5.f

As the alcohol seeps into the blood, the circle begins to disintegrate. People fall apart. In sets of twos and threes. They get involved in their own parallel universes. Some talk. Some fight. Some argue. Some agree. Some click in a completely new way. The place becomes a circus and the voices rise and fall to rattle the windows of the gods fearing citizens who are asleep in their houses.

Piyush asks Harshal for a smoke on the terrace. Piyush looks at me from the corner of his eye. I notice his glance and nod casually in return. Without looking at him. Pretending to light my cigarette. Harshad turned back quickly to look at me. My desperate attempts to light up my cigarettes assured him of my drunken disorientation.

“Chal” Piyush said and they both left for d terrace.

I finally lit my cigarette. I stood up and began following them unnoticeably. They disappeared in the darkness of the passage that led to the terrace. I could hear their voices. They faded in the darkness. I followed their steps into the darkness.

The glow from my cigarette guided me up the stairs. I kept climbing them till I reached the door. I halted at its frame. I could their voices clearly. I pulled back my step and stood near the door with my back rested on the wall next to it. Harshad seemed serious. I began listening intently to the conversation between them.

“You said he won’t be there!” Harshad said furiously.

“He wasn’t supposed to be!” Piyush clarified with extreme efforts.

“Then??”
“His plan got cancelled!” Piyush explained.
“Did he say that?” Harshad’s stress on the word ‘He’ pierced me through my heart.

“Yeah”
“Bastard must be lying….must’ve cancelled it for the party…Bhosdika!”

Yes. Harshad was the same guy who had told me that he loved Shamita because he found me trustworthy.

“Come on Harshad!!....let him be man!!” Piyush said calming him down.

“No!....I won’t let him be!!” Harshad shouted on Piyush. “You know what he did?...” He continued in a threatening tone.

“No!...what did he do?” Piyush asked quizzed.

“He…” Harshad stammered, “he….”
“He what?”
“He slept with Shamita….”
“What?!!” Lightening struck Piyush.

“Yes!” Harshad assured firmly.

“When?!”
“When he pretended that he had gone home….he spent those days with Shamita….”
“What??!!”
“And they were at the hill station….not even there…..on a motel on the way!!”
“What the hell are you saying dude??” Piyush seemed shattered.

“Yeah!!…..I am telling you the truth!!”
“And who told you??” Piyush could hardly speak.

“Rahul!” I said loudly barging in.



(Contd.)

5.e

Friends are a family here. Because we have no family here. Friends become our family. And at times they seem better than families. They don’t ask you questions about your future plans. They don’t question your participation in the activities of your kin They don’t stress you out with their strains. And they can be accepted or rejected at any point of time. And similar applies to you. They can accept or reject you too based on a whim or a pointless reason. And finally make up with you because they have tied you a ‘friendship band’ on a ‘friendship day’. Friends have an ideal flexibility to form a happy family. A bonding without a bondage.

And unlike families, they gather at a single call.

When I reached the room with a bottle of Old Monk and Thums Up, I saw a line of motorbikes standing below our room. My family was here.

My steps hastened.

When I pushed open the door with my leg, I saw everybody sitting in a circle, prepared for the grand moment of disclosure. The bottles were arranged neatly in the centre like rockets about to launch off. And the ‘Chakhna’ was decorated artistically around it. Sure work of an artist. Undoubtedly Dilip. Could start a catering business in later life.

“Welcome….welcome!!...We were waiting for you, you fucker!” Anshul shouted aloud!
“And I am here now!!” I shouted back.

Everybody clapped! That’s the best thing about such parties. People get high before they are drunk. It’s not actually about alcohol. It’s about the bliss of having it together. That’s what gives it a high. And that was what everybody was drunk today. Bliss. Except one.

Harshad looked at me in a surprise when entered the room. His face flashed the betrayal sign. I could read it clearly. And so could Piyush. But I didn’t care to look at Piyush. I went straight and sat besides Harshad. I put down the plastic bags. Dilip quickly arranged them in his catering décor.

I put my hand around Harshad’s shoulder and squeeze him. He gives me an uncomfortable smile. I smile back.

“So…what’s the party for??” Samrat asks. He has the right. He doesn’t incline towards any of the vices to reign in some time. Yet he has to sit through the entire episode of emotional eruptions. Fights, promises, assurances, coalitions and debates. And in the end, move the collapsed friends to beddings. Clean up the mess and w+ake them up the in the morning. That was a too big price to pay for being out of the vices. And thyat also gave him a right to know why the next mess, that he has to clear through the night, will be created.

“No!...” Piyush shouted “Let us first begin with the ritual!”

All agreed to it. Samrat began biting his nails. Except him nobody cared about what the party was for. Others were busy worrying how many pegs could they gulp down.

Drinks were opened and poured out in even amounts into everybody’s use-and-throw plastic glasses. All kept it neat and raised a toast.

“Cheers!....to me!” Piyush said loud enough to wake up the landlord.

“Shhhhhhhh” Samrat hissed his fear “You will wake up Mama!!!”

“Oh sorry!...cheers to me!” Piyush said it in a low voice. “All finish the first peg bottoms up” He said and all swallowed up the liquid in a single go.

It went burning down our throats. As we over came the flame in our throats, we were already light in our heads.

“Now tell us dude!...what is the party about?” Dilip asked.

“The reason for the party is….just like that!!!...Its been a long time we haven’t had a large party like this…just that!” Piyush jumped off the track. Moron shat in his pants. And I was vouching for this dickhead. If it hadn’t been for Rahul’s punch, I would’ve devised one thousand easy ways of getting him out of the race. But the fire of revenge is a raging one. I pity myself. I want to hug Harshad tight for a moment and say ‘Shamita is my guarantee…take her!’ And the pain in my belly suddenly hurts me hard. The thought vanishes.

“Yess….that calls for another toast!!” Anshul said filled with enthusiasm.

“Yes!!” We all say in unision.


(Contd.)

5.d

“Hey….Piyush!!!” Harshad replied.
“Hey Harshal!!!....hows you dude??!”
“We met in the morning dude!!…He he he he!!” Harshad laughed.

“Yeah…” I could see Piyush loosing. Buck up fucker.
“What happened??”
“Are you free tomorrow night?”
“Why??”
“Party dude!!....with all the stuff!!...come to the room”

There was a brief moment of silence on the phone. Piyush lost the nerve.

“Harshad???”
“Yeah I am here…”
“what dude??....coming na??”
“Umm…who all is there?”

Piyush and I look at each other. I give him a nod.

“You, Me, Dilip, Anshul, Samrat…our usual people man!!”
“And Anay?”
“Nope…Anany isn’t there yaar…”he said looking at me. “…He’s going home for some function” Dickhead turned out to be better than I expected.

“Hmmm…”
“So what say??....kal pakka?” Piyush asked him nervously.

“Umm…alright!!”
“That’s it man….see ya tomorrow then!!”
“Yup…see ya tomorrow!”

Piyush hung up. He looked at me. I looked back at him.

“He’s coming!” He said. I went ahead and shook his hand. He hugged me.

“You would be there na?”

“Yeah…I would!” I patted his back.

How couldn’t I be. This wasn’t just about Piyush. In fact it wasn’t at all about Piyush. He was just an aide. He was my general. And my army. And also my master. I was the purpose. And he was the mean. And he had to follow me. Because I was his path. He had a role. And yet he was negligible. Sidelined. Overshadowed. By me!

“Thanks so much dude!...Thanks a lot!” Piyush said patting my back.


(Contd.)

5. c

“Brothers!!!…Party tomorrow!!” Piyush announces the moment we reach the room.

“Why?” Dilip asked.

“Special reasons!...You will know tomorrow!!!” Piyush said looking at me and smiling to himself.

Everybody in the room had by the time guessed what was the special reason from the blush on his face. The only point of curiosity that had left them clueless was the girl who had left the blush on Piyush’s tanned skin. And it had to be a surreptitious since it was contained within a rationale.

