Bhagwad Expressway©

7.d

2009-11-29T11:54:00.000-08:00

Samuel Johnson once said “Curiosity is one of the permanent and certain characteristics of a vigorous mind.”

“Maa ki aankh!!...”

I have a vigourous mind.

I couldn’t sleep after letting Piyush alone with Shamita. I was laughing aloud within. I was dying to see the how Piyush would behave in the close company of a girl. That too the one he is trying to woo. I jumped out of the bed, pulled on a T-shirt, pulled up a jeans and ran down slipping my feet into slip-ons to follow him.

I see them walking together at s distance. I maintain my pace to keep the distance constant. They take the turn. I walk faster now. I reach the turn and see them walking slowly. Piyush has tucked his hands into his pockets and is kicking his legs each time he’s taking a step ahead. Shamita has wrapped her arms around her elbows and is looking at her own feet as she walks. Once in a while, pushing a stray lock of hair behind her ear gently with her slim fingers.

They enter Aunty’s Café. I stand at a safe distance, far enough for them to neglect and close enough for me to observe.

I kept my eyes on them. And they kept a distance between them.

Awkwardness lingers between them, filling them up to their brims with an insipid embarrassment. They walk together to the centre of the Café and seat themselves in a position where they can attract everybody’s eyes. And they do, feeling much more awkward and embarrassed than before. After fifteen seconds of the wordless rezendevous they start looking around for escape. They need saviours. And I don’t want to budge from my position. Doing it meant spoiling Piyush’s hard put in effort and defying his trust in his gods. I stood there awaiting action. The situation had come unprepared for Shamita. Piyush was a classmate, but not a classmate who would ideally take her out for a breakfast. And going out with such an acquaintance on a sudden basis was suffocating her. She hugged herself tight in her discomfort. And as for Piyush, he was too prepared for the situation. So prepared that he couldn’t figure out what his exact course of action was. He was in a position every unprepared student is when the question paper lands on the desk before him like a stringless kite. He knows all the answers well, but has forgotten the questions to them. Both sit before each other as like strangers in the waiting lobby of an airport.

“Good morning all passengers…” The announcement blares on the speaker above their head. They look up. They look left. They look right. They look down. They look for it everywhere. It remains to be the untraceable speaker that rung in their ears and disappeared somewhere. They keep looking for it with restless moments of their heads and eyes without budging an inch from the positions their artists had sculpted them in.

Technology has always changed people’s lives. Then it transcended to change their individual lives and later their stand alone moments. Like it did for Piyush and Shamita now. Shamita looked into the mobile in her hand and typed something. Piyush jumped into the depths of his mobile to never surface back soon. Shamita started looking around again. And by the boon of technology, Preeti turns up there and sits beside Shamita. Piyush is outnumbered. But he doesn’t care. The depths of the mobile are too intriguing for him than the new ally his contender has gained.

Shamita and Preeti ask him something. He looks out of his mobile phone, answers briefly nodding his head and drowns in it again. They get up and leave the café without a breakfast.

I get hit by a small chip on my head. I look up. Sneha is standing on the terrace drying her hair. She smiles naughtily. I look around and smiles naughtily winking.

She pulls her smiling lips together and collects them to form a kiss. She sends it across. I send one back. This is more interesting now. Much more than watching those failed conversers head for their respective rooms. Sneha pretended to scratch her chest quickly flashing the tenderness of her ripening breasts contained in a pink brassiere and ran her hand over the satin, seducing me within a fraction of the second. Bitch! She knew how to give me a hard on. I ejected my tongue slowly and mimed a lick. I received a fiery smile in return. I could’ve walked up the wall to reach the terrace. I began walking towards the café. More precisely towards the wall that lead to the terrace. He stood leaning upon the railings, stripping virtually only for me. Her skin grew all over her clothes, pulling me towards her. I am about to set my foot on the huge pathway of whitewash that ended at her. I raise my foot. And the mobile phone in my pockets vibrates harder than it rings.

I stop half way. I take out my mobile and check its display screen. I see the expected name flashing on its screen.

I gritted my teeth and answered the call.

(Contd.)
©

7.c

2009-10-13T13:32:00.000-07:00

“Coming na?” Shamita inquired over the phone, unsure of my answer.
There have been days when I have skipped my regular breakfast with her. The days when I drank till I dropped or was stoned at the dawn. Today wasn’t one of those days. So I placed a “Yup” on the reciever followed by “Ten minutes?...”

“Okay….I’ll give you a missed call when I leave…fine?”

“Fine” I said with a yawn.

I had just finished with my bath. A yawn now meant I needed to slep more. I could have slept right away. But I had just agreed to join Shamita for the breakfast. I sat down on the bed with my back resting lazily on the wall next to it. I checked the cigarette box for a quick fag. It was empty. I gave another yawn and shut my heavy eyelids.

Strain drained out of my muscles slowly, inch by inch. I felt restful as I lied with my eyes closed. Ragini’s words which were still looming over my head, settled upon me like a quilt. They soothed my spine seeping into it lightly. I was about to turn myself on my side to get cosier, when I heard the large dislodging of the bathroom latch. I broke out of my reverie with a shock. Piyush walked out the bathroom, towel wrapped around his waist. He religiously walked to the little images of gods on the side table and prayedf before them.

“We are happy on your devotion towards us child!...” gods said to him in a booming voice which resembled mine.

“Shut up Anay!!...” Piyush said with closed eyes and joined hands.

“We are serious…Shamita is coming to meet you in 5 seconds…be ready…” Gods said again.

“Anay….let me pray!” Piyush was loosing his cool.

“Five…four…three…” Gods began the countdown, “two…one…”

My phone rang. A missed call from Shamita.

“There we go…” Gods said!

I went to him jumping out from the bed.

“Dress uo fast devotee… you are going to have your breakfast with your love today…” I said putting the ash from the incense stick on his forehead. “Vijayi Bhava!”

“What are you saying Anay?” Piyush snapped back with utter irritation.

“I am saying that Shamita is going for the breakfast at Aunty’s…and you be her company…”

“You crazy?”

“No…but you have to be…go…take her for a breakfast…”

“I can’t man!!.....I don’t know what to do…”he shivered at the thoughtr of it.

“Nothing….just sit and order her a breakfast…rest…your gods will take care of…” I threw a lesser smelling T-shirt and his perfectly soiled jeans towards him. “Go…”

“And you…?”

“I am suffering from a terrible hang over….so I slept off…”

I got another missed call from her.

“Go fast fucker….she is waiting…” I barked on him. The gods on the table shook a bit on hearing it.

He quickly dressed up and finished his daily lengthy consecrated confrontation in a haste.

I called up Shamita as he thrusted his thousand little belongings into his pockets.

“Hello Shamita…” I said in a made up ill voice, “I amhaving a bad headache…I think I’ll sleep for some time….by the way Piyush was also leaving for a breakfast…I thought he could join you…is it okay?”

After a brief annoyance over my deception, she accepted the optional company of Piyush.

“He is coming down now…okay?...bye!” I finished the conversation and turned to Piyush.

He was looking curiosly at me.

“What?” I said shaking his eyes off me.. “Go fast…She is waiting…”

“But….how will I manage?” he still had a doubt.

I pointed a finger at the gods.

“It’s their repayment time…they have to pay bak for those incense sticks now…” I said with a smile.

Piyush hastily touched their images thrice and left almost running.

Sometimes people perform the virtuous of deeds for a moment of rest.

(Contd.)
© 2009

7. b

2009-09-13T12:35:00.000-07:00

I took a closer look and the gush of happiness in me fizzed out in a moment. It had an unfamiliar number on it. Not any from my contact list. It had no name below it. But knowing Apu well, I knew she would take her pleasure in surprising me this way. But what if it wasn’t her? Who else would it be? Who else had received my msg asking to return back? There was one clear answer!

Out of excitement I called back immidiately! Then I quickly disconnected out of fear.

A different voice answered the call. Different yet familiar. Not Apu for sure! I was a bit confused.

“Hello?!” I said a bit unsure about the reciever.

“Hello!!” the confident voice almost shouted from the other side.

“…..Who’s this?”

“Kyun re?...Awaaj bhi bhool gaya meri?”

God!!! Such ‘Guess who am I?’ phone calls always intrigue me somehow. I feel like giving sophisticated answers like ‘Ohhh…the Gay hair dresser I met in train??!!...How are you buddy…Did you enjoy sucking on that uncle??’ for males and “Ohhh…Britney Spears??!!...I was just seeing your hot pics on a banned site!!”

“Haan…bolo ab kaisi ho!!” I said with a false confidence.

“Tu bhi naa…poora mazaa kharaab kar deta hai” The voice fell for my trick! “I thot u wud guess!!....and I wud know who you are hitting on these days… ” Now I got the voice. It was Ragini! A song of yesteryear. A melody of melancholy. A tune that took me back to the past.

“And you thought I would not recognise your voice!” I said with a pretentious pride for my guessing ability.

“You didn’t in the beginning!” She argued.

“No I didn’t…I thought it was Britney Spears!” I replied.

“Yeah yeah!...liar!” she said laughing.

I was sure she was blushing on phone. I knew her well. But then, how did she call up when I had sent a message to Apu. And where the damn did she call me up with this number from! I was completely confused!

“Did you get my message?” I asked eagerly to clear the confusion.

“No!...why?...did u send me one??” curiousity filled into her.

“Yeah!”

“What’s it about?”

“You!”

“What about me?”

“Nothing…just that I was missing you!” I had to say something!

“I didn’t get it…..send it agaion please…I want to read it!” Soup!!

“Yup!” I said in an assuring tone.

“Thanks!....Listen…I am coming back next week!” she said excitedly.

“For?”

“A week….got classes….” She said regretfully.

“Reason?”

“Because you were missing me!”

I smiled. And I know she was smiling too.

“When are you coming?” I asked. I had a plan brewing up in my mind.

“On first!” she said gaily!

I smiled to myself.

Soon a new month would begin and life would fill up with happiness!

(Contd.)
©

Chapter &

2009-09-13T03:33:00.000-07:00

7. a

I closed the Bhagwad Geeta on my lap. It was the only way I could connect to Apu. Her number was unreachable. My emails to her came back with a delivery faluire notice. She never came on chats. And I didn’t even have her address. Which meant I couldn’t even write her a letter if I wanted to. Probably she didn’t want to talk.
But I didn’t have much objection to that. She could just receive my call and stay quiet. Or just read my mail without replying. Or be idle on chat without replying to whatever I typed. Or just read my letter and then crumpled it. I did not want her to talk. I only wanted to express myself to her. To tell her about the vacuum her absence had created. To tell her about the turbulances within me. To tell her about the turmoil I was going through in her absence. And carelessly sidelining the reservation she had set between us, I would have urged her to come back. Or even begged for it. I would have poured in every bit of my heart in my words and made her weep silently. Maybe she knew that I would do it. And that was exactly why she had purposely detached herself from me. To prevent my words from effecting her. And had left me just a single link of connection with her. The Bhagwad Geeta.

I didn’t read the Bhagwad Geeta. I talked to Apu through it. I told her how much I missed her. How much I needed her. And how incomplete I was without her. I thought she heard it. I imagined it plainly. But the fact that she didn’t even have a hint of it put me all down. And I abruptly closed the book. And marked the page with the lace I had flipped off her on our last night together, devoiding her of a well functional bra. The touch of it involuntarily filled my eyes with tears and choked my throat. So I touched it as minimally as I could. Holding the tip most of the time to place it as a book mark. But when Apu filled my heart, I softly ran my fingers over it. It felt as if I was touching her. It had an element of her in it. Because it had been closest to the part which she was totally composed of. Her heart. A crazy girl’s crazy heart.

I kept the book aside and switche off the reading light. I lied down on the bed with the revived pain of Apu still twirling within me. This was one of the days people slept early. Amongst the days at the end of the month when there wasn’t much cash left in the pocket to splurge. A single beer and a two cigarettes in this time was the highest point of enjoyment. But it wasn’t to last long. Soon a new month would begin and life would fill up with happiness. Living in dire straits for a few days was always acceptable on that term.

I picked out a cigarette from our common box and went to the terrace with my mobile. I light it with my duplicate Zippo and tried calling Apu once again. It was unreachable. I typed her a message, just hoping that someday she would get it. Little hopes gets people to do weirdest of things at time. Even when you know that things aren’t possible, you try out their possibility. Ending up disappointing yourself once more.

‘I wnt u badly. Let thngs nt b lk b4 if u wnt. Bt atlst tlk 2 me. lstn 2 me. I hv no1 2 evn tlk 2. I fl so damn lonly widout u. plz cm bck. lu ’
I pressed the send button. The message was sent. I pointlessly waited for the delivery report that was never to come. It didn’t come anyway.

I smoked my cigarette deeper. I wanted the smoke to fill me up. I wanted it to burn down the lump in my throat. I wanted it to lighten the heaviness in my chest. I sent out a prolonged exhale of smoke.

The night was filled with silence. Stray dogs barked at a far off distance. I smoked hopelessly leaning on a terrace railing . My hopes slowly drowned in the smoke ofmy cigarette. I was on the last puff, healed of pain and baseless hopes.

I smoked a deep last puff and I felt something vibrate in my pocket.

My message tone suddenly filled the silence of the night.

I hurriedly pulled out the mobile from my pocket and looked at its screen.
‘One message received’ it said.

I quickly punched the ‘view’ button.

It opened.

‘I m cmng nxt wk.whr r u?’ it said.

A blast of happiness burst within me. I was split into pieces each filled with happiness. I looked at the message again.

I took a closer look and the gush of happiness in me fizzed out in a moment.

(Contd.)
©

6.e

2009-09-12T10:34:00.000-07:00

“I can read it on his face….” The televisor said.

“What?” The old blind king asked curiously.

“The archer prince…”

“What about him?” The king rolled a grape in his hand. His eyes fixed on televisor’s eyes. “Has he picked up the bow yet??”

“Nope…but its clearly written on his face….”

“What?”

“That he won’t pick it up ever…” The televisor said in a slow lingering tone.

“How do you know that ?…”

“Dejection!...on his face…” The televisor hummed the words that he spoke.

“And what does he say?” The king entered into his inquisitive role.

“He says….that he will be a sinner if he attacks his kin…” The televisor replied gravely.

“And then…what did the flutist say?” The king asked incomprehensively.

“He says…when you are fighting a war for justice…there is no right and wrong…no sin or salvation…there is only one thing…and that is…the stand…and you have a correct stand…so pick up your weapons…..and begin the war…” The voice of the televisor resembled that of the flutist.

“What are his consultation fees?” The old blind king asked hopefully.

“What?!…” The televisor asked coming back to his senses with a suden shock.

“What are his consultation fees?...can we hire him?... I always asked my eldest son to change the strategist…but the dumbarse just wants to stick to his uncle’s arse….and upon that…my wife!….she is so adamant on keeping him as the strategist…sometimes I feel I have no power at all…” the king unfolded his helpless brfore the televisor.

“But you are the king sir…why do you have to listen to her?” the televisor raised a doubt from the bottom of his heart.

“Come on…she gave up her social life for my sake….she gave up her career and looked after the children…havung hundred of thm is like running a school you know….each one has a different tantrum…she even gave up her vision for me…even I am obliged...”
“Do you think she did it just because she could blackmail you with her wants?”

“Maybe…” The king rubbed his chin.

“Or maybe she is madly in love with you…” The televisor presented his argument.

“How can you say that?”

“After knowing that you are blind….should could have gone a thousand ways…but she always stuck to you and your blindness….” The televisor elaborated on his thought.

The king only shook his head. The televisor smiled.

“So…” the king returned to the topic to divert the previous one. “can we hire the flutist?”

“No!” said the televisor firmly. “We can’t…he is into a contract with the archer and his brothers…and he is amongst the very few….who repect the contract…and anyways….nowadays he only takes challenging jobs…like this five brother’s case…he takes up a job where he can work towards turning the fortunes…rather than bathing in the existing fortune without any challenge… ”

“Hmm” The king nodded.

“Should I proceed?” The televisor asked.

“Yeah yeah…sure!”

“The archer prince says….if I kill my kin….I will be sinner…my hands will be stained by the blood of my near and dear ones….my conscience doesn’t permit it…” The televisor began with his reporting.

“And then….what did the flutist do?” Asked the king eagerly. According to the golden law that an old aged enterprenuer has a stark eagerness for knowing every business movement. This quest takes them into an intrusion into their target’s personal lives. Because they believe that these are the true places where all actions are born.

“Then why couldn’t your conscience save your wife from being malhandled…asked the flutist…”

“Did it help?”

“No…he said it with a true feeling of disappointment”

“Then what did?”

Televisor closed his eyes again and reached the battleground through his soul. When he came back the old blind king was still equally eager to know what happened further. The televisor was quiet.

“What?” king’s face twisted wearily as he asked the televisor. “What helped?”

“It ‘sa disourse in the middle of the field” The televisor warned.

“I am ready…what is it?!” the king said firmly.

“A logic…” The televisor said gravely.

“What logic?” The king was desperate to know the answer.

The televisor began.

“The flutist said to the archer…Karmanye vaadhika rasye maa faleshu kadaachanam…”

“And it means?” The king was harangued.

“It means… You are only entitled to right action…and not to its fruits... so don’t expect them now…whatever be it good or bad…they should never motivate or demotivate you to act righteously…”

(Contd.)

©

6.e

2009-09-06T03:59:00.000-07:00

“She is a good girl….and…she is very beautiful…and…she is smart….and intelligent…and…” He dragged the pause too long.

“I asked what all you know….not how she is…” I asked flatly.

“She is independent….and extrovert…and….” He was done with his quota of adjectives for the love of his life. The sense I put in the question, was exactly what he hadn’t got. He continued counting theoretical virtues possessed by Shamita according to him. All of which were wrong of course. And I could see my effort going down his sweat.

“And??...”

“And…That’s it!” he accepted defeat.

“That’s it?...that is all you know about her?” I asked curtly.

“Umm…yes!…”

“And you plan to woo her with this information?”

“….” He fell silent. His face flashed the utter confusion that had jumbled up his mind.

“When you want to woo a girl…first know her…and know her well…” I threw a line at him. And it broke on his forehead. He nodded in incomplete comprehension.

I was about to take my next sip when he suddenlty blurted out.

“But how can I do this??”

I took the sip sidelining his question for a moment and then got back to him.

“By getting close to her….” And before he could present me with his next dumb question, I said “and you need to spend more time with her….”

His face was telling me that I had caught him right. Now all I had to do was stretch this further and wind him in it.

“…And you will have to do this alone…” I said with finality.

He turned towards me in surprise.

“What happened?” I asked him.

“Alone?...Won’t you be with me?”

“Of course I will be!...where will I go?”

“Then…?” I could see clear incomprehension in his eyes!

“Then…I can’t do all this for you….it is something which only you can do for yourself….you don’t expect someone to acratch youre balls for you…there are certain things which one has to do for oneself…what??”

“Yeah…” he nodded gravely, “But…”

“But what?”

“I don’t talk with her much….then how will I….?” his voide had a regretful tone to it.

I took another sip from the bottle. I was thoroughly enjoying this session of counselling. I was feeling like God!

“That you will have to figure out…all I can do is…help you break the ice…”

“Yeah man….I need serious help with that….” He was almost begging before me.

“How to take it forward is your talent…” I warned him again for fun.

“But…Will I be able to do it?” His doubts didn’t seem to end upon a single question.

“Once you fall into the water…you learn to swim on your own!”

“It is possible naa??...I mean…I will succeed na??”

“You have to man….its a do or die situation…she may be a bit rigid in the initial stages…but you have to be patient…women are unpredictable…only way to deal with this is patience…”

“Hmm…” he nodded again in approval.

