but “tonight is the night it finally happens…” he mused to himself. While he chewed upon this thought, he slipped out of his armor, “the elixir shall take me as I am…in my natural form”.

Disrobed, he proceeded towards his first impediment - the enchanted woods where trees kept moving. The faint moonlight slitting through the trees made it harder to find a way through. He bumped into a few several times but today he made sure not to utter a shriek so as not to wake up the six-eyed-witch, someone he never had been able to defeat. The last collision with a particularly nasty moving tree threw him on the ground. He sniffed a strange, conspicuous smell of leather but got up instantly, determined not to fall into any trap. The trees behind him cracked perniciously, almost.

He scaled down the steep valley, his naked body getting a good deal of scratches from the rocks and thorny bushes, bruising almost everything but his determination. He faced the river, moonlight shimmering on its silver surface angelically. With a splash he was in the ice cold water – he saw the sunshine sprouting from a distance. He will have to hurry up if he wants to embrace his eternal quest for once and for all.

And then, there he was, the end of the line, in front of the hell hound guarding the gates of the elixir…he moved forward with caution. Water droplets dripping ceremoniously from his nude body…

“You won’t believe it guys. That douchebag is sleepwalking again. He reached the liquor shop completely naked and is now rejoicing like mad for finding some f*@#king ‘elixir’ of $hit. Let’s go and get him, the owner just called me”.

All three roommates left the flat to fetch their somnambulist friend. They noticed the fallen shoe-rack, the half open goods-lift, footsteps leaving the society’s swimming pool, now lit, and then their delusional buddy, conscious and in senses now, sitting wrapped up in a blanket outside the shop.

“What’s the deal with you man? What was it this time? A galaxy wide search for new planets? Surviving the nuclear holocaust? For heaven sake, cover your genitals when you are on it.”

“Actually, it was something much more interesting; let me narrate it to you on the way back. And yeah, tie me to the bed the next time we go for a night show of a fantasy or science fiction movie.”

The trial of Eden

2009-06-24T16:31:00.003+05:30

After being kicked out of the Garden of Eden, the one with awesome lakes, hills and wildlife stuff Adam and Eve had a grudge against the God (a female in the premise presented)…

A potentially worthwhile rancor too, they just didn’t have a smart attorney to represent the case else God would have been on all fours and halo, repenting her hasty actions. But democracy and law were not the way of life back then, certainly not the lawyers – mostly because everything God created was supposedly humane and innocent.

If the great trail of Eden was ever to take place, with the cutting edge slyness and world-class wickedness today’s human beings have managed to attain, it would go something like this.

Case 0 – People of Eden vs. God
Charges against God – inhumane behavior with Adam and Eve

So Ms. God, why would you place this so called “Tree of wisdom” right there in spotlight? Spotlight where moonlight merges with the reflection of godly, ahem, ripples to create this mirage of heaven in heaven? And then explicitly tell these poor kids not to eat that tempting fruit? Weren’t you driving things to actually lead to where we see them right now? Looks like you played with their innocent psyche propelling them to commit a crime then never would have wanted to commit in the first place.

Umm…but…

And with due respect Madam, since you claim that eating fruit of that tree would be wrong, so you yourself did have that wisdom of right and wrong. Did you not? I can only assume but looks like someone has been sneaking fruits from that fateful tree and garnering all that piece of mind herself. If they are guilty then so are you. Equality of law states that.

[God nervously takes off her halo]
Well…but I created them, so well I kinda wanted them to remain that way, enslav..err…innocent.

Clearly, a violation of human rights Ms. God. Curbing someone’s free will - A crime which the law would find much-much worse than eating an enticing fruit from a tree built right at the heart of a garden. Given your disposition I am even convinced that you might have very well served them this fruit yourself, had your partner in crime, Mr. Satan, would have failed to convince my clients.

My partner? WTF, I hate that guy…

Of course you do Ms. God. You cannot even love these meek innocent creatures you created, once they were wise enough to break the shackles of your obligatory slavery. You are not just a threat to the people around you but to this Universe you claim to have created. Why would you create it anyway? Daily supply of fresh slaves? Set free, you might even start a slave trade right here in heart of Eden.

This is totally baseless…

Your psychoanalysis report would beg to differ - A morbid desire to control, self-righteousness, and an inclination to arsenals – the big bang proves your hyper pyromania. You are unsafe for the civil world we are trying to build here.

Okay, this is it. I would like to speak to you and your clients in person and settle this outside this court of law. I have as much chances of winning here as Satan has of walking again [godlike satanic smirk]

As the legend goes (this fictional legend that is) God promised beer, other ‘Eves’ and internet to Adam and gossiping, makeovers and Adams undiluted attention (until marriage) to Eve. And for the lawyers God created a sanctuary for them called hell. Adam and Eve dropped all the charges against her...Adam peed on the gates of Eden as a symbolic letting go.

And thus God was evicted of all the charges and Adam and Eve lived happily ever after (so to speak).