The looks turned towards me for a clarification. I smiled blatantly in return.

“Chal…” Piyush said turning towards me.
“Where?” I asked with a false surprise.
“Let’s call up others…”
“Okay” I say shrugging my shoulders.

Leaving the occupants in the room clueless, we move to the terrace.

“Harshad??” I ask Piyush fidgeting with the mobile phone in his hand.
“Yeah!” He replies.

“Switch on the speakers dude…”
“Yup!”
“And…Don’t tell him I am there!”
“Why?”
“He won’t come…”
“But…”
“Trust me dude!...don’t tell him!”
“Alright…”

Piyush dialled the number and put the phone to his hand. He then quickly switched it to the speaker mode. We could hear Harshad’s phone ringing. We waited anxiously for him to pick up the phone. And the phone rang. And rang. And rang. And rang. And rang. And then stopped ringing.

Piyush scrolled through his contact list with an alarming urgency after the ringing died off.

“Call again…” I said in a shot of perplexity.
“Yeah…one sec!” He gave a stressed reply.
“What?!…call him again…what are you scrolling for?”
“Just a sec…”
“Whom are you calling??”
“Shamita…”
“What?!...What for?!”
“Maybe they are together…” He said with a slight stammer.

I immediately grasped the crisis in the situation.

“Wait!….wait!….I will call her…” I barked on him. “If they are together…Harshad would surely realise that you are trying to track him…” For a moment I felt ashamed of w+hat I w+as doing. I w+as exploiting his fear. I w+as bloating it up for him, to calm him dow+n. the irony struck me despite my sw+elling guilt.

“Yeah…you are right…You call up…” He stopped scrolling through his phone.

I dial Shamita’s number and switch on the speakers. I believe in transparency.

She answers the call instantly.

“Hello Shammy….”
“Hieeeee….” She shouts on phone.
“Where are you?”
“We are having an ice cream at the corner shop…wanna come?”
Piyush misses a beat at the word ‘We’.
“We means…who all?” I attempt to clear his doubt.
“Me, Preeti and Anita…why?”
“No nothing…okay you enjoy your ice-cream…will talk to you later..”
“Was it anything impo….” Beep…beep…beep! I cut the call!

“Call Harshad now…” I command Piyush.

Piyush dials Harshad’s number again. It rings on the speaker.

We wait eagerly again.

Harshad picks up the phone.

(Contd.)

5. b

“But how will we test him?” We take a smoke break riding down the Expressway Bypass to the main city. It’s the best way we can entertain ourselves on weekends. Going to the city and walking aimlessly on its roads and through its lanes and by-lanes. A tea or a coffee somewhere and preferably dinner too. Then return to the room late at night. City is our only source of entertainment. It is our only hope to survival which stands against the exasperation of the life in the arsehole of the world. And everytime we visit the city, we secretly desire of finding a place there and settling down in one of its plush by-lanes at the end of the course. As a retribution for the days spent in the aspirant suburb of the city.

And the ride to the city is a pleasant one. A bypass to the Expressway. Then Expressway to the next bypass. And again a bypass to the city. There is another route too. The old highway which stood as the only mean of connection between the two cities, till the advent of the Expressway. But the road is grimily occupied by buildings and shops on both the sides.

I take a long puff.

“Tell me man…..” Piyush lights up his cigarette.
“What?”
“How will we test him?”

I rest my butt on the tank of the standing motorbike. Take another deep drag of smoke into me. Piyush stands before me like a priest before an oracle awaiting the answer. And I answer.

“I have an idea…”
“What?”
“Declaration…”
“What declaration?”
“Declare like him….”
“Like him…?”
“Yeah….Tell everybody that you like Shamita…especially him!”
“But…”
“Do as I say….tomorrow we call Harshad for an overnight…and then….you declare…”
“You mean….tell him?” He said finding a way out of his confusion.
“Yeah….tell him that you love Shamita!....”
“And…” I could clearly see a question mark on his face. Further clarification was required.

“And then ask him if he would sacrifice…”
“Directly??”
“Yes...”
“Will that help?”
“What help you want??”
“I mean will he accept?”
“If he does…you are at a benefit…If he doesn’t….The test fails!...Got it?”
“I think so…”
“Ready then?”
“I think so…”
“Make up your mind…” I turned my leg and sat on the motorbike and kick-started it. “Sit!”

I had set the stage. The action was about to begin. Action! That was what I expected. That was what I wanted. I didn’t pray for Harshad to back out. Because I was sure he won’t.

After a kilometre or two of riding I felt a pat on my back.

“What??” I shouted to take my voice over the wind to him.

“You mean….” He shouted into my ear in return “……Do what he did??”

I felt like stopping the vehicle and hugging him for discovering the meaning of my statement. But I sidelined the temptation and kept on riding. Chutiya saalaa!

“Yessss” I replied loudly. The voice echoed through the hills along the road.


(Contd.)

Chapter %

5. a


“Tell me Sanjay” said the old blind king “What are my sons doing?....I know you can see them…don’t you?...and you see my brother’s sons too…so tell me now…what is happening?...has the war begun??....tell me fast…I don’t want to miss a thing…I know you can see it all…you dare not try to fool me kid….I may be blind…but my eyes are in your mind…so tell me son…tell me all of it!”

And the televiser begins.

He tells him all that he sees. He describes the Warfield to him. With all the warriors in it. With all their weapons. And their chariots. He describes the order in which the warriors are standing in the war field. And he describes their lineage. Not to miss it. The most important element in a social structure. The lineage.

“Action!...action!!...I want some action!!!” old blind king shouts on televiser, bored of his monotonous vocalizations.

“But…”
“Chuck it!…I don’t want this…you show me some action or I replace you..”
“I am sorry!...” the televiser apologises. “And….” He continues.
“And what?”
“And the archer prince is asking the flutist to bring his chariot at the centre of the battleground…”

“Why?” the old blind king interrupts.

“Because the archer prince wants to see his friends and enemies from an equal distance…” the televiser reveals.

“Both?” wonders the old blind king.

“The enemies especially…” the televiser clarifies.

***

“I haundu hawk hoo yoo…” Piyush woke me up. He had a toothbrush stuck in his mouth and his mouth was filled with lather.

“What?” I was half-asleep lazing in my bed before waking up. I turned towards him with a great effort.

He left. I thanked god, closed my eyes and sank my head in the pillow again.
“I want to talk to you” He returned with clean teeth. Sparkling bright. Bright enough to wake me up.

“About?” I asked rubbing my eyes.
“Shamita…”
‘Good morning!’ I said to myself. I rose up and sat the bed resting my back on the wall besides it.

“Good morning…” Piyush said. Wow! He was preparing to be a very good corporate arse taker. He threw a regard before someone easily before showing disregards towards their immediate priorities.

“Yeah…good morning…tell me…”
“Do you remember you said that day??” He asked me inquisitively.

“About Whhhaaaaattt?” I yawned with the question. My brain was taking time to recover from the series of dreams I had seen as I slept. And the bright flash of this teeth too.

“About taking a stand…”
“Yeah I do…” Damn! This wasn’t the time to discuss it.

“I am taking a stand” He said firmly.
“Great!” I said with a forcibly induced enthusiasm.

“Yes…I have decided…I want Shamita!” He said, charged with determination. He actually did it swelling his chest and looking into my sleepy eyes.

“Are you sure…” I ask him just to check if he is speaking it out of morning dreaminess.

“Yes…and I am ready to stand against anybody…be it Harshad or any body” he says pressing on the last hissing sound.

“That’s like it…like a real man!...Be whatever I am with you dude!”