“And yes….dont think about success and failure now….let it begin first…don’t think of the outcome before you begin the war….”

“No man….nothing like that…if it had been hitting someone….i would have known what to do….or a cricket match….or an exam…..i know how to tackle…..but this is different…” He gthered back his ego.

“That’s what….this is different…with me on your side….you don’t have to worry…I will take care to it that you win her heart….”

“I trust you man!!”

“Don’t!!...I could fail too!”

“….” He was scared.

“So could you….but even if u do….I promise you…the experience of being in love will be unforgettable!!”

He was still silent.

“I can assure you success…but I can’t guarantee it to you….No body can guarantee anything in this world…you have to put in your efforts without expecting anything…if you love her truly….will you be able to do it….?”

“Yes” He said firmly.

“Good!” I said.

I had earned my trump card.

(Contd.)

6. d

2009-09-05T12:57:00.000-07:00

Expressway is different in the mornings. At night it is a sea of darkness. If there is moonlight to guide you, the mountains around it look like waves which rose high and froze themselves. Turning into the large creases on land that a mighty hand had forgotten to wipe out. The head light of the vehicle passing by lightened up the entire premise, and you could see the real face of the mountains, moving away the veil of darkness that covered them. Like an enticing face peeping out of a black cloak. During the day, these creases take up clear shapes. Mountains and hillocks painted in strokes of green and brown. And a few touch ups of black, for the rocks that peep out from the green and brown carpet.

The cars which run on the expressway at night are just two eyes of light, finding their way in darkness, followed by two red eyes on the back, keeping an eye on the rash followers. In the sunshine, they transform into colourful celestial bodies, blazing like shivering flames of a fireball.

At night, the breeze which blows over the expressway, chills youir bones. During the day time, the same breeze keeps you yearning for more. It a gush of soothing coolness that blows across the heated land. But on the rock under the huge mango tree, it is never so hot. The shade is as cool as the shadow of night clouds and the passing wind, which makes the leaves rattle like a tambourine, livens you up in an otherwise hot daylight. And chilled beer which slides down through your system, cooling every cell in your throat to your belly, makes the endeavour to reach the place worthwhile.

I take the first sip from the bottle in my hand. I gulp it down, and it goes down chilling my chest and settles in my belly. I can feel it going down my heated body.

“Tell me….what do you know about Shamita?” I ask him.

“She is a good girl….and…she is very beautiful…and…she is smart….and inteligent…and…”

We were amidst one of the counselling sessions which we had decided to conduct, so that Piyush could get some guidance on wooing Shamita.

***

“You have to help me now…” He said to me as I washed my hands.

“I know…” I replied plainly.

“Only you can help me…” He was about to say something further.

“I know…” I interrupted him coldly.

“Will you?” He inquired hesitantly.

“Yes…I will” I smiled as him and wiped my hands.

“Tell me everything…about her….and everything about girls….and about making them fall in love with you…and impressing them….and wooing them…everything…I want her in my life at any cost…” He said frantically.

“Yes…I will” The smile on my face didn’t fade out. It grew wise. Like the one that Krishna bears in his pictures.

“When?” He asked in excitement.

“Today afternoon onwards…” I replied patting his arm in assurance.

“Thank You Anay!!” He said hugging me tight.

***

The truth was, there was no such way in which one could woo someone. If that would have been the case, most hopeless of guys wouldn’t have got hottest of girls. It’s all a stroke of luck. Or more a psychological reaction to a pecularity of an ability in you, that rings the bell in the opposite person. Marriages are made in heaven. On earth, we only legalise them. What we get from them, joys or sorrows, is all our destiny. The most we can do is break them and try once more. Till our quest ends. At times it might never seem to end. That is the time to realise the supreme truth again. And that is ‘Marriages are made in heaven’. If someone is made for you, you won’t be able to deny their presence in your life, even amongst the countless other presences in it, including the significant ones. And if it is not to be so, each of your ceaseless attempts to rivet them to your life, fail miserably, taking you farther from the then considered soulmate of yours. This is the only way in which everything in the soulmate business can be depicted. Rest all are just words of void wisdom.

The only effort you have to take while hunting for the love of your life is not to take any effort. It will happen on its own. And if it doesn’t, it wasn’t ever to happen.

But then, these words are of no use to me when it comes to Piyush. Because if he realised, understood and followed this truth, I would loose every bit of importance that I maintained in his life. Which clearly would lead to the deletion of my role from his life. And so would it mark the end of my purpose. That was clearly not the reason why I had stood up to help him in first place. I had to give him some gyaan in order to keep him glued to my fingers. And this counselling was the medium for it. Giving away the truth wasn’t wise. It would mean clear loss of faith in me. On the other hand, the benefit of not disclosing it was that, if at all Piyush lost faith in my guidance, I coul bring him back to me by suggesting a hundred false ideas, and blame the failure of the earlier ones on the circumstances. The truth would leave any place for me in his life. So I decided to begin a farce of counselling him, and continue it through the end.

Sometimes, a lie of relief, is worth a lot more than thousand painful truths.

I begin.

I take the first sip from the bottle in my hand. I gulp it down, and it goes down chilling my chest and settles in my belly. I can feel it going down my heated body.

“Tell me….what do you know about Shamita?” I ask him.

(Contd.)

6.c

2009-09-04T13:48:00.000-07:00

Piyush held my feet in despair.

It generated an utter despise for him within me.

“Or else…I am out of it…no more of it….It’s all over for me…” He said in a pitiful voice.

I had a strong urge to jerk my leg and kick this idol of melodrama away. What was he trying to blackmail me with. What was I to loose if he quit it. It was his life. It was his love. What did I have to do with it. I did have my intentions. But what did he know about them. His lame threat was based on a hypothetical sentimental argument of me not being able to bear his pain as a true friend. The kick justified its purpose.

I pulled back my leg and stood up. Determined to neglect his eye-watering proposal, I walked towards the edge of the terrace to spit the lather that had gathered in my mouth.

I stood leaning on it, ready to spit and I saw Harshad whizzing by on his motorbike on the road besides our bungalow. I stopped for a moment. I aimed at the edge of the road and spat hard. I aimed a bit away from the target. Nevertheless better. I knew now why I had to stand by Piyush.

I turned back and shouted in Piyush’s direction.

“Then get out of it you arsehole!!...” Yet I didn’t want to excuse him so easily. “I don’t care…what have I got to do with it??...”

He looked at me with an unbearable shock.

“Its not my fucking problem…” I continued. “Go get your life screwed up!…Who am I to tell you?...”

“You are…” I began.

“Nobody!!” I didn’t let him talk at all.”…What right you have over your life?....its what they have…that Harshad and his bastard friends…so give up the love of your life for them…right?!”

“No man!...”

“Yes Man!!...that’s why you are yearning so much to give it up…The last night’s incidence didn’t seem to put any sense into your senseless head…That basterd doesn’t isnt worth of it….All you need to do is open your eyes and see…. …he…is...not…your friend any more!!!” I shouted the last sentence on his face.

“But wasn’t that because I betrayed him in first place….” He said innocently.
Seeing his lame stand over the matter, I was inspired to give a sharper edge of harshness to my words.

“It’s all in your mind…deal with this self pitied guilty complex of yours first…you fucker…And then come to me… So long as you don’t stop this bullshit of yours…I am not helping you….”

“And you shouldn’t….nobody should help a cheater…” He said in a same pitiful tone as before.

It was irritating me now. I could have pissed on his face and left the terrace. But I had a reason to stay.

“Finally….last time….I am not going to repeat it….three things…firstly…stop being a sissy….go jerk off in the loo and remind yourself that you are a man….and secondly….you don’t kill….when you kill a killer….and the third and the most important thing…If you really love someone….stand by your love and not the world…now sit here…think what you want….and then come down and stand outside the loo…coz’ I am going to shit now!…” I finished my sentence on the rudest note to create an impact and left.

I sat on the ceramic throne relaxed myself on the septic tank. I was feeling a fountain of excitement within me. The anticipation of his reaction towards my ultimatum was tickling my guts. I was feeling a gush of laughter bubbling inside me, eager to burst out. I covered my mouth with my palm and began laughing sliently.

With a smile on my face, I emptied my bowels and concluded the aligned tasks. After a gaining a complete control over my laughter muscles, I got up from the throne and I wore back my shorts. I unlatch the door to rush for a handwash. I hate not having a basin in the loo itself. Its ugly to wave your hands all the way to the wash basin to clean them. Usually after a session in the loo, I am in extreme hurry to wash my hands off.

I open the door and move a step back in a shock. Piyush stands at the door like a zombie. Only thing that differentiates him is the determination on his face.
“What?!” I ask in the state of shock, preventing myself from falling back by hoding the door handle.

“I will stand up for my love!” He says with the ferocity of a resolute warrior. “I thought over it…I want Shmita…” he continued with a stream of love flowing out of the solid black rock of staunchness. And finally he gathered tears in his eyes. In a choked voice he said,

“I need her!” The world stood still for those moments of revelation.

“I need to wash my hands….” I said with my determination.

(Contd.)

6. b

2009-09-01T12:33:00.000-07:00

“Just like that?” asked the old blind king.

“Yeah!” replied the televisor.

“What….the…FUCK!….”

“Language Sir!” tapped the televisor on the king’s knee.

“I am the boss here!” said the old blind king sordidly.

Televisor took to silence.

“Shit….I can’t believe it!” The old blind king went verbal again. “What son of a gun is he…What has gone into this boy?....had his father been alive….he would have whacked the shit out of him…. Such a sissy!.....tell me further….I think it is a medium to gain publicity….since this war has highest TRPs….he is trying to encash his personal popularity as an archer with a golden heart…..what do you think?...”
The televisor maintained a rigid silence.

“What do you think?” The king asked again loudly.

The televisor did not break this vow of silence. He kept his mum.

“I know you are here…stop playing these pancy tricks with me” The king warned him again.

There was nothing but silence.

“Alright…” The king said “He’s gone I think….Is anybody there???” he said aloud “Call the Human Resource minister….we need to recruit a new televisor…ask him to pick one up from the many that come out of Televising Institutes these days….anyways this guy was overpaid…”

“I feel the same sir…” said the televisor in a low voice. His tone clarifying that he wasn’t in his complete mind to voice a reply, yet something shameful in him had forced him to do so.

“Good good” The old blind king tossed an almond towards him in appreciation “…now tell me…what’s the current update…?”

Televisor rolled up his eyes and touched his brain with his pupils. He then rolled it back and stared straight into the direction of the battlefield. His ears stiffened like receptors of a radar. And he exclaimed in horror…

“Unbelievable!!”

“What happened.?..” asked the king alarmingly, leaving aside the betelnut and the nut cracker in his hand, staring in the direction of the televisor’s voice.

There was a brief moment of silence and then the televisor spoke out his shocked stream of words.

“He has given up his weapons…”

“What?!” The king was taken aback.

“Yes…the archer prince has fallen into the flutist’s feet…and keeping his bow and the quiver on flutist’s feet…he said…

I don’t want to fight!”

The old blind king was frozen with the shock. In that stae he muttered…

“Son of a Bitch!!”

And suddenly the king was filled with all the action. He began walking restlessly around the room. He washed his face below the cow-faced tap. He returned to his seat all in a mess. He called out for the finance minister.

The finance minister came rushing in.

“What happened?…” he asked worriedly.

“Withdraw all the bets on that archer prince….he is going to drown me….” The king replied regretfully.

“And what shall we do of it Sir??” asked the finance minister.

“Place the bets on that son of charioteer...I have a war betting model and it states that he is the second best warrior to bet on…after Arjuna falls so…”

The televisor detached from their conversation was blankly staring at the archer prince’s surrender, in a state of shock and magnanimous disappointment. He yearned to know why the archer prince did so. But he knew that his televisibility could see only see the incidents.

Not into the feelings that soak them.

(Contd.)

Chapter ^

2009-08-16T14:13:00.000-07:00

6. a

I woke up early in the morning. I like waking up early after a drunk night. It’s a different freshness. A revelatory sort of freshness. Like you are seeing the life in a new light. But if we wake up early once in a blue moon, the light does anyways seem like a new light because we are not used to seeing the early morning light.

Alcohol had relaxed me enough already. So I didn’t feel like lying in the bed. I stood up and went to the basin. Our other drink mates were still lying around drunk. I felt like walking through an ambushed battalion, with my dead soldier friend all around me. Viet war movies filled in the head. I miss a gun in my hand and a helmet. I put an empty bowl on my head and pick up a toothbrush. I shoot Viet guerrillas with it and then put a paste on it, thrusting it in my mouth.

I have an urge to go to the terrace and brush my teeth. Its fun to spit on the road next to the house. Then through the day, the stains remain there. And you can remember your act of valour throughout the day, whenever you pass by the gate.

I walk up the stairs and the series of incidences from last night flicker before me. It’s just been one night, but it seems like days passed by. I entered the terrace door, in a lot relaxed manner than I did last night. I won’t find a clash here today. It wouldn’t belong to two frustrated lovers fighting over a girl. It will all be mine. I will bask in the haze of the morning sun. Listen to the chirping of early riser birds. I will brush my teeth in their rhythm.

I walk across the wall which separates the door from the terrace area. Something catches my eye. I turn around to see what it is. I move back in a mild shock. Piyush lies there with a bottle of Old Monk in his hands. Drunkards crash position. Which clearly means he has been sitting here and drinking all night long.

“Maa chudi!!!” I exclaim and walk to him.

“Piyush….gaandu…uth…wake up…go and sleep on the bed…..chal…” I wake him up.

He mumbles something and turns to his other side.

“Abey gaandu uth….come on….dont sleep here….chal…my bed is empty….chal…” I try again.

“Let me die here….I am a traitor!!” He says clear enough to understand and passes out again.

“Give me this shit later…..stand up first…” I say trying to pick him up.

“Noooo…I want to die here…” He said shaking my hand off and slipping down on the floor.

I was fed up by his senseless attempts to stay smashed. I had to take strong measures to bring him back to his senses. I looked around for options. I saw the Sintex water tank.

I picked him up by his arms and pulled him to the tank. He was out of his senses again by now. I rested him on the edge of the tank. It was almost like puling the carcass of a dead animal.

I pushed him a bit further and brought his face to the mouth of the tank. I opened the lid and assured that there was enough water in it. The assurance inspired me and I dipped his head in the cold water and held it there for a few seconds, till he struggled and withdrew himself from the water and my grip. He fell back pushing me away and lied down coughing. He sat up and rinsed his nose lazily. I went to pick him up again. He pushed me aside. I held him tight next time and dragged him to the tank.

He jumped away. We both fell aside.

“Maar daalega kya gaandu?….want to kill me?” He said heaving heavily.

“You said you want to die…” I said staring at the sky. It felt good to lie down again.

“Yes….kill me!” He said firmly.

I rolled over and grabbed his throat. He held my hand and pushed me away.

“What happened bugger?....die now na…” I asked laughing aloud.

He didn’t reply.

“Nobody accepts death so easily dude…everybody fights against it….not as an intention…but as an impulse… this impulse is life…the fight to be alive….rest all are just words…bekaar ki bakchodi!” I said looking at him.

“No….I have to die…people like me should…” He replied in a tone of grave self pity.

“What has gone into you fucker?....this sad ass shit??!....”

“I am a traitor….”

“No fucker…You are not!!” I shout on him.

“But…” He is about to present a counter argument.

“But what?” I cut it.

“I am a traitor…I shouldn’t live…”

“Fuck you…..You are wrong…stop thinking this shit!!!....nothing’s gonna move if you think this….Chutiya saala!!...If you keep thinking like this, you will have nothing left in your hands….she will go away with someone else….and you will have nothing with you….except this….this shitty thought!!” Perfect threat, perfect thought.

He didn’t turn.

“I think you are scared…” I played my next card. “Fattu saala!!….Don’t be a coward fucker!!...Fattu mat ban Bhenchod!!”

“Fattu nahi ban raha hoon….arey woh Harshad hai…apna dost….he’s our friend….how can I stand against him at all…It’s better to stay alone than do such a thing man…..This is not about cowardice…this is about the trust he had in me which I broke…” He said pitifully.

“You didn’t break any trust….tell me one thing…..Do you love Shamita?” I asked him the most easiest of question with the most complicated anticipation process.
He stayed silent for some time then answered…

“Yes!”

There he was! I got him in the trap.

“You have all your answers here!” I said in a tone of finality.

“Nope…” He blurted out promptly. “I have all my questions staring here…”

“Then I can’t do anything for you my friend….I am sorry” This was the last weapon I had saved for such times.

Piyush was shaken. He leaned on the though that, whatever be his confusion, I would be there to sort it out. And my backing out from this effort was his sure destruction. All his qualms were based on this faith. And I had shaken it from the base.

“No Anay….please don’t say this…please help me!!....please tell me what to do!!”
I turned and looked at the sky silently and began brushing my teeth. I had to brush them in the rhythm of the chirping sounds of late riser birds.

(Contd.)

5. j

2009-08-15T04:57:00.000-07:00

“Yes…” I said firmly.

“No man…..I don’t think he would do something like that….” he said naively.

“My part was to warn you…rest is what you want to do” I was a bit harsh. But I felt it was necessary at the moment. In order to convince him that he was living in threat. Which he also was somehow.

But I had faked this tone of detachment while speaking to him. As detached I seemed from my words, the more involved I was in this tiff. I felt I was at the centre of it, and like a lever, I was making it work. I was the peg on which the future of this conflict rested. I was the pivot which turned it the way it should go. And I had started feeling conceited about it.

“Do you have a cigarette?” Piyush asked me. An unexpressed concern flashed on his face.

I checked the pockets of my jacket. I found the packet I had bought for the party. I entrusted the half filled packet to him. He took out a cigarette and lit it with his rusted lighter.

He took a long drag and turned to look at the road.

“What happened re Piyush?” I asked him casually.

“Nothing” He tried hard to dismiss my question. Yet it kept lingering around him with the streaks of smoke from his cigarette.

“You sure ??” I pushed it further.

He didn’t reply. Neither did he turn back. He kept smoking silently with his back at me.

I got off the motorbike and went and stood behind him. He didn’t seem to notice my presence. I placed my hand on his shoulder and called out his name. He shrank and turned back to me. His eyes were moist. A stray thought of street lights glistening in them teased me for a second. I pushed it aside and asked him in a softer tone.

“What happened??”

He broke down all of a sudden sitting on his haunches.

“What happened Piyush?” I asked holding him by his shoulders.

“Bhenchod!!!…..that bastard is my friend!!!”

***

“And then….?” Asked the old blind king curiously.

“And then the archer prince took a closer look at his enemies….” The televisor said all charged up. He had by now realised where was sitting. And what was occurring was so inspiring for him to tell his master, that his master would stand up and start jumping with happiness, not caring about his inactive eyes and where he was going to land next in their absence.

“And then….?” The old blind king’s eagerness spilled out of his weary wrinkled face.

“And then he said….” The televisor began.

The Archer Prince’ Despodency:

“Damn it brother!…..It’s not working out!....” The Archer prince said.

The flutist turned back to him in surprise. But the archer prince didn’t realise it. He was lost in his own grief. The guilt of betrayal began clouting around him. And he kept on speaking in it’s trance.

“I am nervous…..I am shivering….I can’t even hold the bow and arrow…. Look at them man!....all my people….cousins, uncles, teachers….all those who meet me at family get-togethers….What’s the point in killing them?....I even doubt the fact that they are our enemies…..If I kill them all….what will be of our family get-togethers?.....and what is all the wealth of use if they aren’t gonna be around….who will our wives show off their sarees to?”