The Déjà Vu

2009-06-17T11:56:00.005+05:30

“So, this is how it will work. As a test subject, we send you back in time. You do something that changes the past slightly and gets reflected in the future. And our 17 years of hard-work and remaining precious plutonium prove that we have achieved time-traveling. And then we might get grant from the government to continue this experiment. You are our last hope, so to speak.”

"Okay, so let me get this right doc. I can actually go back in time, make changes in my answer sheet and prevent this however inevitable ‘F’ I am getting right now?"

"Ideally, yes. But our time-travel contraption is still premature, so there are a few catches."

"Go on…"

"The time that we might want to send you back in, will just be an approximation and could show a discrepancy ranging from nothing to infinity. To keep this variance minimum we partly transfer your consciousness back in time instead of sending the physical you. Basically, it would wind up as brain waves travelling through time…consuming much less energy than any substantial transfer."

"But what use is my consciousness when physically I will not be able to do a thing back in time?"

"While you lie comatose here, your present consciousness travels back in time, perhaps to a point when you were writing this test and influence you to mark the right answers. This right-answer marking will happen subconsciously. For the past you, it would be just like being confused between the choices and picking the right one abruptly."

"And what happens if my consciousness alters the past so much that we might not even have this very conversation we are having right now? Time traveler’s debacle, a freaking paradox?"

“Well, here lies a problem. The notion of triggering alternate reality or constructing circular timeline is so farfetched and flimsy that you would not want to toy with it. I suggest that once your consciousness is back in time you INFLUENCE yourself to CREATE conditions triggering the present as it is. Else the repercussions can be random, specifically, not pleasant.”

“Umm…Okay, so basically after excelling the paper I make myself believe that I have screwed it up and tell myself I should see you. Convenient. How will you bring me…err…my consciousness back from time doc?”

“Snap you out of it with a mild electric shock, and everything should be fine if you didn’t tweak with your past mind beyond control.”

“Phew…OK.”

“So, you sure you want to do this?”

His body was lying in deep slumber; his brain waves however, were plotting contours of enormous activity on the reference monitor. The murky room he was in was betraying the psychological lifelessness that enveloped.

Sinister…yet so beautiful.
Still…yet so alive.

He was staring at that question paper again, only this time with a subconscious familiarity, and oh…with a newfound interest in the girl who was sitting diagonal to him.

Gosh, she is so cute…concentrate you moron…okay, so the hydraulic power…did she notice me when I walked in, I wonder…darn it, you douche…it’s either C or A…it’s…she has the prettiest hair in the whole world…okay B it is…I think I should ask her out…alright, this is going nowhere…B again?...umm, I don’t know man, maybe it’s E…I think I can concentrate on anything but her now.

“Should we amplify the shock?” he faintly made out the words as he tried to open his heavy eyelids. “No, I think we got him…” a recognizable voice…an anxious one too.

“So, how was it? How did it go? You were unconscious for over an hour. Please tell me that you did something worthwhile.”

“You might hate me for saying this doc but…do you happen to have some more plutonium? Girl emergency, I hope you understand. By the way I am failing again.”

“WTF”

“Hang on. Hang on. I am having a déjà vu now, yeah, this is it…no no, you don’t hit your head on that wall doc, you bang it on the panels over there…yup, exactly like that. Too bad, I just cannot remember her number amidst all this commotion.”

Escape Velocity

2009-05-20T13:36:00.005+05:30

She stood at the edge of the cliff, her feet inches away from thousands of meters of free fall. She looked down into the valley, a cold shiver running menacingly down her spine making her desolately numb with fear and anxiety. But she needed to do what she was there to do.
And then she took a deep breath, stepped forward and let go…

They had been together for three years and she felt as if she was with a stranger. An apathetic individual who just recognized her existence but was oblivious to any emotions and feelings she might had. She decided that they should separate, part their ways to save causing any more pain to the other. So it followed.

She could barely open her eyes halfway through the fall and when she did her vision contorted in a palette of bright colors, all receding to the edges of her pupil to give a hazy appearance to the valley underneath. It won’t be long before it’s over.

The breakup went exceedingly well, no tears shed and no aggrieved catharsis…it was just like signing off a debt. This was when she realized that she was at a loss in this entire deal while his guy was just happy to shed the load off the shoulders. And on the last day at his place, she relieved herself of this burden of vengeance she carried.

Her vision started spinning. She felt a knot in her gut and a tight jerk on her lower legs. Her fall stretched for what seemed like eternity and then came to a dead halt.

She took out the most expensive negligee he had gifted her. Cut it into three pieces and flushed them down the toilet, the sink and the bathtub jamming the whole drainage system. She left in a rush because the cab she called was already honking outside the house by then. It would take a while before he would realize that something was terribly wrong.

The cord tied to her legs recoiled; the upward thrust lifted not just her body but also her heart and mind. She felt the wind on her face as her body lurched up and down on the bungee cord till there was no tension left in the rope. She was lowered gently to the platform below.

Later she came to know how the house was stripped and the floor had to be taken apart to fix the clogged toilet. Because of seldom use, the sink and bathtub were still waiting for their turn to be discovered for the abnormality. The next installments of his home loan were going to be a bi*ch.

“Are you fine Miss?”
“Never been better!”

She had found her escape velocity.