I did say it. I had a strong upsurge in me which made me say it. It was beyond my control. An upsurge of triumph. Piyush was standing up. Against Harshad. Bhenchod this was it what I was waiting for. The fumes of revenge had enraged once again. Incensed to avenge the humiliation. And Piyush’s determination had given it the power to engulf. The power to burn down the scars of a mortification engraved upon me. The power to heal the pain which recurs in me at the thought of the day. The pain in the jaw. The pain in the belly. The pain in the thigh. And the pain in the pride.

“But before that…” Piyush continued “I want you to help me with something…”
“What?” I ask.

“I want to test him…” Piyush says looking at me intently.

“Yes…let’s do it!”

***

“Then what does the flutist do?” asked the old blind king.

“He drives the chariot to the centre of the battlefield” answered his loyal televiser.



(Contd.)

4. e

I drank expensive liquor and ate posh food from the money I had saved from chucking away the whore plan. At helped me in minimal percentages to gain my composure back.

I don’t usually drink alone. Lone drinking makes loneliness deeper. It cements the feeling of you being alone firmly in you. And you end up being sadder if you are sad and drink more. Or you end up as being sad if you are happy and drink more. So I usually avoid drinking alone.

But I did today. Because I had a strong urge to. It was one of the last options I could resort to without being pissed off. I got myself an ample high and returned to the arsehole of the world.

I climbed up wobbly steps of my room. Then I opened the wobbly door of my room. I entered my wobbly room.

“Arey…you didn’t go with them?” Samrat peeped into the room.
“Where?”
“Manjeet-Da-Dhaba….”
“Nope…I didn’t!…I didn’t know” I replied in a wobbly voice.
“They were trying to call you…”

I pulled out my phone and unlocked it. I saw fifteen missed calls. I opened the log. From a variety of people including Piyush and Dilip majorly. And I saw four messages. Requesting me to call back or receive the calls, sprinkled with moderate to fierce abuses. I wondered how I could not realise their attempts to communicate with me. I went back in time through the little time machine fixed in my brain. The picture clears when I remember that I had switched it to the silent mode when I was entering the Whore’s palace.

Bitch had robbed me of my integrity and a few friends’ expectations.
I decided to call them back, but the emptiness of the room was more tempting than a crowded Dhaba by the Expressway.

I turned to Samrat.

“Why didn’t you go?” I asked him toying with my mobile.
“I don’t drink…I don’t smoke…what will I do there?” he says sadly.
“What are you doing here now?”
“Nothing…”
“Same…”

He smiled wearily and returned to his room. I smiled wickedly. I felt like laughing aloud on his face.

I sat on the bed alone in the room. The walls closed in on me. It usually happened when I sat alone in the room. The walls seemed to close in and suffocate me. But the windows saved my life.

But today their usual movements made me uncomfortable. I could see them spreading darkness into the room. The darkness like I had seen at the railway station. The darkness I had seen in Sneha’s bedroom. The darkness that sat in the corner’s of the whore’s room. It was the same darkness.

***

“How did you know about it Apu…?” I asked her.
“Because you are always so fused up” She replied.

I smiled.

“Read it…it’s supposed to clear all snags”
“A communist says this???”

“Nope…A spiritual guide…need to change roles sometimes for naughty kids” She kissed my forehead. I cuddled up in her arms and began weeping like a kid. She caressed my hair the way my Mom did when I was a boy. “..n’ by the way”, she continued “…I am no communist…I am just a socialist!”

I hugged her tight.

***

“Read it…it’s supposed to clear all snags”

The darkness was spreading it’s claws in the corners of the room. It was filling the room with an inescapable gloom.

And the Bhagwad Geeta glowed in all its illumination where it was kept on the study table. I jumped off the bed and ran towards it to protect the room from the claws of darkness. I held it to my chest and came back to the bed. Only it could fight the growing darkness in the room. Not because it was a holy book. Because Apu had given it to me. It was my connection to her. The cable which connected me to her. It was the escape route. I would open it like a door and jump into it. I would then disappear into it. Into the domain of light. Away from the darkness spreading in the room.

I unwrapped it. It continued to glow. The Krishna on its cover guaranteed me with an escape. And an expert assistance over the same.

I opened the cover and a huge flash of blindening light emitted from it. It sucked me inside its brightness and I disappeared into the light.

Lost.


(Contd.)

4. d

I wasn’t left with a face to approach Sneha again. I had almost given up eating at Aunty’s café. I used to visit it only when Aunty used to be alone. Even a glimpse of Sneha made me uncomfortable enough to leave without even touching whatever I had ordered.

The incidence had also left me with a question about my hampered masculinity. My tests included molesting myself from time to time. With thoughts from present, past and future. The mechanism was working absolutely fine. There were all stage of copulation present and well performing. But even my fantasies couldn’t go beyond my erotic moments with Aparna. Whenever I broke the barrier, I ended up spilling before benchmark timings. I had began worrying if my ability had chained themselves to Aparna and left along with her.

I became desperate to prove myself to me. I grew impatient to verify my potency beyond Aparna. But it also scared me to approach any of my previous subjects of intimate endeavours. I didn’t want one more Sneha.

I saw only one option before me.

***

“Kitna?” I asked her.

“Hajaar night ka…room ka paanchso alag”. Fifteen hundred was a too big price to pay for a test. But due to some unjustified reasons I wanted to take it. It was ludicrously essential. I was willing to spend half of my month’s expenses on a prostitute just to ensure that I could get a hard on.

A part of me was still unsure about paying the whore so much just for a night.

“Kuchh kamti nahi hoga?”

What so ever be the situation, the virtues of a middle class human does not depart from its soul with an ease. I begin bargaining with a prostitute. Over the years of shopping with my parents, I have learnt one thing for sure. In every deal, Bargain! Be it a peas, pant piece or a prostitute, no deal is complete without a bargain.

“Ghusaane aaya hai yaa ghisaane aaya hai?”
“Bolo na yaar….thoda upar neeche kuch hota hai toh…”
“Log idhar aagey peechhe karne aate hai…aur tu upar neeche karega??...”
“Budget nahi hai…”
“Bol kitna dega?”
“Hajaar…”
“Baraso se ek paisa kam nahi legi main…”
“Hajaar mein fit kardo…ho jaayega….”
“Nahi hota…”
“Theek hai…jaane do phir…”

That is the biggest trick in a bargain. Exit the deal if you don’t get the right price. It compels the seller to slash down his rates further. It does not work everytime though. There are some hard nuts. But the overall results are above satisfactory.

“Gyarahso last…”
“Hajaar…”
“Gyaraso….nahi toh jaane do…”

The trick can be played from the other end too.

“Theek hai.” I accept.

I crack a deal. I fix a prostitute for eleven hundred rupees only. I bargain. I bring down her rates from fifteen hundred to eleven hundred. My mom would have been so proud of me if she had seen this. I had proved myself worthy of my upbringings. I had won a bargain.

She took me to a small dingy room on the first floor of a building which looked like a historic ancestral house of some family involved political affairs in its times.

All the brothels on this road looked this way. One of the later Maratha kings towards end of Maratha regime had settled this street to fulfil his insatiable desire for skin. Or maybe, he was on a test like me. But his test never ended. He must’ve settled an entire locality of prostitutes through his daily testing schedule. The place now had prostitutes from around the country. But the spirit of the king still roams through all those who visit this place.

As I had entered through the small entrance, the exquisite carving on the wooden pillars make me feel like entering a royal courtesan’s abode. I had followed her to his room across several such rooms filled with an intercourse.

The room was pathetically painted in a soiled green colour. There were tiles put up at places where the colour had chipped off. One wall looked like a large game of Tetris.

She stood before me.

“Dekho saahab…fix rate mein…” She began quoting a list of rules.

Rules for a paid sexual activity:
1. Thou shalt not kiss
2. Thou shalt not lick
3. Thou shalt not bite
4. Thou shalt not suck
5. Thou shalt not be forceful
6. Thou shalt not demand a blow job
7. Thou shalt not spoil the clothing
8. Thou shalt not spoil the make up
9. Thou shalt not spoil the hair
10. Thou shalt not ask for the name
11. Thou shalt pay the tip
12. More the tip that shall thy pay, shalt each rule be dropped.