Flutist who was acting as a charioteer for the war, turned to look at his face. He had held it high as he stared at the enemy camp. Lost in his own words.

“These are my people dude!” The archer prince continued speaking “My kin….I see no point at all in killing them…these are my brothers….I have played with them as a kid….and I face them like enemies today….balls man!....what so ever is happening!....I would be happier if they come together and kill me…..damn yaar….I give up”

Back to Televisor:

“Saying this he put down his weapons before the flutist…” There was a tone of glee in televisor’s voice. The good news was here. And how could it not please his master. He awaited a smile to form on his master’s face.

“What the F***!!!” The old blind king shouted aloud!.

The televisor was shaken. He quickly moved close to him to avoid any damage to the old man.

“What happened Sir?” He asked filled with concern and surprise.

“He is supposed to fight…even if his enemies are my sons….he should fight and he should win….And look what the idiot is doing…..bloody spineless!!” The old blind king vent out his frustration.

“I don’t think so Sir…” interrupted the televisor.

“Then what do you think?” barked the old blind king on him.

“He just loves them all too much!” The televisor said.

***

(Contd.)

5. i

2009-08-12T12:50:00.000-07:00

I was riding the motorbike him back. Piyush sat on the pillion musing about the rapid changes in his life. It was too much to handle for a small town boy like him.

He had lived in a world where each one knew each other. A world which was built on trust and friendship. A world in which others meant a lot more than the self.

The sudden strike from Harshad had devastated him. It wasn’t that he hadn’t had tiffs in his town. But there, the enemies were clearly marked out. And those rules were not applied in these domains. Here, anybody could turn against you. And that too, anytime! This was a fact which Piyush was finding hard to digest. And so would Dilip and Anshul, when he would tell them.

I rode steadily. Allowing Piyush to ride after he is drunk is like riding your death with the reaper holding the accelerator.

I have survived his drunk riding twice. But that did not mean I would the third time.

We came to the open road that joined the two parts of the place. I was about to ride across the grassland into the other part when Piyush suddenly yelped into my ear.

“Can you stop the bike?!”

His pitch indicated an emergency. I guessed that he wanted to puke. That’s a ritual after overdrinking. A grand puking ceremony. When every member pukes one after the another taking inspiration from the earlier. And then they pass out. Some even wake up from sleep and puke to maintain the dignity of the drink.

I stopped the bike. He got down.

“What happened?” I asked him
“Was it true?” he asked gravely. I saw a tint of innocence on his otherwise irritating face.

“What?” I asked unable to derive a reference.

“What you said about Harshad….” He lost the gravity in his voice.

What I said about Harshad:

“Strike back…?” Piyush asked me with a perplexity in his voice.

“Yes….what do you think?....will he sit quiet now??” I said with a tone of assuring obviousness.

“Then??” I could see fret gathering in his voice.

“He will hit back….and he will hit back hard” I said in a serious tone.

“Come on Anay….its Harshad.” He tried to dissuade my thought.

“Yeah…its Harshad….who sends Rahul to follow me….then assaults me at Aunty’s…and then starts a fight with you on a girl… ” I couldn’t let him forgive Harshad. That would mean loss of force for me. But it was somehow a baseless fear. Because, even if he did forgive Harshad, Harshad wouldn’t forgive him.

“But that…”Piyush struggled to deliver a counter logic.

“Give that justification to yourself!!....” I cut his sentence curtly.

There passed a long silent pause between us.

Piyush slowly turned towards me and said, “What do we do now?”

“Defend…..and hit back harder…” I sipped my drink.

“How do we do that?” He asked curiously.

“Let him try first….” I said coldly.

“Why?” He jumped in horror.

“Because we have to know his weapon!” I said staring at the Expressway, taking another sip from the glass.

(Contd.)

5. h (Extension)

2009-08-09T13:40:00.000-07:00

“How…?” I asked”

“In a damn bad way…” his voice suddenly opened up. I couldn’t make out whether it was rum or it was outburst. But it had broken the shackles of the baritone.

“What happened up there??” curiosity was raging within me.

I focus on Piyush’s eyes. He looses himself in thought.

Flashback begins : Piyush’s Point of View

When I returned to the terrace, Harshad was lost in a reverie.

“Harshad…” I said going near him. My words shook him out of it.

“Do you believe him?” He asked me.

“Yes” I replied. I had a reason to.

“Maybe he must’ve….you know…spend some time with her there and on moving out…he must’ve seen Rahul and Gaurav…or may be he saw them from the window of the….hotel room…or maybe…”

“So Rahul and Gaurav were there…”

“Yeah…I mean…they happened to run into them…you know…” He was stumbling with his words.

“Did you send them?” I asked him into his face.

“No…they…they…happened to be there… co-incidentally” He answered again with the same stammer.

“Very rare co-incidence” I taunted.

“Why do you trust him so much?” Harshad snapped at me.

“Because he cares…” I replied.

“Cares my arse….he just wants to fuck Shamita…or maybe…”

“Okay stop…” I said cutting his sentence.

“Why stop?…”

“Don’t say anything about Shamita…she is not that kind of girl…” I said politely.

“Excuse me…why are you being so touchy about her?” He asked me angrily. As if he owned her.

“Why not…she is a good girl…”

“One sec…..stay away from her okay…I’ve already told you….I saw you staring at her that day….keep your mind clear…” He warned me.

“Actually Harshad….” His warning has provoked me more, “….I wanted to talk to you about her…”

“About her??...what about her?” He asked me irritated.

“It is that….”

“What?” Wrinkles appeared on his forehead.

“It is that I have a liking for her…” I said in a low voice.

“Come again…” He said in way that irritated me.

“I have a liking for Shamita…” I said again, louder this time.

He looked at me angrily. I looked at him straight into his eye.

“Its better if you keep it just a liking…” he warned me.

“I am sorry” I said.

“What?” He asked me in a threatening tone.

“I am sorry” I said firmly.

“Madarchod!!!…”He emitted a strong tremor. And before I could know, I felt his palm crashing on my skull. It shook me hard, breaking me away from the world around me for a moment. He held me by my collar and pulling me close to him.

“You bastards…son of bitches….Bhenchod…you call me here for a party….and then throw this shit at me…First is that motherfucker….and next are you…you bastards are bent on screwing up my life…bloody Bhadvas…” he went on uttering such shit.

Finally, I couldn’t take it at all. I pushed him away and threw a punch at his face out of impulse. He fell back. Before he could get up, I placed a kick in his belly. He got up and pounced on me.

“Bhenchod….you outsider….you come to our city….take away our admissions…our jobs…and now you are taking away our girls…Bhosdika…go back to where you come from…Madarchod…go back to your state…study there…why do you have to come here to snatch away our happiness…go bhenchod…go back… ” He was in a weird state of fury.

I pushed him away and slapped him hard on his face. He still kept on blabbering.

Finnally I threw him on the ground and shouted “Shut Up!” loudly on his face.

I haunched besides him holding his collar and said “One more word….just one more word from you…and I will throw you down from here…”.

He pushed me away and walked down hurriedly.

Flashback ends. (So does Piyush’s Point of View)

“What the fuck?!” I mumbled my exclamation.

“Yes…” Piyush replied grievously.

“Shit!” I sipped the rum from my glass.

With a shadow of gloom, Piyush turned to me.

“He will strike back” I said staring at the Expressway.

Piyush looked at me befuddled.

“He will strike back…be prepared…” I said without turning towards him.

(Contd.)

5. h

2009-08-06T14:15:00.000-07:00

From the place where I sat sipping my Rum in cola, I could see the passage that went up to the stairs that connected the individuality of each floor. I had just filled up my glass. I was about to take a sip and I saw Harshad rushing down furiously. Before I could get up from my place and stop him, he was gone.

I stood up and rushed towards the passage with the glass still in my hands. I saw Piyush alighting the stairs walking heftily.

“What happened?” I asked.

“Let’ go to the tower…” He said in a baritone of a murderer.

“Now?...What happened?...Are you okay?” I was zapped by the sudden change in him.

“Yeah I am okay…get a bottle and two glasses…let’s drink there” He continued in the same baritone.

I slyly entered the drunk zone, grabbed a bottle of rum and a Thums up, picked up two plastic glasses and smoothly escaped from the drunk hounds.

Piyush had started his motorbike by then. I sat carefully balancing all the goods in my hand and we were off.

Tower was a dilapidated factory near the expressway. Someone had a vivid plan of building it near the expressway. But luck didn’t favour him. And neither did the government. So the half complete structure stood there for long years. And then, one fine day, it began dilapidating. After a long wait, it gave away its being to fate.

And its rapidly degenerating form became a hide out for many. Including us. It was one of the places where you had a loft all to yourself, wherein you could sit and enjoy your drink looking at the cars passing by. The place was also used by bongers and bangers. But each one had a solitude in their space. And it rarely happened that two beneficiaries landed up at the place at the same time.

When we reached the tower, it was supposedly empty. We went to the topmost loft and set up our session there. I made a drink for Piyush first and then poured one for myself. We settled down with our glasses on the cement sacks, which had by now hardened into stone and served purely as seats. Some artist had also arranged it to seem like a sofa and had a pile of similar sacks before it which served like a table.

We sipped the beverages from our glasses and lit our cigarettes. I reclined on the hard back rest like elevation near my back.

“Tell me now…what happened…” I asked taking a sip from my glass.

“He failed….” Piyush said gravely. “…badly!” He added.

(Contd.)

5. g

2009-08-02T14:20:00.000-07:00

“Yes…Rahul!” There was a cold edge to my voice. An edge of brutality that goes tearing the soul apart. “Isn’t it Harshad?...Rahul told you na?”

Standing stuck to the wall, I couldn’t take it anymore. I had to strike. I wasn’t supposed to enter the ring. I wasn’t supposed to break the chain of words between them. I just had to stand there, for Piyush to know that I was there. But venom. Venom made me break the rules. It was spreading. I had to cut it. If it spread, it wouldn’t just spoil the mechanism of the things going around me. It would destroy the newly developed affiliation between me and Piyush. Even if it was not true. Because every lie holds a possibility of being true. And people believe in this possibility more than they believe in the truth. I had to knock it off before it settled itself in Piyush’s mind. I couldn’t stand there and let him do it. No! I had to stop it. I had to barge in.

Harshad looked at me with a surprise. Piyush had a betrayed look on him. He looked at me as if I had torn his world apart. This was the look I was scared of. And If didn’t wipe it off from his face now, I would have to live with it all my life.
“Why should he tell me?” Harshad’s words stumbled out uncomfortably.

“Because you had sent him to follow me….” I made another assault.

“Me??...No way!...Why would I send them?”
“Then how can you say this??” I nailed it. “Tell me!”

He was speechless. I turned to Piyush.

“He sent Rahul and Gaurav to follow me and Shamita….”I said pointing a finger at Harshad.

Piyush was quizzed. He looked at me and Harshad turn-by-turn. Unable to take a side. Unable to decide.

“….Because he thought….that I was taking Shamita to the hill-station and sleeping with her….rather than taking her to meet her brother….” I continued. “And his spies…they saw your motorbike at the stand and reported that I was banging Shamita in a roadside motel….” I stopped. The idea they had was quite an exciting one. But I would have enjoyed the tag if I had actually utilised the motel in that sense.
I turned to Harshad. I glared into his eyes.

“I saw them Harshad…I saw your spies…unfortunately they left before I finished my Medu Wada….with an assumption!...I am so sorry to disappoint you…you Fucker!!”

“That means you did go to a motel...” Harshad said staring at me. “…what is the guarantee that you only had a Medu Wada!!...”

I could see Piyush falling for his words. His eyes reflected an agreement to every question that Harshad raised. They stared at me intently at Harshad’s every doubt. And I could feel them burning on my face.

“Piyush do you remember the calls I made you from home??....just open the log and show this bastard!!” I commanded Piyush. He quickly began fiddling with his mobile phone. He needed to find an answer for himself. He was struggling to prove me right. Not because he trusted me so much. But because he wanted to check the facts. Proving me right was his only way of ensuring Shamita’s sanctity. And he would give his right arm for it. This was just scrolling through a list with the same hand.

He came to me. He showed me his mobile. Fortunately, the entries existed.

“See this Harshad….every call is from my home….every call in these four days….” I held out the mobile before him. He saw into it and looked at me worriedly.

“What do you say??” I asked him.

He stood still for some time.

“You can also compare the time travelled and the difference between the leaving time and reaching time…” I took it further.

After another brief moment of quietness he said in an almost inaudible decibel, “I am sorry!”

“How could you even think Harshad….?” I said with a pretentious disappointment.

“Come Piyush…let’s go” I said giving the mobile phone back to Piyush. I walked out of the terrace in a fake rage. Piyush followed me. I was happy to have rescued him from Harshad’s venom.

I stopped in my steps. I turned back facing him.

“Why are you following me??” I asked him.

He stands shell shocked.

“Go and tell him you love Shamita…It’s time for the test now!...he failed mine…now it’s your turn.” I tell him patting on his arm.

(Contd.)

5.f

2009-07-30T14:06:00.000-07:00

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

2009-07-28T14:23:00.000-07:00

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

2009-07-26T13:48:00.000-07:00

“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

2009-07-26T11:10:00.000-07:00

“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

2009-07-26T04:39:00.000-07:00

“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 %

2009-07-23T13:44:00.000-07:00

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

2009-07-20T13:48:00.000-07:00

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

2009-07-19T13:51:00.000-07:00

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

2009-07-18T23:18:00.000-07:00

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

2009-07-16T12:54:00.000-07:00

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 $

2009-07-11T23:31:00.000-07:00

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

2009-07-08T21:00:00.000-07:00

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

2009-07-07T12:49:00.000-07:00

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

2009-07-05T12:21:00.000-07:00

“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

2009-07-05T00:47:00.000-07:00

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

2009-07-04T01:41:00.000-07:00

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

2009-07-02T14:15:00.000-07:00

“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.)

3. g

2009-06-30T14:00:00.000-07:00

“What time?” I ask Sneha.
“Five thirty” she says.
“Where?...same spot?”
“Yeah…Opposite the ice cream parlour”

It was a lazy afternoon. Aunty was sleeping inside. The place was almost empty because the flockers of the place were busy with lectures. The roll I ordered for formality lay between us. Within the range of my hands. As in a preparation for a quick escape. We were making a plan for next day’s meeting in the city part, after her college.

A sweet little small date. At least that’s what we always expect it to be. It begins off as it too. Then slowly it creeps into us and we go wild. We want to watch a movie, and we end up making out through it. We want to sit with our legs dipped in the cold waters of the lake and we end up groping each other. We want to talk about things sitting along the dark shore of the river, and we end up with hands in each others clothes.

She is like a wild mare, like all rebellious teenage girls are. She wants to drink, smoke, make love and eat meat against her strictly religious vegetarian family background. She wants to break free. She wants to adopt the life of other privileged carefree girls of her age. And I am her passport to that life. At times she changes her clothes before meeting me. The Sneha behind the counter and the girl who meets me in the city are two totally different attires. I like the later more. Because it’s fun to tame a wild mare. It’s a different kick.

Suddenly I saw her straighten up. It was an alert signal. She had seen someone coming. It’s a consensus. If she sees someone coming over my shoulder, she alerts me. Same on my side. I picked up my roll and turned.

I have a surprise walking towards me. It’s Rahul!

The urge to call him Aditya has died in me. He no longer is Harshal’s roommate, whose leg I can pull anytime and then somehow manage to escape his wrath. He was a different individual now. I quickly move out of his way. He looks at me threateningly. I walk away and take a seat at the farthest table.

He buys a Vada Pav and sits at a table close to me. I avoid and interaction with him. Even the one with eyes. I look outside. Beyond Aunty’s netted fence, I see Harshad standing with Dhananjay, the youth party spokesperson and his henchman Akshay, the PR on the opposite footpath. I find them looking at me strangely. I wave out to Harshad. He waves in return. I signal him to come over and join me. I don’t feel like making my repayment clear at the moment. There’s always a right time. He waves back in refusal. But what puzzles me is the company he has. It could be that they had caught him the way they had caught me. But if that had been the case, why could’ve they been staring me with preparedness. I try to create a circuit board of thoughts trying to find the right connections. They loose their interest in me and start looking somewhere else.

I finish my roll hurriedly and get up to return the empty plate. Rahul stands up with me and crosses my path on my way back to the counter. I bang into him, after a futile attempt to avoid him. The left over ketchup draws a neat line on the right arm of his T-shirt. He turns around enraged.

“Lost your eyes?” He asks in a menacing tone.
“Sorry man!” I reply gently.
“What sorry?!…you spoilt the shirt!” He held his arm before me for a moment.
“Didn’t do it purposely man!”
“Are you back answering me?...It’s your mistake fucker…wash it and give it back to me”
“Yeah…sure man!...take it off!” I try to evade a situation with a smile.
“You think this is funny?...Madarchod!”

Suddenly I felt a hard punch in my stomach. Waves of agonizing pain spread through my belly. I curl back holding my belly.

“You still think this is funny?...Laugh now.”

A strong punch settles on my jaw, unsettling it.

A sharp sound occupies my ear and starts dissolving everything in itself.
I loose my balance and I lie on the ground.

“You want jokes na?...take this joke!” He kicks me in my thigh. It is obvious that he had missed his aim.

He leaves the plate at the counter and walks away.

I try standing up again. Sneha comes to pick me up. I get up on my feet again. I feel throbbing pain in my jaw. A metallic taste spreads onmy tongue. I go to the net and spit it out. I see red drops spewing out of my mouth. They land on the leaves of an grown by itself alont the footpath. My heart beats occupy my head. A slow blur invades my sight.

I see Harshad and the party workers walk away from the point where they were standing. I see their erect backs. That is the last sight I see. The world dissolves in a pitch black vacuum after that.

But before I pass out, I successfully get all my connections in the circuit right.

(Contd.)

3. f

2009-06-29T14:13:00.000-07:00

She continues talking on phone. The warmth of her body glues me to her. I don’t feel like letting her off. Her touch spreads through me. It absorbs me into itself. I melt in its warmth. She jerks me back. I keep on holding her. She continues talking. I unhear what she speaks. It’s her personal matter. She is my personal matter. I gently rub my cheek over the smoothness of her neck. She hits her elbow in my stomach. I bear it. I kiss her gently on her neck instead. I have learnt from great Indian leaders to love in return of hatred. I hear a small sigh. She hits her fist on my hip in return. Her conversation with Harshad on phone goes on uninterrupted. I love Matahari for this. She doesn’t let even the closest confide know whom she is with and doing what when such incidences of seduction occur. I slowly slip my hand down, taking it below her belly. I rub it over her zip. She tries to push me back in vain. I spread my fingers and hold the entire region in my hand, anchoring my fingers at soft notches. I press the area gently. A light moan escapes her mouth. She hits me lamely on my thigh. I unzip her pant and push my hand into the newly formed gap. I feel her body shudder.

I run my fingers over the smooth cloth of her Victoria’s Secret. My finger reaches the upper edge of the Secret. I fondle with it. I touch the softness of her lower belly that descends into her depth. A temptation blooms within me. The temptation to pull it down and reach the depths. To feel the touch of the tender skin at the edge of the depth. To rub my finger softly over it. To caress it with tips of extensors of my palms. To scratch a steady line with my blunt nails. I hear a soft gasp. I pull the elastic edge lower. She disconnects the call and turns around.

I look into her eyes. The hostility in them transfixes me. I keep looking into them with my hand struggling to get out. Within a fraction of the second, her hand lands on my cheek. Everything darkens before me for a moment.

“Stay off fucker!!” She almost shrieks.

I move back. But my hand is stuck in her zipper.

“Pull this shit off my zipper you motherfucking arsehole!”

I drop the book and put my other hand on her mouth. She abuses further in a muffled voice. I desperately attempt to pull my hand out of her zipper.

She manages to free her mouth from my hand.

“You womaniser…”
“Shut up Barkha…you will wake up everybody!!”
“Let them wake up and see what an arsehole you are…”
“What happened?”
“You are asking me what happened?...Don’t you know what happened?”

I have a fair idea of what has happened. But I continue to be ignorant. But I want to hear it from her. Just as a matter of conformation. I jerk my hand to get it off her zipper. It moves in millimeters.

“What?!” I ask.
“Will I have to tell you that too?”
“Yes!”
“Okay…” She attains pseudo calm. “…Tell me…did you enjoy?”
“Enjoy what?”
“Her you fucker!”
“What?...Who?!”
“Her!...Shamita!...was her cunt juicier than mine??” She spit words out.
“Shut up Barkha…what’s got into you?”
“Come on tell me…were her thighs warmer?...”
“Shut the fuck up Barkha!!...”
“Why?...cant handle the truth??”
“What truth??”
“What truth??!!...Sleeping with Shamita you son of a bitch”
“What?!!...who told you this shit?” I know who has. But again I give in to the factor of confession.

“Whoever told me…what you have to do…you had your dick happy na…”
“Whichever fucker told you…is lying…or doesn’t know the truth.”
“Then…what’s the truth?...you took her to a hotel room for taking notes from her…”
“Nope…I took her to meet her brother…”
“To the hill-station?”
“Yes!”
“Do you think I am a fool?”
“I didn’t…but now I think you are…you are outta your mind Barkha…” My hand slips out of her zipper in my final attempt.

“And you are outta yourself you bastard!”
“Alright…If you aren’t listening to what I have to say….you will know the truth at the right time…see you than Barkha!” I say calmly and leave.

She stays dumbfounded by the serenity in my line. I leave there quietly. She stands speechless, dumbstruck by my move.

I exit her compound and walk away with heavy steps. And a stab-punctured heart.

I know who is behind this. He has a due to pay now.

(Contd.)

3. e

2009-06-28T20:51:00.000-07:00

I get down from the rickshaw and I call her up. She doesn’t answer first three calls. She answers the fourth one.

“What?!” she stings.
“I am outside your house” I say.
“Why?”
“…the book”
“I said tomorrow”
“I said I was coming!”
“Anay…”
“Barkha…”

A brief pause passes between us. “Wait there…I am coming” she breaks the silence.
With all the lights off, her house seems sleeping. A restful darkness peeps through its windows. A see a quick switching on and switching off of her study lamp. Her room fills up for a second with its light. The way lightening fills the skies for an instant.

The door of her bungalow opens and she comes out watchfully, with the book held to her chest. She closes the door carefully, to avoid waking up her grandmother, the only inhabitant of the bungalow. The indirect benefactor of my sexual exploits with Barkha. She sleeps early and wakes up late. To add to her generosity, he doesn’t hear properly. Her Mom and Dad stay in Dubai. My statistics say she couldn’t get through any institute there. Her reason says that the quality of education is better in India. Be whatever, she lives here alone with her grandmother, studying in my college and prefers me to share her bed. This information is enough for me.

She comes walking feather light steps and stands before me.

I look into her eyes and smile. She returns it with a stern glare.

I move a step closer. She pushes me back with the book and holds it out for me. I take it touching her hands gently. She quickly draws them back.

I hold the book tighter. My first attempt wasted.

“What happened?” I ask “Why you so grumpy?”
“I am not…” she snaps back.
“But the nosy here doesn’t say so…” I touch the tip of her nose.
She slaps my hand off with an irritable “Don’t touch me…”

Second attempt failed. Her behaviour is getting on my nerves. This is an ordinary reaction seen in people who suddenly stop getting something that they are so used to getting without much effort.

“What happened Barkha” I ask her with a sprinkle of firmness, holding her by her shoulders.

“Nothing Anay…” she says shaking my hands off her shoulders. There is a sharp edge of sadness to her voice.

“Then why are you behaving this way??...” It erupts out finally.

The phone in her hand rings exactly at that moment. He answers the call instantly.
“Yeah Harshad…tell me.” She says a bit louder for me to understand.

She moves away from me talking on phone. I follow her. Her swift moves blow me over once more. I keep walking behind her. We enter the compound of her bungalow. We reach a dark corner in her premises. Her attempts to gain privacy give me a chance to follow her to the cosiest of places.

She stands with her back at me. I move closer. She moves farther.

This time I am determined.

I move closer to her again. The darkness in the corner intoxicates me. She stands still. I wrap my hands around her.

(Contd.)

3. d

2009-06-28T20:42:00.000-07:00

I move closer to Barkha. She moves farther.

I don’t understand what the fuck is happening.

I had been observing it since morning. Through the day she wore a sensuous black Ganji deep enough to give a glimpse of her miracle bosom. Her harem pyjama added to the voluptuous gorgeousness. I spent every moment of the day in the shade of her ebony seduction. Her every movement was a schooner of wine. My eyes were transfixed on every flinch of her stunning body. And an irresistible urge of attaining it burned through me. I approached her with my predatory instincts on every moment that I could. But she somehow, unlike herself , she lugged herself away from me each time. I was guessing if this was some new tactic she was devising. But my concerns grew stronger as the day ended and she avoided even a slight brushing of our skins. Forget sensuous touches. It was not so her.

Barkha, as her name meant, was a shower. A shower of chilled rain drops. The one which pricked you and soothed you at the same time. The shower of countless cold and wet needles. The shower which taught you of the pleasure that lay hidden in pain.
Like the abundance of a shower, Barkha was an abundance herself. An unending reservoir of lust. You could jump in. Take a plunge. Have a sip from it. Or, if u had enough guts, gulp the entire thing down. But this abundance showered only on the chosen ones. Like rain chooses to empty its clouds on the villages along the foothills of the mountains, and drizzles faintly on those over the other side.
Like everybody else, she too had her share of desires. Just that it was a bigger one. Big enough to keep her constantly occupied in an endeavour to quench it endless thirst.

I had noticed her pull towards male bodies through her overfriendly physical gestures and repeated attempts to establish a close affinity with male friends. My speculation was cemented by the news from Shamita’s room. A place for college girls to gather and gossip. A word spread out that she was loose. And I rode on the wave of that word. I impressed her, lured her and subdued her. I made a territory in the pool of her desires. A very large one. And I swam in it proudly, keeping petty contestants at bay. And what I got in return was hundred per cent accurate information about Shamit’s room briefings, Harshad’s heart and Dilip’s inner secrets. She was my Matahari. And my chocolate. My ebony obsession.

I call her up.

“I need a book…” I say.
“Which?” She says rather impassively. The draughtiness in her voice leaves a tearing scratch inside me.
“Any” I could have said. But I thought of being more specific in this delicate situation.
“Ramaswamy and Namakumari” I replied.
“Okay…” she said “take it tomorrow.”

She had begun attacking with a stream of ballistic missiles. I had to move forward facing them; attacking her and protecting myself from her jet stream of curt replies.

“I wanted it today….in fact…now!” I said appearing as normal as I could. That was my only defence and attack.

“Now?!” she exclaimed with gentle insolence and then fell silent for some moments. I had felt the heat radiating through her words. But I was unable to lead myself to the spark of it. “can’t you take it tomorrow?”

Damn! It’s the fuck up day. But one has to take chances.

“No!” I say. “Today…I am coming to your place…now!” I disconnect.

I rush down. Catch a rickshaw and reach her room. Using Piyush’s bike once has proved risky enough. I decide not to mess up my life further.

But I detest the idea of going to her house walking. It’s considerably far.

The rickshaw begins moving at the speed of light. Or at least I feel so.

(Contd.)

3.c

2009-06-26T23:17:00.000-07:00

“Uth Bhenchod!!!” I felt a kick in my waist.

I woke up with a shock. I couldn’t comprehend the surroundings around me for a moment. I felt I was still asleep at my home. The kick had brought me back to reality. The place where I was. I looked up. Piyush stood with a wicked smile on his face. I thanked him for waking me up.

“Wake up…what did you get from home fucker?”

“There is nothing in the bag near the study table.” I said rubbing my face with my palms. “Don’t even look at it!”

“Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha” Piyush laughed villainously. His melodramatic laughter rattled the windows. He took long steps to the bag. I jumped to protect it. He jumped over me. We fought over the bag. A judo match. A wrestle duel. He finally over powers me. He twists my hand and sits on my back. He laughs aloud again.
“Fuck you rapist” I shout in return.

He leaves me and sits resting his back on the bed. I turn around massaging my hand. Villager had a hard grip. Madarchod!

“When did you come fucker?” Piyush asked stretching his legs.
“Afternoon” I reply yawning.
“How are you?”
“Best…until you wringed my arm!”
“What’s in the bag?” He asks looking at it.
“Diamonds”
“Heerey!” He pulled the bag close, opened it and pulled out a packet of Chaklis that Mom had packed in it.
“Chakna!!!” He shouted!
“No Gandu…Maa ka pyaar!” I shout back.

He pushes it back in. The next thing in his pull out campaign is a plastic jar filled with Besan Laddoos.
“Maa ka pyaar!” He mumbles poignantly. A longing spills out of it.
“Meri Maa…tumhaari Maa…divide them!” I say.
“Pick one” says he taking one of the laddoos.
“Take as many…whenever you want!” I declare.
“As if I need your permission…” He bites into the laddoo in his hand “Lovely!” words somehow find their way out from his filled mouth followed by “Welcome back!”

Yeah…I say! Welcome back! I am back.

“How are things?” I ask biting into mine.
“What things?”
“Everybody here!”
“Everybody’s fine….nothing much happened…what will happen in two days man?” He replies taking another bite of the laddoo.
“Cool” I say.
“Did Shamita come back with you?” Piyush asked me devouring the last part of the laddoo.
“No…Why?” His question puzzles me.
“Even she came around the same time you did…I saw her going to her room with her bag…”
“Okay…no man…she didn’t come with me…”
“But Harshad’s guess was partially correct I must say….”

“Harshad?” The sentence baffles me. But lesser than the name that is a part of it. I couldn’t comprehend why Piyush mentioned Harshad’s name in his situation. There could be over thousand conclusions. Nine hundred and ninety nine of which could be comfortable excluded. Except one. And that is Harshad poisoning Piyush’s mind with the same thought. A misunderstanding. A strategy to counter my afflation with Shamita. A strategy coming out of a blindfolded jealous mind. And this conclusion was strong enough to be worried about.

“And what was his guess?” I ask concealing my distress.
“That if we see Shamita around….then we will see you around too…”

Son of a bitch had dropped a bead of poison in Piyush’s mind to seep.

“And what else did he say?” I inquire with emergency.
“Nothing…that’s it!”

I just shook my head in acknowledgement. I forcefully displayed my discontent of my face. I had to build up my wall of defence. I had to state wordlessly that I disapproved this thought line.

It worked on Piyush. He changed the topic.

“Can I steal one more?” He asked.
“Go ahead Sonny…it’s your pick!”

I wasn’t much worried about the loss of laddoos from my bag. What ate me was the fact that Harshad was spreading his venom voraciously over the little universe that encircled me. I was sure Shamita had had a very good time at the Hill Station with the bastard. But she had chosen a very bad time to return. There was a large space left behind for Harshad to take his guesses.

As Piyush finished his next Laddoo, I thought of all that would follow and how could I counter it.

I say to myself once again,

“Welcome back!!!...the game is not the same now!”

(Contd.)

3. b

2009-06-25T20:59:00.001-07:00

Morning had just descended into noon when I reached the weird city. I trespassed the toll zones which didn’t bother much about the motorbike riders. They let me pass.
I entered the arsehole of the world.

I had covered the distance of two hundred kilometres with a heavy heart. My head was a mixed bag of thoughts. Some from the world I had left behind and some of the world that I would be a part of soon. As I approached closer to my destination, the memories, words, thoughts from the past two days began shrinking like the evaporating drops of water on a glass pane. They left behind an outline with its centre shrivelling slowly. To disappear with a permanent blotch on it.

I crossed the Chowk, rode up the hill. I saw small shops along the border of the road. They all seem new to me. It always happens to me. A break from the usual, even a small one, makes the entities from the usual appear novel to me. It feels like coming back from a memory dilution. And these objects prove a mapping points for returning to normalcy. I try and recollect the sequence of the shops to test my memory. I pass by each of them, in the correct sequence proving the worthiness of my reminiscence.

I see familiar faces on the road. Some recognise me, some don’t. Those who do, smile or wave to me. I acknowledge their gesture with a similar response. They remind me of the day when I had reached home. During this passage, I recognize that I have set up a pseudo world here for myself. A world that is a pitiable attempt to replicate the world I lived in. An artificial world, like the one we see in old Hindi film sets. A world in thermacol and plasticine. A Plaster-Of-Paris imitation of the world I had left behind. And it’s not just me. It’s many more like me who have done this. We are a group of proxy existences. People who create their lost ambiences on compromising pieces and extracts of their precedent lives.

I park the bike in the veranda of our landlord’s bungalow. I climb up the wrought iron stairs to our floor. There isn’t anybody at the room. I thank god, since I consider this moment as extremely private and want it ti be crumbled by some hyperemotional idiot’s verbal outburst. I open the lock and enter inside. I look at the bed and I decide to change and lie down with eyes closed. I go to the overcrowded cloth hook and find out my shorts from the heap of clothes that hang upon each hook. My absence has pushed it to the innermost position in the sequence. I carefully unhook it from the notch and hurl it on the bed. I look at it.

I thank god again that I haven’t got a bag to unpack this time. Because when you unpack your bag after returning from home, you don’t pull out your stuff from your bag. You pull out the elements of your personal nostalgia from it. The clothes washed by Mom. The snacks she packed. The envelope of cash dad had pushed in. Some weird gift stuff from sis. A worn out note of fifty from grandmother. A pen left back by a friend. Things keep coming out and you keep going back to the days you spent at home. They tie you to these days till you get used to them. They don’t let you dissolve in today, keeping you afloat on it, attached to the borders of yesterday.

I wear my shorts and lie down on the bed before me. I close my eyes. The two days at home slowly unfold before my eyes. At one moment I realise how, at the same time yesterday, I was sleeping at home. I realise that I have come very far in very less time. I realise that I am so far away from my house that I can’t be there in a jiffy if I want. That I have transported myself in a completely different habitat within a span of hours. That I was far. Very far.

I feel water rolling down from the corners of my eyes. In straight lines towards my ears. I don’t feel like opening my eyes.

(Contd.)

Declaration

2009-06-23T23:28:00.000-07:00

Bhagwad Expressway is a work of fiction. The characters specified in it are PURELY FICTIONAL. They bear NO RESEMBLANCE to ANY PERSON living or dead. Any such resemblances should be considered purely CO-INCIDENTAL and UNINTENTIONAL.

Readers are requested NOT TO draw any conclusions from the work.

(This Declaration has taken shape owing to the growing discontent amongst audiences regarding their exploitation in the form of characters in the work. Such readers are requested to look at this work as pure fiction and enjoy it.)

World around needs to grow up urgently!!!!

- Writer

Chapter #

2009-06-22T21:10:00.000-07:00

3.a

I woke up with a gloom. The parting day.

I hated the days when I had to go back. More than I hated being at home. But there was a certain comfort to it. Being in your own space. Sleeping on your own bed. Stare at your own ceiling. Bathe in your own bathroom. And stand before the mirror which has seen you change over the years.

It’s not about attachment with the people. It’s more about the attachment with inanimate things that holds me back. I am so accustomed to their presence, that it makes me feel at home rather than humans living there. And the thought of detachment from these elements weighs down on my heart. It fills my heart with molten iron and on cooling it laves the heart heavier.

I feel reluctant to leave. I feel lazy to even move a finger. I forcibly take myself out of the bed. I feel like smoking. But I can’t. I am at home. I realise that I haven’t smoked much in last two days. I didn’t feel the need to. I can’t live without them there.

I heavily walk to the mirror and look at myself. I turn away and brush my teeth. The though of going back grows like a festering tumour within me. It chokes my throat. I brush my teeth. I fill my moth with a minty lather to counter the clog up in my throat. Brushing suppresses it successfully. But doesn’t overcome it. I finish other chores with the same lump stuck in my throat. I dress up and get ready for the journey back to the weird city. A prison with the walls of freedom.

Everybody in the house suddenly realise the onset of my absence. The change in their behaviour is evident. A dull outline of acceptance marks their faces. Acceptance to the fact that I was supposed to be here just for two days. That I was no longer a part of the household now, but just a visitor. A visitor in my own abode. A place which I would visit rather than return to. The brief returns which I spent here were like stays in some mediocre hotel. Run by people who you were directly related to. Whom you had seen all the years of your life. They served you. They pampered you and saw that your no demand remained unattended, unlike the times when you were a part of it. Because a visitor always remains an outsider. And that was what the distancing from home had made me. An outsider to the place where I belonged to.

I had my breakfast. Everybody behaved cheerful, concealing their twinge. Me too.
I wore my shoes and everybody grew restless. I promised them I will come back in a month. I assured them that the two cities weren’t far from each other. And I console them saying I was just around. Dad held up my words. He repeated the proclamation that he had made when he had agreed over sending me to the other city. “Come on…it’s just two hours by the Expressway”

Mom handed me over with bagsful of eatables. Dad handed me over my source of survival. Cash!

He came down to leave me to the bike. I greeted him farewell.

I sat on the bike and left waving to everybody.

The lump in my throat had by now occupied my entire chest. I left back my building. Then my lane. Then the turn which had brought me home. I kept leaving behind everything that had drawn me home.

The tyres of the bike touched the highway. I was on my way to the weird city. And the arsehole of the world.

(Contd.)

2. s

2009-06-21T12:29:00.000-07:00

I get pulled towards them. Like they have lassoed me. I feel like a zombie walking on his master’s command. Except that I have no master. Or I don’t know who my master is. I only know these voices. These vague voices.

In slow steps I move towards them. The voices open their large moth. They suck me inside. A high power vacuum. My feet detach from the ground. I begin floating. I am dragged towards those voices. I give in to their pull. I go flowing towards them. Like a gush of wind takes a dry leaf along with it. I sway upon them then and land before their source.

A voice blares something over the hand held speaker into my ear. Two voices sing rhythmically to compete with the voice on the speaker.
I come back to the senses dazed. I can just see these men on speakers tearing their throat out and voices ringing in my ear. I keep looking at them. And something catches my dilating pupils.

Bhagwad Geeta.

This time it was ‘Geeta Gyaan Prasaarak Sangh’. Another sect claiming to be the true patrons of Bhagwad Geeta. Another fundamentalist organisation exploiting the mysteries in Bhagwad Geeta.

The man said “Geeta Geeta….Bhagwad Geeta!...Real Geeta…No editions.. Geeta Geeta…Bhagwad Geeta!”.

Two men behind him sing aloud “Bolo Krishna Krishna Krishna Krishna Krishna Krishna Krishna…..Bolo Radhe Krishna Radhe Krishna Krishna Krishna Krishna”.

All backed by a neatly chiselled idol of Krishna.

And a Krishna on the cover of the Bhagwad Geeta. The eternal Sudarshan Chakra on a tallest human index finger on one hand and a clean palm with rays radiating out from it on the other. As I looked up, I realised that it was the same as that on the book. A neatly chiselled Krishna.

I don’t understand why couldn’t I realise it before. Hadn’t I observed it before. Or was it that there was some different idol here which was not there on the book. That they had changed it instantly. Or was it that I had seen something else.

The wheel-chaired beggar blew air into his wooden pipe with seven holes. And sounds of a flute filled touched the station’s roof and spilled all over the place.