I said I had no more money left for the tip.

“Theek hai!” she said and stretched out on the bed. She raised her legs and pulled down the saree baring them before me.

“Haan…chaalu karo!”

Bare thighs as these would have other wise driven me crazy. But the edge of professionalism with which they were uncovered created a repulsion in me. To add to the ugliness. She opened them displaying her reproductive organ. The filth turned me off. I has painstakingly chosen her over the other whores because I thought she had the ability to seduce. That was a speculation based over her appearance. But I had been deceived my instincts. Even though It was nothing new for me, the level of it’s failure had dealt a shock to me.

“Jaldi…aise pakad ke nahi let sakti main jaasti time…”

So what if you can’t keep lying with your legs raised in air. Not my fault. I didn’t ask for it. Bloody Bitch. Die out of AIDS! Rot in hell!

I always had a soft corner for whores. More of a sympathy towards their profession and condition. I had lost it now.

And as far as erection was considered, no prizes for guessing that I didn’t have one. I couldn’t and never would have it before readily spread legs of a prostitute.

I turned and walked out of the room. I exit the place. I turned around and saw the road filled with many such like her. And large wooden windows of their affiliations.
My test never began, forget failing.

I thought of approaching another one. But the logic of professional similarity hit me. If one was her, rest would be intense or diluted versions of her. But like her.

Maybe the king didn’t possess this logic. Or maybe he didn’t the feel the same way as I did now. The long road stacked with brothel houses was an evidence.

As I walked away from that place, the compulsion to prove my masculinity had left me. I doubted if it made any difference to me after this incidence. With it I would join the breed of able men who would otherwise visit one such whore and thrust that erection into her ugly gateway. And without it, I would join the creed of men who would regret its absence and yet continue to live the same lives. How would it differentiate me from other men. Men who lost the battle with their lives every day.

I didn’t want to loose myself in their crowd. I had to stand out.

A strong urge to differentiate myself from the world filled me up. Aparna, her loss, the deflation, Sneha nothing held any meaning to me. Just one word left back.

'Difference'

(Contd.)

4.c

I kiss her into her bedroom.

Aunty is not at home. It’s not the regular closing time. Yet the shutters are down. Sneha has the permission to pull them down whenever Aunty isn’t there. After all she is an attractive young girl in her days of bloom. And every mother of an attractive young girl in her days of bloom is worried about leaving her alone, directly exposed to millions of scanner eyes and lusty proposals. In cliché terms, keep a freshly blossomed bud within the range of countless hungry male bees.

But, even the strongest of pesticide can’t stop a king bee from entering into a flower. Larger the bee, larger the thirst. Larger the thirst, larger the fervour.

I had woken up late due to overdrinking at last night’s booze bash. I had woken up once at my usual hour. But I crashed down again realising its worthlessness. I woke up later and found it worthless again. I was about to crash again but I resisted it out of shame. I stood up. Had a wash and left for late brunch to Aunty’s. A permanent feeling of worthlessness had gripped me completely as I walked towards Aunty’s place. This wasn’t the first time I was feeling this. But this was the first time I was feeling this when I was alone. I did have people around me. But I hadn’t felt the feeling of belonging to any one of them. I was all alone in this dark hole.

All I needed was a shoulder to rest my head on. A shoulder which could soak up my dry sniffles in it. A shoulder which could comfort my ache. A shoulder which could glue me to itself.

I reached Aunty’s café. I saw Sneha alone at the counter. She had worn a crimson Ganji. Her chest open and her shoulders bare. Their glaze stood out prominently over the crimson darkness of her top. Her nipples stood out as two dark dots on her chest. The café was unusually crowded today.

I stared at them as I walked to her. I wanted to touch them. Feel their softness. To slide my fingers over their smoothness. Maybe to touch them with my lips. Or even dig my teeth into them. Lust at times, remains a male’s only way out from pain.

A stand before her looking into her eyes.

“Aunty?” I ask.
“Not at home!” She replies with a wicked look in her eyes.
“Now?” I ask.

“Afternoon” she says making a sandwich for me. She knows my taste. “She will return at night!”, she pushes the sandwich into my hands approaching to touch hers and bends over the counter to take a closer look at my face. I get a closer look of her ripening cleavage.

***

She pulls down the shutter. I enter from the back door. Her shoulders and her cleavage is on my mind since the moment she had lifted herself back to straightness.
It had filled my mind. I had not for a moment thought of Apu’s loss but instead what occupied my mind was gaining Sneha.

WARNING:
People with High Moral Stand Please Refrain from reading this part. It is an excellent example of Pornographic Literature.

The moment she closed the door, I entered into a lip lock with her. I had kissed her in a violent excitement. She returned it voraciously. I had assaulted her with my lust. And she was bathing herself in it. My hands held her by her arms tightly without letting her move. I made her walk my steps. I knew the place well. And I knew what was where. My hands reached for her shoulders and began caressing them. Her hands wrapped my shoulders and pulled me closer.

I kissed her all the way into their bedroom. I pushed her on the bed. I lay there with closed eyes awaiting my arrival. I crouched over her and kissed her fervent cleavage, about to spill out of her low neck. The softness felt by my lips urged them to explore those blooming bosoms more. I kissed her endlessly on the smooth skin of her chest. I went on kissing to the covered parts of her breast and found their peaks jutting out of the cloth over them. I kissed them gently. She twisted with a moan. Her fingers running through my hair suddenly held them tight for a moment and began caressing them again.

I trapped her between my legs and I rose to sit on my knees. I pulled off my T-Shirt and reclined over her again, this time attacking her shoulders. He bosom kept rubbing on my chest as I attempted to swallow her shoulders. One of her Ganji straps had slipped off her shoulder when I had began kissing her, revealing her gleaming shoulder and a bit oversized for a teenager breasts, which had tempted me to eat her more.

I kissed ceaselessly over the shoulder, upon the neck, down the chest and up her lovely jigs. My hand crawled upto their perfect roundness and pressed them softly. She moaned again. I pressed them again. A bit harder than the last time and she moaned louder.

I went kissing lower and kissed her belly in the gap between her Ganjis and her pyjamas. I pushed her Ganjis up and kissed delicately on her navel. She shuddered on the touch of my lips. I pushed up her top further and rubbed my cheeks on her belly. She held my hair tight pulling me upwards. I pushed her top over her hillocks carefully as if I was unwrapping a gift paper without tearing it.

Women always hold the power to surprise men. Whoever they may be. And surprise them more if they are known men. Sneha, like every other woman possessed it too. As I rolled up her Ganjis to her shoulders, a surprise struck me hard in my face. On a dark cloth suspended by two thin laces were two parts of a heart on each breast, supported by the ‘elegant’ designs that a lingerie is supposed to have. Two roughly cut parts of a bright red valentine heart. It looked like the designer or whomsoever had torn it and placed the two pieces on each of her breast. If it had been better, I could have called it ridiculous. But it was not.

She caught me staring dumbfounded at the intriguing design and said,
“Heartbreak!”

The word suddenly rang hard in my ears.

Heartbreak!

“That’s the name of the design. Heartbreak!”

It’s next utterance hit me like a blow. I remained steadfast in the position I was staring at it. Sneha, with a smart bend in her knees, slid herself down and bring her face to the level of my eyes.

“What?!...Haven’t seen a bra before?” She asked smiling with ‘gotchya!’ look on her face. She was too happy about the trick that she just played. And I was engrossed with the word she had just spoken.

I tried to shake myself out of my reverie. She wrapped me in her arms and turned me around. I freed myself from her arms and pushed myself back to sit up, reclining on the curve of their bed. I was loosing my hardness.