Something came fluttering at my feet. I looked down. A peacock feather had rested on my toe. I picked it up.

A man covered in blue distemper from station renovations, walked past me. His body brushed mine. I saw my hand. It was coloured in blue.

“Oye!...What are you doing here?” Sudesh wakes me up. “I thought you would stand there….I am so sorry for the delay yaar”

I just shake my head blankly.

“And what happened?...why are you standing here?...you buying a Bhagwad Geeta?...I can’tr believe this!!”
“No yaar….was just seeing”
“then it’s fine…don’t buy it!....it’s all a religious propaganda!!”

We walk towards the bridge. I turn back keep looking at the stall those guys had put up. That is the same moment the fluted beggar, The feather fan seller and the blue distemper came and stood together. Looking at me. I looked back. In pure astonishment.

The three of them stared at me into my eye. I gulped them down through my eyes.

(Contd.)

2. r

2009-06-20T22:01:00.000-07:00

“Let’s go in” I say.

In an hour Sudesh and I were standing outside Mac’s. I had almost ran to Sudesh when I had seen him coming. Overwhelmed by the outrageous happiness of meeting him, I had dodged an Autorickshaw and went over to hug him in the middle of the road. Our high-pitched abuses to each other, had sent a wave of shock through the silent god-fearing people in the premises of the Railway Station.

There was no other peaceful way in which I could meet Sudesh. Over the numerous years of friendship, starting from school, we had developed a bond which went beyond the defining constraints of the word ‘Yaar’. Before I left the weird city, we were a part of each other’s every joy and plight. Circumstances had distanced us, but the chord between us had stretched like a rubber band over the fate marked expanse, recoiling itself and bringing us together as and when times arrived. A stage you attain visibly after a decade of friendship. A stage where you need no assuring factors for the connection that you share. No phone calls, no messages, no any other media of communication, till it becomes extremely necessary. A line of attachment that goes beyond all this to constantly reassure you at the back of your mind that your friend is there for you. A friend whose girlfriend who cannot eye upon.

After a round of public display of our emotional outburst, we moved to the safety of the footpath outside Mac’s. I suggested Sudesh that we go in.

“It’s crap yaar…” Sudesh replied.

“Mac’s?” I asked.

“Yup…It’s an economic drain” He stated.

“How?..” I ask. This time I am bewildered.

“Where does all the profit goes to?” He asks.

“Let’s go somewhere else” I reiterated his line. He had a point.

“Let’s go to the Irani across the railway tracks.” He suggests.

“Yeah…” I agree instantly.

I could always prefer an Irani over Mac’s. The rules were almost the same. Both had self service. You could sit at both the places as long as you could, till you had something before you. An both places provided a good environment for conversations. There were other things that differed too. Primarily the menu. Beginning from Chai to Chicken Biryani, it served everything that you could think of eating at different points of time. And what differed secondarily was the service. There were no over smart employees on the other side of the counter. Their smiles were real. Their affection was real. And their will to serve was the absolutely genuine. They served because it was their passion to serve. Because loved doing it. And they had spent years mastering the art of service. They knew that customer was the not just the king. He was the friend, a brother, a son and means of his daily bread. So they treated the customers like fellow humans. They knew the value that sprinkle of humanity in this large city of business. And that was what preserved them over the time in this Metropolitan. And that was what made them the preferred ones. It always scored a point over the fake plastic trained smiles at Mac’s. Where customers were treated like targets of business. The end points of the purchase process. And the multiplicands of profit.

We are about to cross the road when Sudesh’s phone rings. He pulls it out of his pocket. Looks at the caller’s name. Gets awkward for a second and pushes it back into his pocket. It’s his girlfriend. He loks at me and gives a sly smile.

“I am in the loo” He says.

“And I ain’t there?” I ask.

“No…you are not a problem.” He smiles.

We laugh.

His phone rings again. He doesn’t pull it out this time.

“Attend it fucker” I suggest humbly.

“Why the fuck?...can’t she give me a moment with you?”

“Did you tell her that you’ll be meeting me?”

“Yeah”

“Then maybe she’s guessing that I’d turn you sodomous”

“My arse!!!”

“Yeah!...that’s what she cares for!”

His phone rings the third time now.

“Bloody shit man!...”

“Attend it jackass”

“Later man”

“You!...gonna be screwed!” I said making a gesture with a fist banging sideways in the air.

His phone rings once more.

“Attend it!” I decree.

“Yeah man…one more….and it turns messy”

“Go suck!”

“Yeah sure!”

There is a certain hypnosis about a girlfriend’s call. It mesmerises you and takes you away from the position you are standing in. You cross roads. Surpass traffic. Overcome hurdles. Cross rives. Jump over valleys. Climb up a cliff. Walk overs peaks. Swim through oceans. Transport over continents. And defeat celestial distances when you are talking over mobile phone with your girlfriend.

Sudesh slowly disappeared from my view and he drifted away talking with the new commander of his life. I stood where I was. Crossing the road. I resorted to the railway station shade to await his return from the distancing trance.

A cold wind blows out of nowhere in the scorching heat of the city. It soothes me. I keep looking in its direction. It slowly captivates me. It touches every pore on my body and seeps through it. I feel a coldness spreading across my skin. It burns lightly on my crust. It enters the layers below. It enters my blood. It enters my head. It makes its way to the mind and freezes my thoughts. I go blank. Everything before me fades gently. And I hear those alien voices again.

(Contd.)

2. q

2009-06-19T20:53:00.000-07:00

The days when you are at home are peculiar. You take at least ten hours to settle down in the old environment. Like you have a jet lag after you travel by jets. Expressway has an emotional jetlag on me. I had to be back the person I had been. Remoulding myself to the limitations I had broken successfully in the new space. The margins in which I was constricted for years. There was a comfort in this displease. A temporary gratification till it began suffocating me again.
The things which I had painstakingly missed out in my sovereign life were forcefully stuffed back into me. And Mom played a pivotal role in it. Her primary target was my digestive system. She filled it with what it had grown unfamiliar of. Home-made food! That too thrice a day. Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner. At times also an evening snack. The system had to work over time, churning and burning the newly filled contents. Pushing it forwards through the ups and downs and requesting help from loose fibres in the matter it carries.

Then comes the information processing part of the brain. There is a term I know called flooding. That is exactly what Mom does. She keeps feeding information into me and I keep receiving it and processing it. Who married whom. Who did what. Which aunty met Mom in whose wedding. Which shopkeeper gave Mom a discount on a Refrigerator cover. Which new shop opened in the locality. What new tantrums does the maid throw. When did Dad come home mildly drunk. How someone in the society fought with their neighbours when their cars brushed with each other. How the woman in the next building burnt her chicken. How uncle’s sister-in-law’s mother-in-law’s sister got repayed for the dinner after they found hair in the food at an Udupi restaurant. How my cousin brother’s wife’s sister’s son’s wife’s sister found a teeth fallen on the road which she later realised was her own and how the woman in the third house on the fourth floor on the fifth building around the second corner of the sixth road had choked herself after eating a Gulab Jamun made by herself. Finally there comes a moment when you are not in position to accept any more data. It starts sending out error messages to you. And you tend to loose your concentration. Your eyes shift their focus from her and search for something more intriguing, like a pigeon feather floating in air, to settle on. And that’s when Mom says that living alone has made you loose interest in the family. The moment when your system burns out completely. A Hard Disk crash!

After several such sessions over the three meals I had successfully settled down with Mom’s help. I recollected the homely rituals which I had lost during my stay at the weird city. I slowly seeped into my household. Became a part of the large gear system that the house was. I appended my groves to the new groove structure of the house. The groove structure, which had begun to work without me. Yet, which had a place for me as an imperative attachment.

Out of the essential rituals of returning for me, I performed the fundamental one, as soon as I settled down. Catching up with old friends. Being away from home, living in a new backdrop for days had sidelined these names which were a vital element of my living once. A prediction of this state, even by an expert astrologer, would have been declined by me instantly then. Believing in the fact that I would live without my buddies was impossible. But now I was living this impossibility. I had doubts about my survival when I had set forth on a journey to the weird city. But I shortly learned that life had multiple ways of moving on. To the extent of forgetting your, then called ‘nappy friend’s birthday. That was how life was. Emotions were only possessed by people living it. Otherwise life is as impassive as it can be.

“Sudesh??” I said in the mouthpiece.
“Bol Randi…kaisi hai tu chinaal…aaj bahut din baad yaad aayi…customer khatam ho gaye kya?...” I hear on the earpiece.
“Haan saab…bahut din se aapki awaaj nahi suni thin a isliye phone kiya” I answer.
“Where the fuck are you?”
“In the city”
“When did you come fucker?”
“Around eleven hours ago”
“And you are calling me up now?”
“Yeah…eight hours I slept. An hour I took to settle down and two hours I have been shitting, brushing and bathing…now its your turn…where are you?”
“I am at the Railway station after an hour…usual meeting place…outside Mac’s”
“Okay…I am there!”

We disconnected the call. There is nothing much we need to talk. Because it all would be said when we are sitting or standing face to face with each other.

I felt a spout of energy through me. I found smiles filling me up. I felt a tremor of cheer. I laughed out loudly after I disconnected the call. Wherever you be. In whichever step of growth. Whomsoever be the people around you. Whatever be the fucking case with you.

Meeting an old friend always will always do this to you.

(Contd.)

Request for Forgiveness

2009-06-19T20:49:00.000-07:00

A bout of momentary depression kept you guys away from the new chapter. Maafi please!

2. p

2009-06-17T13:41:00.000-07:00

I enter my lane. The boys standing near the turn wave to me. I nod in acceptance. I move further. The grocer smiles to me. I smile in return. I reach the gate. The watchman salutes me. I salute back to him. He opens the game with a loud screech. For a motorcycle. Like the elite guards opened the gate for the royal entry.

From the moment I had entered the lane, I had felt like a king returning back from a crusade. If I had a sword, I could’ve waved it at them. I had an empty hand instead.

I parked Piyush’s bike next to ours. Like a triumphant warrior I walked across the parking lot, towards the entrance of my building. I entered the corridor. Then the lift.

I was home. Finally home. The resort. The cove. A place which I would enter to regain myself. The me which I had always been. Till I had left for the weird city.

The lift door opened. I stepped out. I rung the doorbell.

The door opened with an exclamation.

“You?!....how come so suddenly!!!” Mom opened the door.
“I just felt like…” I said.
“Felt like??...you should’ve informed us at least….” She continued.
“Yeah…how come you came back so abruptly….no phone….no message….nothing…just like that” Dad joined in.

“What have you got for me?” sister shouted from the bedroom.
“How did you come?...” Granny shrieked looking at the helmet in my hand. “By a motorcycle??” she grew hysteric. “How could you travel the distance over a motorcycle?....Oh my god!!...this boy is crazy!!”

This revelation from her sent everybody in an excited state. Dad had an objection on me riding so far on a motorbike. Mom couldn’t comprehend how I got a motorbike. Sister was overwhelmed by my feat. Everybody has a reason to overreact over my arrival. There were questions bombarding over me from all directions. And I stood at the centre of them replying to each of them. Like Abhimanyu standing at the centre of the Chakravyuha.

There was a cacophony. There was surprise, anger, resentment and opposition all thrown across in my direction. Voices filled my house.

The cacophony descended into their interpersonal rivalries and it pitches rose to include their yelling upon each other. Finally they dispersed in different directions, mumbling offences and abuses.

I went to the small can stool and sat on it. I untied my shoes. I try calling up Piyush from my mobile. I realise it’s low on balance. I call him up from my residential landline number. I tell him that I reached safely. He congratulates me on it. I assure him his bike is safe. He threatens to kill me if I speak such shit. After a brief conversation, I disconnect the phone.

I undress myself, and wrapping a towel around me, I walk to the bathroom for a shower.

Their voices still ring in my ears. Staying away from the family makes their voices alien to you. I tried to wash my ears to get them cleaned off there. But they stay stuck to the walls of the cavity. Resonating in its emptiness.

I stand below the shower motionless.

The home which I had yearned for endlessly during the times of extreme loneliness, is here.

I welcome myself to the warm place I dreamt of.

I welcome myself back home.

(Contd.)

2.o

2009-06-16T13:34:00.000-07:00

Wind filled my clothes. Wind coming from my city. It actually wasn’t coming from my city. But it was a pleasant thought. To own those stray winds.

As I approached my Island city, I felt its heat catching on me. In literal sense. The comforting coolness of the hills gave up to the scorching heat of the depleting Ozone and sweat oozed out secretly beneath my clothes. I took a halt and took off my jacket and knotted it around my waist. It was shameful to do this somehow. It reminded me of the advertisement for a Sanitary Napkins where a teenage girl used to testify how her jacket had helped her escape the embarrassment of a stained skirt. I could have avoided if I wanted. But the heat could have boiled me to a softly cooked potato. I lingered for a moment at the halt. As if bidding a farewell to the hills. I knew I had to return to them. Yet this momentary separation was consoling enough. I sat back on the motorcycle and sped towards the boundary of separation of these two zones.

“Piyush….” I had started dubiously, after moving some ten kilometers away from the hill station towards the city. “Arey…I wanted to ask for something” I continued.
“What?”
“I…can I have your bike for two more days?” I asked stumbling on my words. “I feel like going home….please”
“Of course yaar!...its yours…fuck man…don’t beg you bastard!”

I could have expected this reply if I hadn’t seen Rahul following me. Harshad was slowly tutoring me on loosing my belief in people. I had said ‘please’ for safety. But I am sure Piyush had made his decision before that word.

But I am also sure the line “I feel like going home” had a much larger influence on him. His home was miles away from the weird city. Too far to ride back home. Too far to even think of it. There were moments when even he longed to go back home. Slip into his bed. Cover himself in his bedsheet. Under his fan. And wake up to his mother’s call. Shit in the loo he had been familiar with. Have a breakfast cooked by his mother on his fixed seat on the dining table. Or on the ground before the TV. To fight with his siblings. To meet friends he had left behind. To smoke with those who had taught him smoking, sitting below the Banyan tree. To ride his father’s motorbike through the known lane of his town and whistle at the college going girls clad in Salwar Kameez from neck to toe.

The word 'home' in my sentence must’ve rendered his heart. Dampness gathering in his eyes. Memories of left behind times playing on a reel before his eyes.

His approval was just an affirmation. The momentum which had driven me for ten kilometers would have brought me to my city back. If he hadn’t agreed I would’ve rode back to the weird city again. I had to rest in my city’s arms. To evade this bubble of seclusion that surrounded me.
I had thanked Piyush and resumed my journey.

“1000 MTS
Expressway Ends.”

The board said. 1000 MTS more to enter my city. To cross a creek and enter the island. The island of madness. The Island of life. The island of my home. Once my favourite writer had written in his profile ‘The writer lives on a private Island off the western coast of India’. I always took it as a joke, till I realized it meant a private Island. An Island all to oneself. A feeling of ownership of it. The feeling that you and only you were the Lord of all its corners. And nobody dared challenged your supremacy. The city did give that feeling to you. And I realized this more strongly when the weird city tried establishing its sovereignty over me. I retaliated as anyone from my city did. But the constant feeling of being watched and scrutinized mad me feel pressed under its rule. Though not prominently for being an outsider. But at times for being the son of the same lingual soil. The Island city didn’t do that. No matter where you were from, it accepted you and let you grow in it. It moulded you, chiseled you and made you a winner. A winner of its fate and yours along with it. You didn’t just exist there, you owned it. You ruled it and could exploit it whenever and however you wanted. It was your private island.

And so it was mine. I just shared it with three crore more people. And my favourite author of course. Our private Island.

The excitement to reach home had driven me almost two hundred kilometers like a wind. It had taken me away momentarily from the incidences in last days. I was one with the bike. It is amazing to know how a machine and a human blend with each other at such times. Another example could be shooting I think. A man and a gun blending into each other.

I had rode continually through the distance, with only two tiny halts. But I wasn’t exhausted. I was going home.

I cross the toll post. I enter my domain. A half an hour ride more and I would be reclining lazily on the sofa.

As I waited for each signal to turn green, I looked at the houses along the highway. Houses full of light. Houses full of action. Houses full of people. Homes.

I get crave to reach home more at the sight of each of these homes. They remind me of my home. The lights. The people and the action.

I cross the last signal. The traffic is well behaved than what I have been seeing in the weird city during the days I spend there. I neatly steer my vehicle with the lot. I take the turn.
The last turn. The last turn before home…

(Contd.)

2. n

2009-06-15T12:20:00.000-07:00

Drivers go crazy when they reach the hill station. They drive haywire when they are on its roads. Especially the highway which passes through its center. They drive as berserk as they can. The speed of the expressway catches up with them and drives them through its roads. Like winds high on horsepower. And when you enter its streets, you have to drive your vehicle finding your way amongst their dynamic existences. Dodging them. Preventing yourself and your motorbike from being tossed over by them. Being thrown off the track and being crushed under a truck’s gigantic tyre. Or being gently diverted towards a milestone and flipped over to bang your head on a rock. You have to exploit every gap and every small lane between these chariots to retire from this pursuit and come to halt at your destination.

We halted before the famous Chikkiwala post a strenuous struggle for safeguarding our souls against furious vehicles. The bastard stood there with a mobile to his ear. Talking to his wife probably. Telling her that he is safe. That he would have his lunch now. And that he was missing her and that he loved her. And telling her that he wished she had been here with here. How the climate was utmost romantic. How one could talk to the clouds. And how he would have loved walking holding her hands along the misty by lanes the hill station.

“Aman!!!!!” Shamita called out loudly over my shoulder, leaving a lull in my ears.
He cut the call hurriedly and turned to Shamita. Tall, hefty, fair, soft hair and a smile which girls particularly like and boys particularly hate. he was all that I wasn't. Shamita ran wards him and hugged him tight. He awkwardly took Shamita in his arms.

Bastard at the same time looked at me and smiled in acquaintance.

“Shamita!...leave him!...he is a bastard” I felt like shouting out loud before the entire crossroad. But I merely smiled back to him.

I didn’t feel like standing for another moment. I felt a gloomy cloud descend upon me seeing Shamita meet him so. I felt the two Medu-Vadas turn up inside me. They assimilated into two huge floats on the acid in my stomach and seemed to choke the opening of the pipe dropping things into it. The choke was ascended up to my throat. It jammed up every blood vessel in me. Pieces of coconut rose to my brain and began pricking it and the spices in the Sambar spread through my blood vessels across all its corners.

I kick-started the motorcycle, turned it around. Shamita turned back from Bastard’s arms. She saw me leaving abruptly. She cried out my name. It reached my ears but not my forcefully contained impulses. She kept calling my name. I left at the speed of madness away from the famous Chikkiwala. Away from the crossroad. Away from this hill station. Away from them.
The sudden loneliness gripped me as nobody sat behind. There was no warm touch of hand on the shoulder. There was no clutching of fingers on my waist at every emergency brake. No voice to ring ceaselessly in my ear. No romantic tales. No stupidity. No excitement. And no craziness. I rode in the sanity of the bike and myself.

I stole a look besides. Parallel to us stretched the Expressway. Looking down upon the irrelevance of the old highway in today’s times. And the old highway ran like an obedient old clerk, accepting its inferior status to the huge expressway.

A cocoon of solitude built up around me. And it was suffocating me. It was covering my nose, holding me back from breathing. Its arm choked my throat. Its shield blurred my vision. I rode fast to get rid of the cocoon. But it ran as fast as me. It chased me at a faster speed than mine. I kept thinking of getting rid of it. But it didn’t let me go.