“Oh!...Revenge?” she said and crouched over me with new vehemence. She began kissing me from my navel and moved upwards towards my chest. In normal circumstances, this would have provoked me the most. But today it didn’t create even a slightest of tremor in me. She placed countless kisses on my chest. I sat there stoned. She took my nipples in her teeth and sucked them. But I sat numb. She took her final step. Rubbing her bosom on mine, she approached to kiss me. I felt the pieces of heart rubbing on my chest. The work reverberated once again in me. Heartbreak!

Some thing had started growing within me when she had spoken that word. It burst inside me now. My heart filled with Aparna’s thoughts. The longing, the craving, the moments, the memories and the parting. Where is Apu?

Sneha reached for my lips with hers and began sucking them. I just responded mechanically, moving my jaw. She slid her hand down my chest, across the belly into my pants. She thrust it into my undies and reached for what she was looking for.

Men too at times have the ability of surprising women. She looked at me in disbelief.

“Anay??” She asked in a horrid tone.
“Lost it!” I said.

Innocent guilt appeared on her face. She opened my pants in a scurry, pulled down my underwear and began stroking my organ to bloat it up.

“Don’t Sneha…” I stopped her. “Won’t help…”

My words froze her movements. She dolefully left moved aside and sat a feet away from me. She folded her hands and bent her head in sorrow and shame. The guilt had got over her.

Notice:
People with High Moral Stand can resume reading from this part. The Pornographic Literature ends here.

I sat there helpless staring meaninglessly at the bedsheet. I pulled up my undies like the white cloth that is pulled up a over an unidentified corpses to cover up its unpleasantness. I zipped and buttoned my pants. I looked up something met my eye.

There was a large picture of Krishna on the wall opposite to me. A Krishna standing near a cow playing his flute. He didn’t look out of the picture towards his devotee. He instead looked at something inside it. At some vague point. Somewhere on the ground or the river close by. He stared at it intensely. If he had been real, one could have seen tears gathering up in his eyes. I went closer top see if his eyes were moist. I raised my hand tried to touch his eyes. The glass kept me off from touching his eyes. But I knew that he was weeping. I moved back and sat on the bed staring at him. Sneha snuggled up besides me like a kitten, staring at the picture with me.

From where I stood I could get a clear view of the picture again. And it is from here that I realised, there is supposed to be a Radha in the picture.

Krishna was alone. The space besides him, reserved for Radha was empty. Entire picture looked sad without her. It looked unbearably gloomy. Because Krishna was without Radha.

(Contd.)

4. b

I return to the room. People frolic around me. They try to include me in their attempts to keep themselves happy. I try to be a part of their effort, but then slowly slip out of it. I feel the loss of an otherwise present, inherent urge to jump in co-ordinance with the spouts of happiness. But I am in no mood today. I don’t feel being myself.

I tried calling her again. And she didn’t answer. So I had tried again. And again. And Again. And again. And again. I kept trying to call her till it was time for me to give up and accept the fact that she had gone away.

I rode all the way back to the arsehole of the world in a daze. The daze of quantified dejection. I don’t remember how many cars I bumped into. How many bus drivers rode past me abusing me for my pathetic riding skills. How many aunties crossing the road shrieked of horror when I road through their pack indifferently.
Her wordless farewell blazed like smouldering coals within me.

Her silence had sublimated every tether of togetherness that was between us. Every moment that we had spent together, every hug, every kiss, every touch, every laughter, every wonder, every squabble, everything of it was just wiped off. Every evidence of our liaison had disappeared abruptly. All that was left back were the memories. Memories which had become sharper with the suffocating silence of her exit.

I climb up to the terrace and sit atop the water tank. The night is darker than the usual. I decide to myself that I should forget her. I look up. Stars shine in their clusters with a disjoint unity. I look around. I see the tops of the bungalows scattered in all directions. I light a cigarette. Scattered was the word. Maybe they weren’t scattered as I saw them. Maybe I saw them as scattered today. Unlike every other day when they must’ve seemed organised to me if I had looked at them. I took a long puff.

Flashback:

Apu and I were sitting on a rock on one of the hills. She had driven me on her scooty. It was a pride to be her pillion rider. She talked to winds. And I to her hair caressing my face.

She owned the road. And the hills aligning them.

She stopped besides one of the hills in her kingdom. Parked her scooty besides an old Banyan tree and dragged me to a hill top holding my hand.

We sat there staring the sun slipping down the curtain of sky. I wondered at the moment of the sun. One never saw it moving but yet one could see it moved. From one place to another. People called it science. I felt, sund didn’t want to be caught when he was on his way forth. He purely hated farewells. He just wanted to slip away without his absence being noticed. He assured you that he was there till his last bit was lost below the horizon. And then suddenly you realised that he was gone.
As opposed to humans, in whom the loss was evident and prominent. We could see people leaving from our lives and it made us loose ourselves and our minds.

I took out a cigarette and lit it. I began smoking. I spoke out this thought to Apu.

“There is one more difference between them….” She replied. Her eyes fixed on the horizon.

“What?” I asked. Eyes fixed on the horizon.

Apu took the cigarette from my hand.

“We can’t stop the setting sun…..but we can stop a human leaving away…at least try…” She took a long puff from my cigarette and coughed badly.

I took her in my arms to calm her. Her words echoed down the hills in their feeble way.

“We can’t stop the setting sun…..but we can stop a human leaving away”

Flash Forward:

Fuck! Why the fuck do I remember this incidence now! At the time I need to forget her the most. That is the fucking irony of life. You remember only those people, whom you are trying hard to forget.

I throw my cigarette off the edge of the tank and I get down from the tank.

I join the cacophony below. I have a company in my cheerlessness. Piyush.

I still wonder how Apu could go so abruptly.


(Contd.)

Chapter $

4.a

“And yes…..please reach station on time…train isn’t Aparna…” I am sure she must’ve smiled cheerlessly after this sentence.

“Yes ma’m!...Roger will be there ma’m!”, A lame attempt to cheer her up.
“Over and out Roger!” She laughed forcibly. Bloody technology has always been unreliable. You can’t trust it to veil your emotions. You always expect a reason like bad connection or low voice output or something like it to conceal your emotions during a conversation. But like a strong electric current, emotions reach the person on the other end of the line, overcoming all obstacles in its path.

“Over and out Charlie” I held back my emotional upsurge. What comes strongly to you than the feeling of the loss is the realisation of their impending incurrence. The realisation that such moments would be rare henceforth stings the composure of the serenity, driving it to fall apart.

“Bye Ani”

“Bye Apu”

“……Love you!”

“Love you too…”I feel like breaking down and crying over the phone. But I resist giving up myself to the reign of tears.

“Bye”

“Byeee”

“T’ta”

“T’ta”

None of us disconnect the phone. We keep holding the phone pressed on our ears and concentrating on little sounds on the other side. Taking our guesses about each other’s gestures.

Aparna finally disconnects the phone. Women are indeed stronger than men.
She had called me up to inform me about her confirmed departure time. She has been calling me up several times for petty reasons like these since morning. She is trying to lull the pace of time through them. But time is a shrewd bastard. It won’t dawdle it’s steps for people like her and me.

There comes a time, when humans have to stand up for their bondings by taking up something that your heart shudders when even thought of. I decide to reach the platform scheduled for departure on time. After all, the train won’t be Apu.

***

Structure of a Perfect Last Meet:

Block 1:

I ask Piyush for his bike. He agrees. Good start!
I leave early to avoid any delay. If I reach early, I can spend time loitering around the station, smoking or sipping tea. But If I reach late, I won’t be able to see Aparna again. My heart misses a beat.

Block 2:

I go to the sole ATM of my bank at the outskirt of the place and withdraw money. I want to buy a parting gift for Aparna. My watch says I have enough time.

Block 3:

I take his bike and ride it for a kilometre and realise that it has a flat tyre. I pull it along to a tyre work shop. The tyre man says it’s a puncture. Needs half an hour to mend. I look at my watch I still have a lot of time.

Block 4:

He opens the tyre and tells me the tube has screwed up, he needs to put a new one. I argue. He wins. I agree. We decide a reasonable price for it. He asks his assistant, a timid young boy, to get one. The boy leaves and returns after eternity with a wrong tube. He leaves again. There’s still quite enough time for me to reach the station.

Block 5:

The boy returns with the right tube. The tube is fixed. I pay. The budget for her gift cuts down a bit. I am still in time to catch her.

Block 6:

I ride fast to make up for the time lost in mending the tube. I find my way through the vehicles. I jump over the speed breakers. I ride through the potholes. I ride past the signal. And I hear a whistle. A policeman walks across the road and stands before my bike. I brake hard to halt exactly eight inches before his knees and vital organs above them.

He asks me for my license. I hand it over to him.

Block 7:

I beg his pardon. I ask for mercy. I spread my arms for clemency. I lean before him for absolution. I join hands before him for amnesty. I join my legs for exoneration. I touch his feet for exculpation. I am ready to give him a blow job for pity.
He agrees on hundred rupees.

I pay him and win my license back. I compromise on a gift that I shall buy. I have still some time left with me.

Block 8:

I begin riding again. I halt at every signal. I am almost near the station. There are no more signals to cross anymore. But still I halt once more. For the traffic that jams the road. No cars move. No space for the bike to find it’s way through. Even the six inch gaps are filled by some vehicle or the other.

My wrist watch says I am running parallel to the time.

Block 9:

I try finding a way somehow through the blocked traffic. Finally I decide to take another route, the longer one, and reach the railway station. I turn my bike and begin moving. The longer route turns out to be the longest one. I am running behind time a bit.

Block 10:

I reach the railway station. But I don’t find a place to park the bike. I go around the other corner. I try my luck at three bike-stands. None of them have 24 inch spave for my bike. I reach the farther bike stand. The fourth one. It accommodates my bike. I am running behind time.

I feel a buzz on my thigh. I pull out my mobile. Aparna calling. I answer it. She says she is on the platform. I say I will reach in five minutes.

Block 11:

I walk my way back to the station. I stand in the queue to buy a platform ticket. The queue is at a standstill. I receive another call from Aparna saying the train would reach the platform in three minutes. I realise I haven’t bought the gift during my efforts to reach on time.

Block 12:

I give up the thought of buying a platform ticket. I compromise on not buying a gift. I run up the bridge skipping steps. Aparna calls me once again. She says that the train would be there in two minutes. I say I will reaching one.

Block 13:

A Ticket Checker stops me. He asks for ticket. I say I don’t have it. He takes me to a corner. I give him an offer. But he refuses it. Mario Puzo frowns in my mind. He is adamant on making a receipt. I try my best for out of law settlement. He doesn’t agree. I hear a loud horn. I hear an announcement.

Aparna calls up again she says she is boarding the train. I am in a panic state. The TC is still adamant on receipt.

Block 14:

I hear another loud horn. I thrust two hundred rupees in TCs hand. I run without looking back at him. I run down the outlet for the platform of departure. I jump down the steps. I see the train moving. People block the exit of the bridge.

I push my way through the crowd.

Aparna doesn’t call me up again. I reach the platform. The train leaves out of the station.

Block 15:

I stand on the platform looking at the rear end of the train. I see a large yellow X on it. The train keeps shrinking in size. So does the X. X. eX. Ex. Ex. Ex means past.

I don’t meet Aparna. I don’t catch a last glimpse of her. She just goes away. Just like that.

Just like that.

(Contd.)

3. m

On the way back, we felt a sharp aching in our bellies and we had to thrust something down our food pipes to defeat it. Smoke had burnt down all that we had in our bellies, making the trip stronger for us. There was a fierce urgency of gobbling something NOW!

The arsehole of the world has a peculiarity about its shops. They close down at eight thirty post meridian. After that, every inhabitant of the arsehole is left to struggle with his own destiny even if they need a matchstick. One has to come to the Chowk, where all shops close at nine thirty post meridian or has to go to the adjoining town at a distance of ten minutes form the Chowk.

We sought for the most probable places which would be open at the moment. We found each one of them closed. A fear began building amongst us. Everywhere we would go, we would find shops closed. We wouldn’t find anything to eat. We would have to seek for every shop in the Arsehole and find it closed. We won’t find anything to eat. The ache in the belly would grow and we would have the worst craving for food of our lives. Then slowly the ache would grow and suck everything in. First our gall bladder, then our pancreas, then our liver, then our lungs, then our tongue, then our teeth, our eyes, our intestines, our bladder and finally our hearts. Everything would stuff the belly up and then begin churning. The dilute Hydrochoric Acid would be released in our belly and each of these parts would dissolve into it. And we would obviously die in absence of each of these body parts. We remembered the references and incidents which fortified this fact further.

We desperately kept finding for a shop to eat. And we were persistently finding each one of them closed. We went frantic over food.

“What now?”
“I don’t know”
“What if we don’t get anything to eat?”
“We will die”
“I don’t want to die”
“Me neither”

It wasn’t important who said this to whom. Both of us were in the same state of mind and body. So the conversation could be looked at from both the sides.

But God is a powerful being. Or luck is a strong factor. Or co-incidence is a greatest trick of time. Or whatsoever.

Piyush’s vehicle stood after taking three jerks before a temple. The jerks which a vehicle takes if you ride it on a slow speed at a high gear.

“Piyush…temple!”
“We need something to eat…”
“We will get it here…”
“How?...by praying?”
“No…by pretending to pray”
“But the god won’t listen to our pretended prayer…”
“But the priest would…”
“Yes…I think so..”
“And he’d give us Prasad!”
“Bloody Bhenchod…What a magnificient idea!!...he will save us from dying!”
“Yes…what do you say then?”
“Let’s pretend to pray”

He parked his motorbike out side the temple. I realised it was the same temple, the voices from which could be heard as we sat on the Rock of Loneliness.
We entered the temple. On the right of the temple there was a small lake of people sitting as if prepared for a discourse. And before them stood a lone microphone. We crossed the next door. And we saw the god.

We saw two black stone idols, dressed and garlanded. A god and his soulmate. Both stood close to each other with their hands on their waists. The way parents look at the mischief of their toddler. They stood as if they were looking at the world with distress and were about to question each one of them who were responsible for the ruckus.

I moved closer to them. They looked at me through their stone eyes. The couple from Pandharpur. The guardians of countless saints and followers. The inspiration of innumerable pages of poetry. And the reason for largest sacrifices. The couple behind the miracle that shaped the generations and minds of Maharashtrians. The parents whom their kids meet twice a year, walking over a distance of hundreds of kilometres from every corner of Maharshtra. The Vithoba and the Rakhumai of Pandharpur. The love of millions of Warkaris. The hope of and resort of the numerous distressed souls. The Marathi face of Vishnu. The Ghati incarnation of the Krishna. I closed my eyes and a voice rose to the skies.

“Pundalik Varda….Haare Vithhal”

Hundreds of cymbals rattled in synch with each other. A strong voice overcame them and sang aloud.

“Hari mukhe mhana…Hari mukhe mhana….punyachi ganana koan kari”

‘Sing the god’s word…sing the god’s word…for your deeds are counted’ A verse from the Dnyaneshwari. The abridged version of Bhagvad Geeta written by a great saint Dnyaneshwar at the raw age of twenty. Almost my age. A Geeta for the common men in Maharashtra.

I opened my eyes. I saw Piyush greedily shoving the bananas from Prasad into his oral cavity. I walked past him. He didn’t seem to notice. He didn’t seem to care.
I walked towards the voice. I saw an army of white kurta, dhoti and large turban clad men with cymbals in their hands. Ringing them in unanimity. They raised to crescendo as I approached near. And suddenly they stopped. One amongst them took his flute to his lips and played it aloud. It filled my ears.