Finally, I halted near a milestone under a Neem tree. I ungeared myself. Kept the helmet aside. Pulled out the gloves from my hands and stood beside the bike. Then I collapsed into my own palms. My face took a dip in the dry pool of comfort. The touch of my palms on my face helped me gain myself back. Like putting on the mask once again. I stood like that for some time. In the sun. Below a Neem tree, besides a motorcycle.

I didn’t know why I was feeling so heavy within me. What was it? Had I developed feelings for Shamita? Or was it just a momentary longing? Was it because I was so used to her that seeing her go into someone else’s arms so easily was unacceptable for me. Or was it because that Bastard was a bastard and I didn’t approve of her falling for him at all, but could not voice out my displease. Or was it simply because my male ego was hurt on loss of Shamita to him. I knew I had reasons. But I also was knowing that they weren’t curing me at the moment. Neither were they untangling themselves from their jumble.

The blaring of a truck horn, shook me out my reverie. I resumed with my journey. I looked at the expressway again for an instant. And I had a remedial option for my emotional turmoil. It blazed besides me on a huge road with separate lanes for each car, four on each side. There it stood, like a huge flooded river of cement and cars flowing on it.

“Home” was the word that shone before my eyes. It replaced the darkness in my closed eyes. I stopped the motorbike.

I remembered the line which Forrest Gump’s friend Bubba says before he dies. I remember the line I used to cling on to with my mother’s saree. I remember the line I used to say when darkness filled the skies as I played with other kids. The line which I must’ve uttered a billion times out for million reason. The line which was the ultimate emotional reality. More for us who lived alone. Like stringless kites floating towards descent in the lone skies. And I heard my self say it at that moment.

“I wanna go home!!”

I turn my bike and start my journey in the opposite direction. In the direction of my home.

I feel better.

(Contd.)

APOLOGIES!

2009-06-15T03:11:00.001-07:00

The writer was travelling over the Expressway for two days. Work, Memories, Friends, Colleagues, Roaring machines, Melancholy, Nostalgia and Longings. A Wierd weekend in the Weird City!

It's a place that would leave you restless too.

2.m

2009-06-12T14:30:00.000-07:00

“Do you know that famous chikkiwala?” Shamita asked inquisitively.
“Yeah re” I replied taking a painful bite of my Medu-Vada.
“You are sure na?” one more query.
“Yes ma’m!”
“And you know the Resort near it na?”
“Yes!”
“And you know its main gate na?”
“Yes of course….and if we don’t find it…we will ask someone” I said firmly.
“Ask??...why do we need to ask when you know it??...are you sure you know it??”

“No” I felt like saying aloud enough to shatter the glasses of the place, crack the walls and break the furniture into pieces. But I control myself. I don’t want to make her go berserk in this hyperemotional state. A liitle high pitch and I know she would break into tears. This is one of the time when she is happy, sad, anxious, guilty and excited at the same time. Humans are supposed to behave panicky at such times and then break into a pang of extreme happiness or extreme sadness. I couldn’t handle any of her state in that matter.

I politely said “Yes dear…don’t worry…put some more ice in the juice!”

“Shut up!” she said playfully and dissolved it into laughter. I thank god for it.

“I can’t believe that I am going to meet him again…..when he said that he will coming to the hill station…I went crazy…” She began speaking. I nodded after her each line. To take myself away from her blabber, I look outside the window at the bike stand. The bike is safe. But my ears aren’t. She keeps talking. I keep nodding looking outside the window. I see some shady moments near the bike. I look more intently. I see someone familiar looking at Piyush’s bike’s number. He turns and sees another person on the bike. He too looks at Piyush’s bike. They look at the hotel board and then they look at each other. It’s the moment I recognize them. It’s Rahul and Gaurav. Harshad’s roommates. The one whom I call Aditya Panscholi and the other who is always flabbergasted when I visit their room with beer. I am surprised to see them here at the moment. For a moment I have an instinct to wave out to them. I am about to raise my hand and something stops me. I see them looking at Piyush’s bike particularly out of the entire lot. And they don’t seem to be surprised by it. They look as if they are probing into something. Like cops investigate a murder. Staring at some evidence. Taking close looks at it. Discussing something amongst themselves. Something strikes me hard.

“Behenchoad!” I say to myself in revelation. Bastards are following me! Bloody shit! Damn the arseholes. They are following me.

“Shitholes” I blurt in a hearable tone.
“What happened?” Shamita asks me.
I take a long pause as if to say something and I say “Nothing!”

I look out of the window again. They settle down on their bike near the exit of the restaurant. Below the tree where the exit meets the Highway.

“What are you thinking then?” She asks.
“I am thinking of having one more tea…” I want to spend some more time here. I don’t want to leave as long as they are there. That will give them a clear opportunity to follow me. I stretch out in my seat.

“Are you in a hurry?” I ask Shamita.
“Not as long as I am not late” She says.
“We’ve left early…you won’t be late.” I reply confidently.
“Then have another tea…”

I ask the waiter to get me another tea. My eyes are still on them. They are smoking a cigarette. They stare at the hotel board time and again and discuss something amongst themselves.
My tea arrives. Shamita keeps talking. I keep humming and nodding. She actually doesn’t need me as an audience. She is talking to herself. Telling herself how things are, were and will be. I don’t really care about them. And she doesn’t really care if I am listening or not.

Another tea arrives. I sip it idly. Trying hard to stretch the passage of time. And they don’t seem to budge.

I am done with my tea. Having another one would look stupid. It’s funny that humans even in their moments of distress care about how they present themselves. Or maybe it is an attempt to show that everything is normal.

I think of a way to extend the stay in the place. As I fondle with this thought, the waiter comes with the check. Sometimes people read your mind. And Ticket Checkers and Waiters top the list. They rightly know what you are thinking and they know when to assault. We should consider their consultation while planning our distant strategies. But the problem is that they would have to serve them before. However, that does not take away the honor of sending them as spies into our enemy territories.

I pay the bill. Leaving the place becomes inevitable. I keep thinking of ways to keep us within these walls. I find a strong one.

“Do you need to go to the loo?...go now if you want to…we won’t be stopping anywhere on the road now ” I tell Shamita. There was the idea.

“Yeah re….I will go and come back quickly!” she assures me. I don’t need it.
“Take your time” I say.

She rushes into the loo. I take a position behind the gate to keep an eye on them. They keep sitting there. Shamita doesn’t come back from the loo.

They smoke two cigarettes each. One after another. Then they share a cigarette amongst them. Maybe the last one they had. They finish it. They throw away the box and prepare to leave. They both look at the board of the hotel, say something and nod. Gaurav starts the motorcycle and they leave. I keep looking in their direction to assure that they won’t return. They don’t.
I feel relieved. I have a strong urge to go to the loo. I wait for Shamita to come out. She doesn’t. It becomes difficult for me to control the outburst of my bladders. I drop her a message on her phone and leave for the loo.

As I pee, a thought encircles in my mind. What if Shamita stands there alone and they return with a new pack of cigarettes. What if they see her. I pressurize my entire urinary system to finish the task faster and rush back to the point where we separated. Shamita isn’t there still. I wait for some time. I have a crazy thought of her being abducted by them. I call her up. She doesn’t pick up. Instead her stupid caller tune keeps going on in a loop. I keep trying. She picks up the 287657896th call. And all she says before cutting it again is “Coming baba coming!...one sec!”

And she comes.

I am taken aback. Shamita is different now. Her top and denims have transformed into a yellow Punjabi suit. Her earrings have changed to yellow hanging stones. Yellow bangles congregate in neat lines on the wrist and a yellow ring on her finger. I wonder how her bag didn’t transform into yellow. He walks up to me.

“What’s this?...yellow metamorphosis?” I ask.

“He likes to see me in yellow!”

My face broadens into a smile. I make it appear like an appreciation. I am actually finding it ludicrous. I smile in appreciation of the effort.

“Sorry….I took a bit of time…but you know…I want to surprise him!!!”

Yes! Yellow will surprise him. In fact it will surprise anybody.

And I do forgive you for the time taken. You saved us from spies. But they won’t be able to forgive you. Because they finished an entire box of cigarettes because of you. And they were prone to have nicotine lungs because of you.

We walk back to our bike. I start it. As I turn it towards the road, the board of the hotel catches my eye. I connect with the minds of the spies. The last line was an epitome of doubtraisers.

The board says:

Hotel Rajat Kaksha

Lodging & Boarding

ROOMS AVAILABLE

2.l

2009-06-11T21:22:00.000-07:00

We took a halt at the passably decent hotel on our way to the hill station. The moment Shamita got down from the motorbike, she rushed to the ‘Ladies Toilet’ as they are known popularly on the Indian roads.

I settled down at a place with the view to the road and the ‘two -wheeler’ parking lot. I am very dubious about leaving somebody else’s bike at a parking lot 100 meters away from the place I would be sitting at. There is a constant fear which grows in my mind like a tumor that the bike would be stolen and I would have to pay for it. The fear keeps me uncomfortable and anxious through the time I spend away from the motorcycle. I keep my eyes glued on it. Every human movement near the bike sent my fears rising.

Shamita came and sat before me. As attractive as ever. I regretted not realizing this charm in the years when winning over it was possible. And easier too. It happens a number of time. A simple unattractive girl from your school or college, meets you again in your later life, appearing as attractive as ever. The moment when you instantaneously fall for them, realizing what enormous blunder you had committed as you had neglected them over other fair skinned beauties. You want to go to them and apologise your behaviour. You want to say that you were sorry that you had neglected them in those times. You want to bend down on your knees. You want to lie that you had noticed their beautiful eyes then. You want to bluff that you always like them within the restrictions of your heart but couldn’t express your feelings. You want to tell them that you love them. You want to make them yours in any condition. You want to give your right arm for it. But by then its too late. Too late realize they had wiped you off their memory long ago and begun completely new lives, with new people and new voices around them. They actually defeat you.

She untied her jet black silk and let it loose. I wondered how an hour of bike ride hadn’t soiled the freshness on her face yet. She kept her bag on the table and took out a lip gloss from it and rubbed it on her lips. That was the moment she served me my answer on a platter of convenience. I realized that she had rushed to the loo the moment we entered the restaurant. And she must’ve had had loads of stuff to do, except the purpose for what she rushed there. Maybe, what I considered to be the reason for the rush, would not have been the reason for rush at all. There was so much for a girl to do in the loo. Face wash. Face wipe. Quick cleansing. Kohl, Combing, Sun guard, This guard, That Guard, Fairness cream, anti ageing cream, Orange peel off, mango peel offs, Papaya nourishment, Watermelon hydration and numerous other things which make them appear, as attractive as ever, before they present themselves to the people outside the loo. Right from the stray ant outside the loo, to the manager of the restaurant. Everybody in that space of contact. And yes, the accompanying person too. To keep them wondering.

The waiter comes to our table. I ask her what she would like to have. She says Orange juice. I laugh on her face. I find it ridiculous when people come to such low profile restaurants and ask for juices. The waiter turns to me. I say “One Medu-Vada Sambar and Tea to follow”. Waiter leaves. Shamita sits looking at me annoyed.

“What happened?” I ask her.
“Why did you laugh???”
“Orange juice!” I start laughing again.
“What’s so funny in it?”
“What’s not?...of all the things you only ask for Orange juice!!”
“That’s the only thing I can trust here.”
“Trust??...as in??...sedatives??”
“Nope yaar…hygiene!”
“oops!” I withdraw my argument. I still have a question to ask her “but still…eat something na…aren’t you hungry?”

“The only thing I am hungry of….is meeting him” she says. Films have a deep impact on our society. Someone said, ‘Cinema is the mirror of the society’. I feel he should have quoted it the other way round. ‘Society is the mirror of the cinema.’ Or maybe Cinema is different from Hindi films.

The waiter returns with Medu-Vada Sambar. I take the first bite. My lip hurts. Bad enough for me to stop chewing.

“Bitch!...” I say to myself silently.

Shriya had bit me on the lip while kissing me last nite. I thought it would pass off as an ordinary lesion. But it had begun giving problem since morning. It pained on drinking water. It pained on brushing my teeth. It pained on having tea and it pained on smoking. I wasn’t able to recognize if it was love or retribution.

We sat there lip-locked for quite some time. I wasn’t in state to start the stop watch and stop it when we ended making out. We also had intermediate breaks for the players to relax. These were utilized by her to button up her night shirt unbuttoned by me in the miasma of fervor and pull back her shorts back to her knees. While I used it to wipe out the creases she had put on my T-Shirt. We stopped when she pushed me away on finding my lips loosing their path down her neck, crawling towards her bosom. The move made her realize that it was too late and we had to leave. Or maybe she came back from her trance and realized that those were the wrong lips she was nibbling. We walked back hurriedly to Shamita’s room. Neither of us said a word to each other on our way back. An awkward silence clogged the conversation between us. A silence of unfulfilled desires trapped in the mesh of morality.

On reaching, Shriya ran into the compound without any farewell. I turned back bearing the weight of my guilt. She called out to me, returning to the gate. I went back to her. He stared at me with fiery eyes. I felt strangely uncomfortable standing before her that moment.

“What?” I asked.
“You can’t give me what I want” she said in cold voice. Her words pounded heavily on my chest. I was about to loose my balance and fall off. She turned and disappeared into the darkness inside the gate.

I was walking back to my room, when Shamita called up. I told her that I had arranged for a bike. She shouted in a pitch that tore apart my ear drums on phone.

W decided to leave early in the morning. A journey of love for her. A journey of friendship for me. A two hour bike ride to the hill station from the arse hole of the world.

(Contd.)

2. k

2009-06-10T21:31:00.000-07:00

“You can’t give me what I want.” Her voice changes as she says this.

That was actually a wrong statement that a girl should speak before me. I can give the girl what she wants. Except things which require monetary transactions of course. In other cases, there is nothing that I can’t provide a girl with. Happiness being the primary element of my provision. Being the second largest demand on a girl’s wish list, it is something difficult to attain through monetary means. That is where I come in. I am a benefactor of this word, which most women yearn for. And I know it is my forte. They can go on a long drive with their respective male preys. But moments of tenderness are something that only my shop sells. And I am sure Shriya has one such demand. All I have to do is to make her voice it out. And that doesn’t seem like a difficult task.

“Tell me…there is nothing that I can’t give” I say it playfully. I do recognize the vulnerability of the situation. But revealing this would be loosing the chance to make her speak.

“No Anay…you can’t!” she looks away gulping down the lump in her throat.

Now I have a fair idea of what she would say. The magic word is hidden behind a closed door.

“Hey…what happened?” I say taking her chin in my hand and turning her face towards me gently. My voice softens involuntarily as I look touch her chin.

She just nods her head.

“Come on…tell me na...” Persuasion is the answer to persistence.
“Nothing re….can we sit somewhere?...some quiet and peaceful place?”

Ahoy there! The act is about to begin.

I take her to the garden near the temple. No garden near any temple is open at this time of the night. But every garden does have some secret routes to enter it. There is a broken fence at the rear of the garden. The legend says there was an accident which had broken it once. It hadn’t been mended since then. Who cares to mend the fence of a municipal garden?

I show her the way in. Even in that moment of distress, she can’t resist smiling.

The entire garden is open for us. The people in this place aren’t as enthusiastic to creep into the garden late at night.

“Where do you want to sit?” Ask an emotioned woman to make a decision. And you get your question rephrased as an indefinite statement.

“Wherever” she says maintaining her moroseness.

“Come here” I take her to the seat in the farthermost corner of the garden.

We sit.

“Now tell me…what happened?” Coming back to the point is extremely important.
“Nothing!”
“Are you sure?” I say a bit strongly.

She bends down hiding her face in her palms and begins sobbing. I gently put my hand around her shoulder bring her closer. She rests her head on my shoulder. I stroke her arm softly.

“I want Dilip Ani…” She says.

I always knew it. I knew that the answer was behind a closed door. I also knew I could give her Dilip. But I usually don’t help women to get a man.

“Calm down Shriya…Dilip belongs to Priyanka.”

She cries further. I stroke her back to comfort her.

From the day the chemistries formed in the classroom, the strongest one was seen forming between Dilip and Shriya. It was almost clear that they were a potential pair. Of course Dilip also had a bond with Priyanka. But it wasn’t as visible as the linking between Dilip and Shriya. But one evening, Priyanka took Dilip to buy curriculum books to the city and that day onwards entire set up changed drastically. Dilip was seen more with Priyanka. Shriya was purely sidelined. And the world wondered what Priyanka did that evening to drastically divert Dilip from Shriya. It always remained a mystery. She proposed him and nailed the relationship. Shriya stood aside watching the celebration.

Being a close friend of Priyanka, this move had shattered Shriya. This had significantly distanced both of them along with distancing Shriya and Dilip from each other.

“Why?” she says crying more. I stroke her more. I feel no obstacles on it. I wild thought runs through my mind.

“Because not everything that we desire…is what we get!” my own line leaves me abruptly restless. I remember all that I had desired of when I was in love. I suddenly connect with her and a lump forms in my throat. Moisture gathers in my eyes. I pull up the mucous rolling down my nose.

She hugs me tight and cries. My arm curls up around her tighter.

“Don’t cry Shriya…that’s way of life…don’t cry for someone who doesn’t shed a tear for you…” I appreciate my own line. Feeding your brain on romantic Hindi films through childhood, helps you cook such lines instantaneously.

She controls her tears. She had found it sensible. Sadness comes with a stark sense of humour. Upholding a sharp urge, I wipe her tears.

The tear strains on my cheeks surprise her. She wipes them for me. She kisses my cheek. Her breath draws a line of desire on my cheek. My hand on her back enrages the wild thoughts in me. I kiss her on her cheek in return. She looks at me bewildered. A mix of emotions gathered in her eyes.

I moved closer to her. She stayed unmoved. The burning desire in me takes me her to her lips. I touch them gently with mine.

(Contd.)

2. j

2009-06-09T14:04:00.000-07:00

I try calling Shamita. Her number is busy. The epitome of irritation in inter-human relations is this. A busy number. In modern times, whenever you are at the peak of an emotional state, the first thing you do before contemplating over it is call up someone and bombard them with the excess emotions you are unable to hold within yourself. And at such times, the opposite person is always busy. The next situation when the ‘number busy’ message can be a prime irritant is when you need to desperately talk to someone regarding some imperative matter and you find the message arrogantly being spoken into your ears by some dame in a posh accent. Some crotchety souls also face an impulse to enter the phone through the voice hole and smash the messenger’s head with a semiconductor inside the phone.

“The customer you are tring to call is currently busy!”

Busy my arse!

I have a clear idea of the reason behind this. I try Preeti’s number. She doesn’t pick it up. She comes to the terrace instead. She is about to shout when she realizes that it is dark around. She picks up the phone then.

“Shamita??”
“Busy…on phone.” She shows it with a hand gesture. It somehow looks funny to me. A real phone in one hand and a gesture in another. I smile.
“Tell her I have to talk to her…and it’s urgent” I say.

It is the same when Shriya joins her. She waves to me. I wave back. She takes the phone away from Preeti. I wish it was bright. I would have enjoyed catching the look on Preeti’s face. It merely passes off as a frown in the darkness.

Hey…Ani Honey…what’s you doing here so late?”
“I should be asking you this”

Shriya is a localite. Just like Dilip’s girl Priyanka. Born and brought up in this crazy city. As crazy as it. That’s the reason, finding her at Shamita’s room stuns me.

“Night out!” she says giggling.
“Cool…how’s it going?”
“Boring!....Shammy’s stuck on her phone…and rest are planning to sleep!”
“Sad!” I just say that. That is the only adjective I can use for a night out like this.
“What are you doing?” She asks. I feel a mild tickle a few inches below my belt.
“Nothing…just wanted to talk to Shammy about something”
“But she is busy…now?”
“Now I will roam around, comeback and talk to her… and then go back to my room”
“Ohh kay…”
“Wanna join in?” There goes the indecent proposal in disguise of a boredom buster. I know the assent is on its way. It is not because she is bored. It is a feminine ego clash. And there is an analysis to it.