A sudden voltage fluctuation turned the mercury lights blue. Spreading a blue gleam over us. Their clothes seemed blue and my body. One of the cymbal men came to me and placed a peacock feather in my pocket.

They all turned to me and began singing.

“Hari mukhe mhana…Hari mukhe mhana….punyachi ganana koan kari”

‘Sing the god’s word…sing the god’s word…for your deeds are counted’


***

3. l

We are sitting on the Lonliness Rock. I can hear cymbals ringing in a temple on the other side. A faint clinking noise. And a high pitched voice of a man. Singing words undecipherable due to the distance between us.

I light my joint and pass on the light to Piyush. He lights his one with it.

I take a deep drag. I hold up the smoke and blow out as less as I can. I wait for some moments. It begins affecting. I get drenched in its daze.

A lethargic stupor paints me in itself. I absorb its paint as if it were mine. I know it’s having the same effect on Piyush. We sit silently tripping on the cars passing on the Expressway.

“Bhenchod…they were together today!” Piyush drones.
“Bhenchod…because of you!”I shout!
“What?!”
“yes Madarchod…………You!!!”
“How me?...Maine kya kiya”?...What did I do?”
“You couldn’t stand up for your love….Chutiya!!!”

Outburst! I was blasting into pieces. And I was enjoying it!

Piyush hid his face in his palms and sobbed. His body jerked at his each whimper.
“Why are you crying now like women?...Saala chutiya…look where he has gone…and where you are…you should have acted fast…but you were busy with your love in the eyes bull shit….this is what you are left for now….weeping like a widow!!!....Lundfakir saala!” I continued.

He sobbed more. I enjoyed it more.

“You saw him having ice cream…..he must be having dinner with her later….then he will take her for drinks later….and then he will have her….and you will be left here alone to masturbate…gaand fattu saalaa!!”

“What should I do then?” He says with wet eyes and helplessness.

“Suck my dick!!....I asked you that day…What do ‘You’ want to do?....you had no answer then….I said I will ask you later….and I am asking you again today…..What do you want to do?...decide fucker….decide NOW!”

“How can I?” He was almost sitting on the ground.

“Why can’t you?” I stood beside his contracted posture.
“Because he is my friend!”

We resembled the flutist and the warrior on the cover of Bhagvad Geeta.

“So….?..” I begin. “So what?...So you will leave the women you love for him?....and will he do the same for you?”

My question put him in a prolonged stupor. His trip had mixed with his study. He was floating towards a limitless destination in the darkness of gloom. And he had to keep floating till he got back to the point where he stared at.

“I ask again…will he do the same for you??” I had to wake him up from his trance.

He raises his head and looks at me undecided.

“What happened?...You aren’t able to answer?”

He shakes his head.

“Then we shall test!” I say concretely.

I know certain realities for sure. And even when I am stoned, they stay with me. Or maybe, only they stay with me. And I know what answer will Piyush get.

I feed my revenge its first piece of flesh. The game has begun.

Now I can go near to my heartbreak. Caressing Apu’s loss in peace.


(Contd.)

3. k

“Harshad and Shamita!”

The names shake me a bit too. But I am not Piyush to crash over conclusions on minimal information. In that case I would have jumped back in surprise and wondered how Shamita could have shifted her loyalties on such a rapid pace, after having a ‘sleep fest’ for four days with the ‘Bastard’.

“Where?” I begin my investigation.
“At the Xerox centre….”

Xerox for world’s information is the name Indians have given for Photocopy machine. Nobody knows how it adopted this name. But it has been decades since it has been living with the name. Even shops have hoardings with the names as Xerox centres. The phenomenon occurred when photocopy machines released by Canon were called Canon Xerox. That was the final step in conforming the name Xerox for the machine. Later on there were Colour Xerox and Xerox Photos too. Along the time, Xerox are cheaply available and 93% of India’s educational growth is dependent on the presence of Xerox Centres near the colleges and schools. Name any author and I’d bet that his work has for sure encountered the scanning light of a ‘Xerox’ machine.

“Must’ve gone for notes…”
“People who go for notes don’t eat ice creams together…” Piysuh snapped as if I had pricked his heart with a sharp needle.

“Were they having an ice cream?”
“Yeah…and that bastard bought her one”

I used to be similarly jealous when I was in school and had newly discovered dark hair over my upper lip and pimples on my cheek. Over the years I had learnt to shave those hairs and pimples disappeared on their own, Piyush’s romantics were still stuck in his pimple days.

“Hmmm…” I just hummed.

We sat silent for some time. He, caressing his baseless heartache. And me, fondling mine.

The turmoil churned inside me continually. I wanted to choose the grief of loosing Aparna. But something held me back. It was revenge. It stood like a guard between me and Aparna’s grief. I had to satiate him to reach the grief inside. My ego, in an unrealised form had engulfed the love in me. And the only way to rescue my love was to overcome the ego. And the only way to overcome it was revenge.

“Hari Patti maarega??” I ask him to bring him out of his cocoon of self dismay.
“Haan” he agrees.
“Chal…”

I go to my sack. Put my hand in one of its side pockets. I pull out a packet made out of newspaper. I open it. I pick two cigarettes and empty them. I take the leaves in the packet in my hand and crush them with my thumb on my centre of my palm. I crush them into a neat powder. I separate the seeds. I fill the crushed dust in the cigarettes.

“Here or outside?” I ask him.

“Outside” he says.

(Contd.)

3. j

It is a dilemma. There are two strong emotions reigning your thoughts. And you don’t exactly know which one to subscribe to.

On one side you have the pain of loosing your love every moment. And on the other side you have a revenge ablaze inside you. And you stand holding these two emotions laterally. Like the symmetrical wings of a butterfly. Occupying equal parts of your contemplation. Choice of one neglects the other. You tend to loose your balance around hundred times a day making a choice. You try to correlate them to draw solitary solution for both. But they expand in different directions. And you run directionless to contain them.

Your sensations heighten. You can get highly reactive. Even on a snap of a finger. And it’s a phase when you could display any outburst of emotion any number of times.
Piyush enters the room depressed. Considering his emotive latent, it is an obvious reaction to some inconsequential incidence. Based more on assumptions than on reality.

“Welcome!!....cigarette?” I held out the cigarette in my hand before him.

He refused it. I didn’t force him. He didn’t demand again. I would’ve loved to say ‘fuck yourself’. His high power melodrama puts me off somehow. Each time he wears this morose expression, he assures me that a long verbal assault in on its way. The one against which I would he defenceless. And the only solution to counter it is by using the primitive method of defence. Attack.

“What happened?” My aggravation condensed into a question.
“Nothing!”
‘Then why are you sad shitpiece?!’ I felt like shouting on his face. But peace is a virtue.

“Then why are you sad dude” I say peacefully.
“I saw them together” He replies with pain. A pain of a lifetime for him. A pain of a teenager for me.

“Who?” I ask.

He sits on the bed pulling his legs close to his chest. A clear sign of prevailing gloom. I walk over and sit besides him. I give him a cigarette.

“Tell me…whom…”

He breathes in deep. Exhales. Then rubs his palms over his face. He tires me well with his damned built up. He speaks out…

(Contd.)

3. i

Light emits as I unfold the last corner of the paper. A blindening light. It fills the room. I close my eyes. I look at it through the small gap of my eyelids.

I touch it. An electromagnetic wave emanates from it. It touches my fingers. It enters the pores on them and soak my fingers in itself. It sends a vibration down my fingers and keeps them throbbing. It moves ahead with its gazillion crawlers. Millimetre by millimetre it approaches ahead. Swallowing each layer of me steadily. I am not able to take my hand off. It spreads in my hand and takes my shoulder in its wrap. Like an enormous army of ants it spreads over my chest. It begins expanding in opposite directions. One towards the belly and other towards my head. I feel it rising up my neck, my chin and my lips. I don’t move. I don’t resist. I just let it occupy me.

The wave gulps down my cheeks and my nose. Slowly it takes in my eyes. I don’t feel the pain anywhere now. My forehead gets nibbled by it. And then my head. The wave reaches the top of my head. It ends at a point and I become a part of a sudden blankness. All I can see around me is clean white luminescence. And I stand at the centre of it. I don’t even know if it is the centre. I just stand there. Or maybe I float. Suddenly countless plugs arrive from all directions and poke into me. They bring me back to my existent self. I quickly take my hand off it.

The cover is intriguing. A blue prince with a flute and a peacock feathered crown. He has countless faces. He has numerous hands. He possesses innumerable weapons. A series of myriad bodies follow on both his sides, replicating him, like a folded belt of human shaped bullets kept behind him. But everything dissolves into that single self. The blue flutist. Limitless rays of light flowing out from the rear of his head. At his feet I see two sides of a war. Each side looking at him in awe. From the lines of chariots that stand where his feet rest. And a cloud of dust. The devoted have joined their hands. And the opponents are enthralled. They are in no state to join hands. It’s a scenario that no warrior shall forget. And it’s a scenario that no war shall have.

But there is something more above that blue figure of almight. A name in bright red bold letters.

Bhagwad Geeta

I turn to Aparna.

I find her looking at me with a smile. An emotive upsurge occurs within me. I put my arm around her and kiss her deeply. I close my eyes tight.

This woman knows me inside out. Maybe she reads my soul. Or is it visible in my eyes to her. Is it that she feels my vibrations? Or is it that she is one with me? Or is it that she is a piece of me separated at soul distribution in heaven. Or have I transferred a part of me when I kissed her for the first time. Was she me? Or was I her. Or were we each other.

Even when I forget her completely, she is a part of my life. She unknowingly forms the backdrop of every thought I think. She is like a diary in which I note every moment of my life. Expressed or unexpressed. Told. Untold. I keep writing my life into her. Things which I don’t say at times, and yet she understands.

And it is only when she is parting away from me, I realise this. I realise that I am bound to her. Of all girls I live with, she is the one I am compulsively obsessed about. She is my need, my craving, my addiction. She is my high. She is my breath. She is my erotica. She is my romance.

She is…

Kolkata was about to render me dilapidated. I yearned for her even in her company.
Maybe, I was in love with her. Maybe it’s just a parting thought. Maybe its Maybelline. Maybe it’s just a temporary feeling.

Maybe I won’t be the same Anay after her.


(Contd.)

3. h

“Why did you have to fight?” she tosses a rhetoric at me.
“I didn’t Apu…he did!”
“Out of the blue?”
“Not exactly…sorta’ revenge” I clarified.
“For what?”
“For teasing before general audience!”
“Why do you have to tease someone in public?” She touches my cheek with the warm water bag.
“I believed that he was my friend…”
“So now it’s proved that he wasn’t”
“Yeah…the bastard!”
“Cool down angry young man!...” she mocks. My face creases bit. She sees it. She bends over me and spreading the curtain of her dark hair and kisses me gently on my cheek. “My Doga!” she says and laughs aloud. I regret revealing my Doga addiction to her.

“Yeah my Monica!” I run my hands through her soft hair and slid my fingers slowly down her cheek. My finger slides swiftly down her silk. It reaches her lips. I trace her lips with the tip of my index finger. She smiles and looks into my eyes. I smile with a tinge of discomfort. My cheek pains whenever I smile. She is sitting on her knees, resting her legs on the sides of my waist.

I pull her closer. She bends further without a spare word. Our lips touch each other.

Aparna was about to leave for Kolkata in three days.

“When will you be back?” I had asked her when she had told me about it.
“Don’t know” she had answered.
“As in…”
“As in I don’t know about it…I don’t know if I may return or not” She had said gravely.
“Why??”
“I have my own reasons!” She had replied. Like every girl she too had kept a mystery to herself.

The rest of the evening we had spent wiping each other’s tears. There were abundant of them. I was loosing her. It was like loosing the most essential gear of the machine. It was like leaving me incomplete.

Today I was meeting her for the last time. And this occurred. Poor thing had taken me home and was helping me out with my lame endeavour of pain management.

My hand slowly crawls to the back of her head. Her hair flowing through the gaps between my fingers. I caress her hair. She digs in deeper. Pain begins to spread in my cheek as we get passionate. I neglect it and continue with the spree. My other hand wanders on her waist. It finds the gap between her top and her pyjamas. I slip my hand in through it. She intends to limit it to kissing. She immediately resists it and slaps my hand. She looses her balance in this attempt and she crashes on my jaw. A lightning of strikes my jaw and goes running to the brain. I push her back and yell in pain. She picks up her balance and sits back. But on my belly. I feel like a hammer landing on my belly. I shout again. She shifts back impulsively to land her buttocks on my apparatus, crushing my balls. The eternal pain of my manhood popped up. I ‘ouch’ed as cutely as the pain emerged. Another impulse of guilt possesses her. She shifts back and places her lovely lady hump on my thigh. Exactly where Rahul has kicked me. Ripples of pain run through the entire area. I cry out again. She finally jumps off me. I twist and turn with the agonizing remnants of my pain.

“I am sorry!” she says filled with concern. I can se the fear of seeing the dead body of a man killed by mistake in her eyes. She escapes to the kitchen. I think she feels she has killed me and is worried about it. Maybe she will return with a sack and stuff me in. Then she will put me in the dicky of her car and take us to a cliff and push us down. Me and the car. And the car will go down rolling and blast into pieces. And so will my body. All evidences gone. I begin thinking about the cliff she would take me too.

Instead of a sack she arrives with a bottle of water and a glass.

“Here…” she says pouring the water into the glass.

I am still twisting with pain. She bewilders over the perfect way to feed me water. She takes a try to pour it directly into my mouth. But her aim isn’t so good. It falls on my eye instead.

She keeps the glass aside and helps me sit with my back resting against the wall. She then helps me out with gulping water as rapidly as possible by tilting the glass further before I take any gulp. I feel better. She sits reclining her head on my shoulder.

“I am sorry” she says.

Her apology pushes me into a fit of rage occupies me The pain reminds me of Rahul. Of his punches and his kick. Of my public humiliation. And of pain. Of a hurt ego.

“Why are you sorry?....He should be sorry…”
“Leave it na Ani…”
“No Apu…I can’t…the favour will be a returned…”
“You are too hot headed sometimes.”
“Or I wouldn’t be me…”
“Yeah yeah…I am scared”
“You lost your turn…” I say winking. “It’s Rahul’s now…”
“Again the same thing!...Ani…promise me…”
“What?”
“That you won’t touch that son of a bitch…”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t want you to be in any problems Ani…these are shit guys!...”
“I don’t care…They should get their due…”
“Okay…don’t listen to me if you don’t want to…who am I?”
I look helplessly at her. She looks away.
“Okay…” I agree finally. “No raising hands on them…”
“Sure?” she throws a fake glare at me.
“Yeah…promise” I keep my hand on her head.
She hugs me.
“Ani….” She says adjusting her head in the notch on my shoulder.
“Yeah naanu…?”
“I have a gift or you…” she says.
“Are you pregnant?” I ask with a mischievous smile.
“Shut up!” she hits me with a pillow.
“Then?”
“One sec…”

She jumps out of the bed to her bag. A typical Socialist marked Shabnam with Che Guevera and Bob Marley on it, living within the constraints of circle badges and other such signs. She pushes her hand in and pulls out a neatly gift wrapped rectangle.

“What is it?” I say fondling it.
“Parting gift…a new perspective…”
“But what??”
“Open it.”

I untie the ribbon and put it around my neck. I unwrap the gift paper like tearing off the gift’s clothes. I open the paper.

What I see inside delights me.


(Contd.)