Analysis:
Shamita calls Shriya for a night out. Excited Shriya comes for a night out. They start having fun. They finish the dinner. And Shamita gets a call. Others expect it to end in ten minutes. It longs for an hour and doesn’t seem to end. They know who is on line. They murmur amongst themselves
Level 1: “Can’t she understand it’s our night out?”
Level 2: “Even we have boyfriends…if we want…even we can talk to them…but it’s a time reserved for us…”
Level 3: “Such a bitch…she spoilt the entire night out”
Level 4: “What the fuck does she think of herself?”

They all decide to go to bed bored and pissed off. Including Shriya.

Enter me.

Shriya’s mind: Bitch is still stuck with the boy on phone. I came here for her…and she’s showing off her man to me. Look here Shammy….I too have got a man now….I don’t need to wait for you to cut that call and entertain me.

“Could be” she says. The analysis is right.
“The roaming could be extended to an Ice Cream treat…” I raised my bid. I still had a last hundred in my wallet.
“Strawberry Surprise…” she says
“Chocolate Seduction…” I say.

She disappears from the terrace handing over the phone to Preeti. I request Preeti to tell Shamita that I would be coming back.

Shriya is at the gate in her night suit. A shirt filled with small teddy bear and matching shorts. He ego trip didn’t even allow her to change.

We start walking.

“So…how come a night out today….I mean tonight?”
“Wanted to live like you guys for a night…”
“And..?”
“Didn’t work out!”
“Well…it works out only when people know you are here…”
“As if it was going to be different”
“It could still be different…”
“How?”
“Ice cream…”
“Just that?”
“And a race too…because the shop would be closing by now”
“Now?”
“On your marks…”
“Wait…I’m not even…”
“Get set…”
“Ani…”
“Go…” I start running. She follows up. I run slow for her to catch up. She overtakes me. I run behind her. She runs faster. I get near her. I am about to over take her. We are at the shop. The shopkeeper turns the key and locks the outer safety grill.

“Fuck!” she says panting. She is sweating badly after the arduous run. She needs an ice cream.
I go up to the shopkeeper and request him for ice creams. He agrees without much resistance. The smile effect! Also if you provide a shopkeeper with a business of atleast one hundred and fifty rupees per day, he is bound to do it for you.

Two cones. Chocolate seduction. Dark chocolate with Chocó chips and Chocolate filling. Total chocolate. Total seduction.

I pass on the first cone to her. I open mine.

I am impressed” she says taking a bite.

“Me too…dunno how they make it so great!” Get cocky!
“I was saying that for you stupid…”
“Me too!”
“Shut up!”
Bulls eye!

We walk some steps with our ice creams. I walk by her side.

“That’s it?” She asks.
“What do you want?”

She takes a long pause. And then says….

(Contd.)

2.i

2009-06-08T14:02:00.000-07:00

(Content Deleted)

2.h

2009-06-07T13:49:00.000-07:00

One of my biggest handicaps at this place is an unavailability of a vehicle called motorcycle.
It is a two-wheeler with a motor between the wheels, which is run by an engine, which again is between the two wheels. But world would have been a lot better place if it had just been a vehicle. In this place it is a way of being.

People here don’t walk. They merge their feet with the vehicle. They make the wheels out of their legs and they walk, rolling them with horsepower. You need motorcycle to go to work. You need a motorcycle to go to the chowk. You need a motorcycle to go to the grocery shop. You need a motorcycle for your morning walk. You need a motorcycle to buy a pack of biscuits from the shop below your home. You need a motorcycle to eat on you dining table. You need a motorcycle to shit and then you need a motorcycle to wash it off your arse too. The local residents lived on the motorbike. And the migrant male students died on it. They rode their bikes day in and day out. From one end of the city to other. And then rammed it into a milestone, a truck or a tanker. And died on it. Female students managed to stay alive. They were always awed by machos who commanded these roaring machines and fell for them instantly. Or did they fall for the involved convenience regarding traveling, was a matter of reflection. But they merrily took up the role of pillion riders, keeping aside their otherwise feminist ideology and jumped to safety in such situations. They escaped with minor injuries like a fracture or a broken spine, which could be mended later. But they lived to see their flourishing careers and set up families. That was the circle of life. Some sadists amongst the survived women, also named their kids after the dead guys. This choice of name could be called ironic. Passing on the same fate of a dead man in your past life to your own child which is about to begin its life.

Being deficient of a motorbike narrows down the chances of getting a woman in this place. And not having a woman, brings down the chances of being sane in this place. Almost every arse here has a motorcycle seat to rest itself upon. Except some like me, who overcome this deficiency by maintaining strong relationships. Especially with people who have a motorbike but don’t have anybody to ride on the pillion seat.

“Harshad…I wanted your bike for a day.” I lit him a cigarette.
“Don’t ask for permission fucker…It’s yours”
“Thanks..”
“Dam??” He asks taking a puff from the lit cigarette.
“Hill Station”
“Ohh!....weekend??”
“I said a day bro…”
“Yeah…24 hrs…”He smiles naughtily.

That is the problem with the virgins. The thought of someone else getting laid, excites them more than the person getting laid. They will pull your leg. They will encourage you. They will give you concessions. They will exaggerate the situation. They will drive you crazy by showering goodwill. They will also imagine the scenes to themselves and enjoy them. Even jerk over it. They will praise you. They will respect you. They will despise you. They will bloat up the situation and burst it all over you. Even when it’s not the way they imagine it to be. Like now.

“Arey yaar…Shamita’s brother is coming there for a conference…she wants to meet him…have to take her yaar…”
He suddenly looses the mischievous glow on his face.
“Ohh…kay!” He tediously utters the word.
“When is it??” He asks spuriously.
“Day after tomorrow…” I answer.
“Arey I have to go to meet my Mama….when do you want it exactly??”
“No issue boss…will send her by train…will ask her brother to collect her from the station…” I speak before he ends.
“Arey…it’s not like that..”
“Chill dude….no worries!!” I throw a fake smile and punch his belly playfully.

I never guessed. I was not shocked. Not because he did it. Because I couldn’t guess that he could do that. I didn’t prepare myself for this. Complete failure. I had missed this line as I was chalking out the design. An important line. The darkest and the thickest one. Sometimes relations you maintain with people make you forget the obvious. The obvious way they could behave when you touched their delicate impulses. You forget that before they are whoever they are to you, they are individuals. Stand alone human beings with their true disposition. And when you scrape off the layer of your relation off them, you experience the true humans in them. The humans which you had been neglecting when you were busy living these relationships. Love, friendship, family or anything else, these primal instincts form the base for each of them. Just that we are unaware of them And when we come across them in these relationships, they purely shock us. Devastating us, destroying our faith in them. But the truth is, people are just being one their real self at such moments.

“Take it in the evening yaar…I will come back by three…I will bring it to you myself after that…”
“Its okay buddy…relax!!!” I say.

Harshad has a small arse. Or else I would have asked him to thrust his bike up his arse. Bhenchod!

Had Shammy not been a friend of mine in this situation, I would have made her fall in love with me. Got her laid and mailed him the pictures of us kissing each other passionately.
And If I had a chance to marry her, then I would have sent him five invitation cards, one for each family member. And would’ve had tweleve kids, just to call him ‘Mama’. Maternal uncle, their mother’s brother. I would have also asked Shamita to send him a Rakhi every Raksha Bandhan. Two of them to tie on two of his wrists.

But then I realize. Its not his fault. It’s his instinct.

2.g

2009-06-06T13:28:00.000-07:00

I can feel gentle fingers pressing my eyelids. Still I guess it’s Rahul. I expect a knee in my spine. It doesn’t come for a long time.

“Guess” A feminine voice attacks my ears. I wonder for a moment that Rahul is attacking me in a feminine voice. I am almost saying, “No need to change your voice…” when I recognized the voice. Better late than never. I changed my words to “Shamita…stop it!”

“Fuck!...You caught me!”
“I hear that voice everyday Shammy!”
“But you don’t know the fingers!” she says.
“I would’ve!” I said to myself. Then I was entangled in my questions. Didn’t I? Or did I? I did secretly. But not the way the bastard Aman them. Was I secretly despising him? Or was I a feminist?

She sat before me. Late day charm. She picks the sandwich from my plate and takes a bite. I look at her. Such an overt act means the woman is happy.

“What happened?” I say snatching the Sandwich from her hands. Never let a married man’s girlfriend eat your Sandwich.

“Aman had called up….”

Tell me something new. He does that everyday. Thank god I took my sandwich back at the right time.

“What was (Bastard) saying?” The word Bastard was lost in chewing the sandwich. But trust me, It was there. Just that I couldn’t spit it out.

“He has an idea…” Yeah yeah! Now that he is married, he will have all sorts of ideas.
“What??” I am still eager to know.
“He wants meet me!” She says almost screaming out.
Yes. Why not! Are you sure that he just wants to meet?
“That’s nice!” I say in approbation.
“Isn’t it?....He’s coming to the hill station for two days for a conference…that’s when he will meet me.”

We have a Hill station close to this city. It is close to my city too. Of course, when the two cities are close, the hill station has to be close. But the point here is, being equidistant from both the cities, it is a preferred spot of the lovers from the both cities to go jaunting. Well, everything inclusive. We get cheap to exquisite hotels and romance is added free of cost to the climate. More than climate, it’s the sense of lone togetherness that makes it more quixotic.

It’s flocked with couples on weekends. And yes. Sometimes, some companies hold some conferences there too. Giving its employees a chance to meet their extra marital partners.

“That’s great!” I do say that. But I don’t exclaim the way she does. I merely say it for the sake of it. She probably doesn’t realize this.

“Yeah na???...But I have a problem…”
“What?” I was smelling danger here.
“I want somebody to accompany me there…” The danger was here!
“Take your roommates!” I say insipidly. I play a good arsehole at times.
“They are of no use…” Which means they don’t support her in this. That is an incredible quality of Indian women. They despise all those women who disagree with them. In such cases, only the view beholding women possesses sense and nobody else does. “Only you can understand yaar Anay…please don’t disappoint me!”

I remember that the seed was sown by me itself. Now if the sapling needed water, it would look up to me.

“Please” She held my hand. I felt a warm current running through me. I stole a glance at Sneha. She was staring at us furiously. Someone was going to have sandwich filled with mustard sauce. But the ignition couldn’t be ceased.

“Yes” I say caught between a rage, a temptation and an urge.

(Contd.)

2. f

2009-06-05T13:52:00.001-07:00

“Where’s aunty?” I ask Sneha.
“Not at home…” She says with a smile. It’s their motto. Service with a smile!
“How long?” I look around and ask grinning mischievously.
“Fifteen minutes….” She says poking my nose with a ladle in her hand.
I say “Enough for us!”

Sneha was the first girl I interacted when I arrived at this place. Her mom a small food joint opposite the campus. The rear of the joint, dissolved into their one storied bungalow. After we had finished our admission procedure, Dad desperately wanted to have a tea. Aunty’s food joint was lot more tempting than the campus canteen. Dad preferred Aunty’s Joint over the canteen. Later I knew that his choice was right and numerous other campus dwellers did the same. A cozy place, run in the backyard of the bungalow, through the kitchen window. And an adjoining door for the servants to collect the left-overs. As I accompanied my Dad to the place for the tea, The first thing that caught my eye was not the coffee machine there.

Aunty had spotted the potential customer in me then, and had started a conversation with my Dad. As our parents talked, we had talked through our glances. Some nuts are easiest to crack. And they send you an electromagnetic wave. If you catch them rightly by your antenna, you get the opportunity to crack them. It’s science. Pure science.

As we left, I throw a last look at her. And she had smiled. I had smiled back. She had then quickly waved a good bye to me, stealing a moment from her mother’s reign over her.
Later, when I was searching for a Mess in this place, I had walked up to her, at the end of the day, when she was winding up the joint alone. I helped her gather the plastic chairs and foldable tables and arrange them in a neat stack at a corner of the backyard. Starting from the mess, we talked about thousand other things. About life, about the place and about each other. The chord was struck then. And the music played till date.

I slowly crept my hand inside the window slit Aunty had made for serving stuff and reached for her hand. She whacked on it with the ladle. I pulled it back with an impulse. She laughs.

I turn back. I see Rahul entering the joint. Harshad’s old friend from To conceal the mishap, I wave to him. He doesn’t wave back. He is obviously pissed with me. Like many others who are a target of my mockery. What could I do if he looked like Tej Sapru of all. Harshad had opened my eyes to this fact. It was his college fact. I just traced it further. I started with calling him Tej Sapru. Then Sapru Saahab and then Tej. Unfortunately, people had started calling him Tej like me. He was busy these days suppressing the wave.

“Ask him what he wants…” Sneha winked at me. I took up her demand for entertainment.

“Oye Tej…kya lega re…what will you have?” I ask him at the top of my voice. Everybody hears it. He gives me a fiery stare. I see aunty coming. I quickly turn back, pick up my sandwich and get seated away from the window. I am about to take a bite and I see a shadow hovering over me. I turn in its direction. Rahul stands beside me.

“Arey Tej…..What happened?” I ask playfully.
“My name is Rahul…not Tej…this is the last time I am telling you this…next time I won’t tell you…” That was a threat. I had realized it. Sometimes I am scared of situations. I have a pent-up fear of them.
“That means you would get used to it by then….” I joked smartly to avoid the situation.
“Too much of smartness has got into your arse eh??....Its not difficult for me to beat it out…” It infuriates him further.

I stand up facing him.

“Last time” he says sternly and leaves.

I am shaken. Yet I appear to be calm. I sit down and I bite into my sandwich with trembling feet. Was I scared. Yes I was. Inside my pretentious fearless self, lies a coward. I cannot fight. The fear of getting beaten up grips me. I can’t face an opponent into his eyes. I cant react quickly to his physical assault. All I can do is destroy the opponent completely with my brain. That is my way of responding. I always believe that, those who cannot use their brain, use their hands. I use the brain. That is all that I know about myself. That I have a brain. And therefore I am.
I chew the sandwich with a determination. I have to find a retort for Rahul. I cant keep getting threatened in public places. Especially like these. I throw a fake smile at Sneha.

Somebody closes my eyes tight suddenly. I can feel gentle fingers pressing my eyelids.

2. e

2009-06-04T13:55:00.000-07:00

We sit there wordlessly smoking our cigarettes. I keep looking at the Expressway. India’s first Expressway. A party head’s dream. A government’s mission and a state’s pride. It joined the two capitals of the same state. Two divergent urban civilizations separated by a mere distance of one hundred and ninety five kilometers. One cultural and one economic. One disorganized, one crazy. One easygoing, one stringent. Like two contrasting siblings born astonishingly to a same mother. A thick line holding them together. Binding their bodies while preserving the individuality in their souls. It was a belt that held the two wheels of a machine together.
I looked at the western end of it, in the direction of my home. It dissolved in the dark horizon at the end of the curve. Like everything else, it disappeared after it. It must’ve dropped off the edge like the Greeks thought. Maybe they were right. If not in the geological sense, but surely in a sense of perception. Horizons did trap us. We only crossed them when we wanted. Till then it was the point where the land ended for us. And those who did, returned back to the lives marked within the horizon or kept yearning to do so. Dreaming of it, every moment they spend outside the horizon.

I had my home beyond the horizon. In the other city. The place where I was born and brought up. The place which built up my soul. The city which ran through my blood. The city across the sea. The city on an island. I didn’t go there much. I was happy here. Not because I loved this place. But it gave me a frameless world to live my life. This sovereign way to life was what kept me glued to the place. It was not that I didn’t want to go there. It was just that I didn’t preferred going much. Here I had my own life. It was imperfect in sane senses. But it was mine. I ruled it. I lived it.

This was the Expressway which had brought me to this place. And I know that this is the Expressway which will take me back home. It had shown me freedom. It had introduced me to independence. It had taught me to stand up for myself. And it had given me the license to behave the way I want. And when I had to be to myself, it seated me besides it. Endowing me with peace and solemnity to get back to my life in the arsehole of the world.

“Why did this happen?” Piyush spoke taking a puff. He had curled up his legs to his chest, like a villager sitting before a flame. Villager that he was. Villlager that he will be. Such moments take the villager out of him.

“It shouldn’t have” I reply smoking mine.
“”Why does this happen to me?...Why?”

This is the line I hate the most. It incenses me when someone utters this line. The line is a fucking epitome of self pity. Why did it happen to me? What do people want to prove with the line? That they are the only sad individuals on the back of this earth? That nobody is sad except them? What do they want to say? Bloody losers! After being used by billions and trillions of people around the world, the line now carries a profile.

Line: Why does this happen to me? / Why does this happen to me only?
Users: Every individual loosing an opportunity.
Purpose: Express sadness
Target: Men target women; Women target men and women
Success: 78%
Expected answer: Awwwww….don’t cry! Poor baby!
Inappropriate answer: It happens to everybody…all of us…

“It happens to everybody dude…all of us…” I said rather impartially.

He looks at me shocked.

“What is important is what we do in such situations…” I continue with same state of commenting.

A silence lingers between us for some moments. He seems unable to react. His silence speaks for him.

“What are you doing?” I break the silence with my question.
“Harshad is my friend…”
“Hmm...”
“A part of our brotherhood…”
“Yeah”
“His happiness….is my happiness…”
“I asked you what are you doing?” I stress on the word ‘you’ on loss of patience to his overtly expressive statements.
“Giving up” He replies proudly.

Sacrifice! Arsehole never loved her. I believe people who are ready to sacrifice in love, never are in love at any point of time. They just feel that they are in love and enjoy the pleasure of being in it. In the deprived society of ours, even this feeling gives them an upper hand over others who don’t fall in love predecidedly. It makes them feel special and they find the trip equally worthy of falling in love itself. The quick sacrifice from Piyush was doubting the validity of his feelings before me.

“Are you sure?” I ask him.
A long silence prevails. I wait or an answer. It doesn’t come for a long time. I wait more.
“Are you sure?” I ask him, utterly frustrated by his silence.

He again took a pause. A small one this time. Then he twists his face. And then he answers. Finally.

“No…”

Clever arse. He keeps a room for himself. After he had lost hope, cribbed over his fate, cried like sucker, decided to secrifice, he says he isn’t sure if he will let Harshad take her home as his wife. He does expect a miracle secretly within him. Bloody hope dies hard! I catch him with that line.

“When will you be?” I ask.
“My mind says No….but my heart says..” He begins.
“I asked when will you be sure?” I cut him off.
“Don’t know”
“Piyush….” I speak with a determination “As I said… What is important is what we do in such situations…And you don’t know what you have to do….And when you don’t know that….you suck!”
“I do suck…I know..” he begins another emotional mono act.

“Shut the fuck up” I shout on him “Know what you want to do…decide it fucker!...sooner the better..”
“But….”
“I will ask you this question once more….decide it till then…” I don’t let him speak. I strike my sentence on him like a threat and I leave from the rock.

Shaken to the core, Piyush starts following me hurriedly, to catch up with me.

I give him time. I buy some time. Not for him. But for myself. I have my plans. I won’t speak it out this time. Speaking out plans, spoils them for me. I am jinxed in that matter. I’ve realized this lately.

2.d

2009-06-03T13:16:00.000-07:00

“Harshad” He says pulling back his molten mucous.

World halts for me for a second. Everything comes to a pause. It’s all blank. Unknowingly my hand moves towards my forehead. I divert it towards my hair and plough my fingers through them. I try hard to hide my disappointment. But it is clearly visible. I could have easily passed it as a disappointment for Piyush himself. But I was not in the state to use such smart tactics at the moment. I realize the bend in my spine.

I erect up. Choot was destroying everything. He has blown up both the plans. This is going to get worse. Things will sour up. I knew it from that night itself when these two yearned for the same thing. I tried my ways to avoid. I tried to soothe out the flow of events. I tried to shield the three entities from each other. But he was hell bent on spoiling everything. And he has succeeded. What the fuck is wrong with him? Arsehole thinks being in love is like being on the moon. Equaling Neil Armstrong’s achievement. Hoisting a flag on moon. I don’t know how many others he has told about this. I don’t know how things will be in future. And I don’t know what next I can do to avoid this future. Rascal has put me in a catch. He has shat heartily. Now I will have to wipe it clean.

Piyush has begun sobbing all over again. That irks me. I still stroke his back and try to console him. He holds my hands and starts sobbing on it. His tears wet the back of my palms. I want to push him away. Slap him and leave the room. I tousle his hair instead. Try comforting him. . To the extent that people seeing us at the stroke of that moment would have called us homosexuals. Better known as gays. it happens so that you want to hate some people for what and how they are. But you never end up doing it. You try hard. But you are never able to. On the other hand, there are some people you never are able to get close, to in the presence of the fact that you yearn to be in their inner circles. You force yourself with that feeling, but you never feel like crossing the line of proximity. In spite of your efforts, you are not able to connect with them. Whereas, there is a thin line connecting you to people you want to hate, which disallows you to renounce them completely. That was a line which connected me to Piyush. I couldn’t push him away despite the fact that the sound of his mucous is getting on my brain. I let him cry on my hand.

Like a lightning, realization strikes him and he stops crying. He goes to the loo and washes him face. I hug him by the side and press his arm. He smiles faintly and sits on the bed.

“Chal…” I say.
He looks at me in astonishment. “Where?”, he asks.
“Expressway” I say, adding “We both need some open air.”
“Yup” He agrees to my surprise.

He changes to his, similarly ridiculous as indoor, outdoor clothes and we leave on his bike.

- - -

It’s a three minute ride. There is a chill in the air. Especially at this point of the evening. The air still carries the possibility of a sudden rain in its moistness. Piyush rides slower than usual today.
The chill soothes us of our worries. We halt at a Pan Beedi shop and buy some cigarettes.
We turn to the local run running parallel to the Expressway. Piyush turns the bike into the barren field and rides it upto the foothills of the mountain next to the Expressway. We climb up to our usual rock and sit upon it. ‘The Rock of Lonliness’ we call it. Because however we be a part of this large community of people in the college, we are lonely in this place. This arsehole of the world. Away from our homes and families. Away from our friend circle. Trying to connect to completely new people, different from those we always had around us. Trying to create a new circle at the cost of closest things. Trying to creating a new family with oddest of elements. Enjoying a freedom with a heavy price. The price of loneliness. The price we took by our choice of flying farther than our boundaries. Forgetting the fact that only loneliness prevails beyond them.

We sit on the ‘Rock of Lonliness’, light our cigarettes and start smoking. As the small bits of fire burn at the ends of our cigarettes, we stare blankly at the Expressway. A road in all it’s splendor.

2.d

2009-06-02T13:22:00.000-07:00

Plan:

I go to Piyush. I will find him giving some emotional discourse on life and the involved sadness. I meet him. And I tell him that Shamita has an affair with a married man. His views about her are tainted. He withdraws. The subject comes to a full stop. Pretty cool.

Execution:

I reach my room. Piyush is sitting delivering a discourse to Samrat. Samrat is listening religiously to him. I have never seen a much gullible guy than him. He is naïve, Idiotic and at the same time innocent. Dickhead is elder than us by a year. Yet he seems five years younger to us. And if anybody within the walls of these two rooms needs an audience. Samrat is the man. He would listen to your story. Coincide his feelings with you and make you feel better. He knows every soul’s secret within these two rooms. But not a single one has leaked out of it till date. Because it’s Samrat. Piyush is giving him some emotional discourse on life.

I go and sit before Piyush. He turns to me.

“Welcome…welcome…”
“Yeah…I am in…”
“I need to talk to you…”
“Me too…” I say somewhat seriously. Being casual in such moments could be dangerous. It could distort the overall effect of your words later and give wrong outcomes, which would collaterally be against you on a whole. So, I build up a preface to my plan. I act serious.

Piyush finishes his discourse for Samrat. I feel like standing up and applauding. I avoid it in this delicate situation.

Piyush moves towards me. He looks grave. Grave enough to topple me over. I have a baseless fear gripping me. I fear he knows my plan. I fear he knows about Shamita’s indulgence already. If you are in the ring to kill the tiger, you always feel that the Tiger knows that you are here to kill him. I’ve never killed a tiger personally. But I have heard a lot about it. From Jim Corbett and my paternal relatives who like killing tigers. Who never killed tigers somehow. And I also know that this is the exact time to feel this. “Let’s go to our room…” he says with the same intensity.

I follow him to the room as if hynotised by his words. Zombified by him. Following my master. I do master. Let’s go to the room. Samrat feels left out. Who cares? Zombies don’t care. Zombies in fact don't do anything. They just be themselves. Zombies that is.

He sits on his bed. I sit on the empty chair opposite to it. There’s Dilip’s towel on it. I whirl it away on his bed carelessly.

Piyush drinks water from his bottle, rinses his mouth and swallows it. He then clears his throat and speaks.

“Mera pehla pyaar….adhoora reh jaayega…” and his eyes turn moist. How pansy. This is how films seen while attaining puberty effect a person's psyche in the years to come. One starts crying because the only love story in his life would remain incomplete. That too in a contemplative state of affairs. It sucks. Effeminate arse.

“Kyun?....kya hua?” That’s called concern. More for my arse than for his.

He starts weeping silently.

“What happened Piyush?” I ask him the same thing second time.

“I will loose her…” He says.

“Why?” Every time he makes a statement, It scares me more about the next one.

“Harshad is in love with her…”

Goddamnit! Who told him this? Barkha has been with me since the secret was leaked out to her. Neither did I tell anybody else except myself about it. Then how did this child of god come to know about it? What is happening? Does he read minds? Or did I blurt it out when I was drunk. Least chances. I am always in check of myself when I am drunk. Samrat? But I didn’t tell him anything of this yet. Did he see them together, as an outcome of my previous plan? What the hell on the earth made him realize this? I see my plan descending rapidly towards crash site. An unreasonable hope keeps me hung to it. If I knew the source of comprehension, I could still tackle it easily, keeping it afloat. Source. It was the solution for my solution.

I keep wondering. At a point I give up and as the man himself.

“Harshad??”

“Yes” he wipes his eyes with an impervious look on face. What an act of personal strength.

“Who told you?”

(Contd.)

2. c (extension)

2009-06-01T14:23:00.000-07:00

“How did you know?” The question impulsively erupts in my mind. I hold it back.

“Yeah???...” A fake laughter and then a “Really?” As if I don’t know.
“Yeah” She plays with the sparse hair on my chest.

“How do you know?”
“He told me today.”

Damn bloody Idiot! I thought he won’t tell anybody. But he dis. He spilled his sanctity before her. And of everybody else, her. The woman whose brain was like an uncovered milk vessel on flame. It keeps spilling its contents all over. Like it had spilled it over me. It will begin spilling on everybody else slowly. And the entire world will know Harshad is chasing Shamita. Sorry! He is in love with Shamita. And then it would cause a bit of discomfort for Piyush. Just a bit.
Shit! This wasn’t favorable for my plan. All would be ruined. Why did the Chutiya have to tell her? I hadn’t yet had a counter plan for Piyush. I would have to race for a plan now. I would have to be fast. Faster than her words.

“You are his sister na….” I say teasing her. My mind contemplates on a plan.

“Yeah…”
“What’s up with you guys??....this brother-sister business?” I ask. My mind wanders through instances.

“He has a cousin sister whose name was Barkha…like me…so….he considers me his sister”
“Thank god I didn’t have any cousin sister by that name”
“If u had…you would have slept with her too”

I pinch her hard. She cries in pain. I find a plan.

(Contd.)

2.c

2009-05-31T13:46:00.000-07:00

She rolls over. Holds me in her legs and leans over me, pressing me down by shoulders. She runs her hands down my chest. I rise myself up to pull her down to me. It’s the colour. Dairy milk chocolate. I want to take a bite. My chocolate knows it. She grabs me by my arms and presses me down again. Smart chocolate. Sometimes I loose my patience in such moments. I struggle to take a bite. Chocolate likes to make me strive for itself. She moves her miracles over me. I struggle again to reach them with my mouth. Chocolate holds me down harder. She gently rubs them over my lips quickly. I yearn for them more. She pulls them back and bends her head. Her hair flow down on my face. With a flick of her head, she spreads them around my face. In the veil of her hair, I see her face. Her eyes twinkle in their shade. The fragrance from her hair fills the space between us. The urge in me soothes as it seeps into me. She bends her hair further and lowers her face towards mine. I see her approaching. Chiseled ebony face surrounded by stripes of light, the gaps in the cloak of her hair. I close my eyes. She touches my lips with hers. We open our mouths and passion spins itself in a ballet within their enclosure.

She starts jerking herself during this succulent trance. One of her hand looses its hold on my hand and works on the link between us. We conjoin. The miracles rub on my chest. She gains a new rhythm. Culmination starts building up itself within me. Every moment its makes itself stronger. It moves in steps towards the conclusion. The momentum arouses through her. The pinnacle is approached with a rapid pace. She looses her hold over my hands. I garb her and press her against me. Her arms wrap me in them. The moment of conclusion arrives. We hold each other tight. Her voice fills the haze. The darkness in my closed eyes glitters up. The florescence spreads. My teeth dig into her ear.

“Manish….” she cries.
“Anay…” I shout.
“Sorry…” She cries in a hoarse voice.
I yell. Her hoarseness conjures up with my roar. He nails dig into my back. A tightest grip. And we loosen up.

She rests her head on my chest. I run my fingers on the slopes of her back like playing a cello. She rests her palms on my chest and parks her chin on them, looking at me. I look at her.

“Manish… ” I say mischievously and smile.
“Used to…” She says and smiles grimly.
I kiss her forehead.

A moment of silence passes between us. We search for a topic to assasinate her guilt and destroy it. Mission guilt tilt. She succeds.

"You know what..." she begins.

"What??" I ask relieved to know that she has a subject.

“Harshad is in love…” she says.

(Contd.)

2. b

2009-05-31T11:41:00.000-07:00

“I need tips!” Harshad said. He is wiping the spokes of his motorbike. If you go speeding through the sudden rain of this crazy city, the next day you spend doing this, if you don’t have enough money left with you for a service. The money which you spend on alcohol and chicken for your friends. Friends like me.

“Tits?....get operated” I say.
“Tips fucker”
“For what?”

He doesn’t answer. But blushes instead.

“For what?....epilating?”
“What’s that?”
“Nothing…..tell me…”
“I want to impress her..”

Chutiya. Speaking on serious terms, I don’t think anybody can give you tips to impress a woman. They get impressed by you, if they have to. And don’t if they don’t have to. It is that simple. But when a feeding friend asks, you have to stand by his side.

“Hmmm” I hum a pause like a knowledgeable man. “To impress a girl you actually need to know her…because every girl is impressed by a different thing…” The sermon begins.

“That’s why!….that’s why I’ve come to you…you know the right things man!....”
“Come on now…its fine” I smile modestly
“Please tell me how to know a girl yaar…you know na….I am not so good at these things…Please help me yaar!”

“Yeah dude…” I say with poise.

“Listen now….see…If you have to know a girl…you need to get close to her first”
“How?”
“Try to be with her more…spend time with her….try to know what she likes…what she doesn’t like…what she wants…what she needs…once you begin to know her well…you will automatically start impressing her…because you will know what will impress her….understood?”
“Yeah…but…”
“But what?”
“But……will I impress her automatically then??”
“Yes man….” Damn! This man needs an extensive explanation every time. Dumb dick! “See…when you will know what she likes…you will start taking care of it…you will only gift her those things that she will like…and then she will start liking you…and then….do I need to tell?”
His face reddened as he smiled. He looked away. I teased him. He blushed further.
“Thanx man!”
“Come on dude…but remember….understand her…know her completely and only then think about further things okay? ”
“Yup..”
“And don’t forget whatever she says…because her every word will be your key to her heart!”
“Yes sir!” he stood up and saluted me. He had learnt it from his father probably. He must have taught Harshad right from childhood. “Beta salute karo!” I felt like laughing madly at this thought. As a child he must’ve saluted every relative visiting his place. And his father must’ve felt proud at his salute. “Beta…Salute karo!” Old habits die hard.

“Chal….isi baat par…let’s have beer.” He said winding up his rim clean up.
That’s what I love him for. He is always ready to treat.

“But have you got cash on you?” Every free fed is worried about the generous.
“Enough to buy beer for both of us!”

Pretty cool! I was completely fine with it. As long as he has enough to buy me beer.
He went to his room to come back appearing more presentable for a human society. His efforts to adapt himself to humanity are appreciable. I allot with him with as much time as he needs.
In the mean time I think if my words will have any effect. I know how deceptive a human mind is. But an effort makes all the difference. His demand for tips was an opportunity. The hum pause was when the plan shaped up. And my suggestion to him was the backdrop for its execution.

I hope it works out.

Plan:
Harshad will get close to Shamita as a friend. She will start leaning on him. The more she leans, the more frank she will be with him. And at a point she will reveal her lascivious affair to him. And he will withdraw himself from falling for her any further. And one problem will be solved for both of them. Seems cool.

He comes back dressed up.

He walks past his bike. I sense an effort to walk. I keep my fingers crossed. I pray to god that he takes his bike. He comes to me.

“Let’s not take the bike. Its still muddy. Tomorrow I will have to wash it all over again.”

‘Bhosda!’ I say to myself.

(Contd.)

Chapter @

2009-05-31T00:45:00.000-07:00

2.a
“We need your support” A big placard said as they entered our premises.

They came and stood in the corridor. They had a head leading them. Dressed in posh white shirt and a black trouser. Washed, ironed and starched. Spectacles on his eyes and neatly combed hair. Clean shave to add the grace. Dhananjay. The spokesperson of the dumb arse youth organization on the campus. Every year they had this relationship program. With the sole motive of recruiting new members for the organization. Every year Dhanajay visited all the classes in the free hour. Every year spoke of the on-campus problems. Every year he threw the same big words. And every year he was able to get of with some new members for his organization. Or support in his terms.

It was a classic act. He would enter the classroom. And he would start speaking.
“Hi friends!...Myself Dhananjay…the spokesperson of the MYO…Maharashtra Youth Organization…and I am here to help you people. Because we are an organization which always stands up for students’ questions! Our aim is to solve all the problems faced by you and give you a better campus. And what we want in return is your support.

As you must’ve seen, we have so many problems in our campus today. We don’t have good facilities. We don’t have good administration. We don’t co-operative staff and to add to it all….we lag behind many colleges in many fields like sports, cultural and educational activities. We are always struggling to solve all these problems. But this is not possible without your participation. So I ask all of you to participate by being a member of our organization and help us in our work. So….who all is ready to be a part of our organization? ”

And few hands rise up. As if they were waiting eagerly for this moment. It seems that sometimes these hands always expected them to be raised. They wanted to be raised. Like they always knew that they would have to be raised. That they were the ones, who would be the first ones to rise. That it would be their moment. That it would be their chance to steal the show. That it would be them who would be supporting. That they would be the new members. With their political inclining set right in their cradle days. They came with the dream to be included in the large brigade of the youth politics in the nation.

The organization is just a name. It is an on campus political party. Fed by a state-level political party. Which is in turn fed by a larger national level political party. Struggling to be a part of the students’ committee formed through elections. Bloody affairs. More the support, more the votes. More the votes, more the representatives in students’ committee. More the representatives in students’ committee, more power. Economic, political and administrative. And other perks like alcohol, food, expenses, conveyances and women. And the dream of this power, pulls the so called support towards them. And other such organizations across the nation.

It took Dhananjay an hour to complete endorsing his organization through all the new classes. He came out with his men. Walking straight. Upright. This was a rather unusual way to campaign for his organization, going classroom to classroom repeating the same speech every time. Sheer stupidity that comes with a price of exhaustion. Like a recorded message he plays himself. Every time. Time to time.

I look at him from where I stand under the Neem tree. With all that effort to visit every classroom, he should look weary. But he doesn’t. Maybe it doesn’t tire him. Maybe it’s not an effort for him at all. It’s his elixir. It gives him life. Or it’s elixir that keeps him going. Early morning consumptions.

He moves on to the next building. I stare glumly at them. They move silently from one building to another. Like a large bug made out of humans. Crawling with a hurried lousiness. In a silent buzz within itself. They move. On his way to the other section, Dhananjay throws a look at me and smiles. I pretend to smile wholeheartedly to him. He does the same. We know each other since the day when I had involuntarily yawned in his speech in our classroom, spreading a small wave of laughter. He had smiled the same smile then and asked for my name. That was it. Just my name and a smile. A poisonous one. I don’t know how he had taken me then. As an opponent or as a challenge. A challenge to make me a part of his movement. I had managed to keep myself away from the MYO or any of its counterparts in the year. And I don’t know how he takes me now.

The effortful smile on my face was about to fade when suddenly he stopped in his way and turned back. He looked at me and called me towards himself. Bewildered, I shake out of my momentary languor and take steps towards him. He leaves behind his men and starts walking towards me. A weak wave of fear runs through my center. We meet each other at the axis of the distance between us. Facing each other. He wore a friendly look. I wore any look I could find at that moment.

“How are you?” He asks me.
“Fine man” I reply safely.
“What’s happening in life?”
“Nothing…usual stuff!” I say smiling.
He smiles in return.
“Feel like doing anything unusual?...” He grins this time.
“Sorry…what?” I am a bit baffled.
“Join us….and I bet you won’t give this answer to anyone else…” the grin doesn’t fade from his face.
I just smile. I think of a political answer. I get it.
“I am always with you sir!”
“Baaheroon paathimba?” He speaks in our mother tongue to connect with me. The organization itself is based on this issue. Just like their maternal organization. Mother tongue is the word. Their prominent political agenda in the state. And their reason for the overwhelming response in the state politics.

External support his question means. His smile darkens.

“Aata tari…baaheroon paathimba…vel aalyavar aahoch aamhi” I hold myself proud of giving the most politically appropriate answer. No, I wasn’t supporting him externally as I said in my answer. I wasn’t supporting him at all. I don’t support anybody except myself. Everybody else have their means of supporting themselves. And against what I answered him, I haven’t yet seriously thought about joining him later too.

He pats me on my shoulder with a smirk.

“Alright….your wish!...But remember…Anything you want…..Anytime…We are there…After all….You and me….we are born to the same soil…to the same mother tongue”

I just nod. I stretch out my hand for a shake hand. He pats me on my cheek and leaves.
I stand there. I don’t know how to react to him. To patronize with him or to dispose him. I just stand there blankly. He hits me on my identity. He categorizes me on something that I don’t prefer to be categorized as. My mother tongue. Categorize me on my talent. My qualification. My choice of vocation. These are the choices I made for myself. These are my identity. Not what I was born with. I did not choose it. I did not demand it nor did I earn it. It’s just a mere coincidence that I was born to this. Or in any other region, religion or caste in that case. Sorry Dhanajay! You cant classify me so. I decline this label.

But your proposition is not that bad. I will think. I smile to myself.

(Contd.)

SORRY!

2009-05-29T23:10:00.001-07:00

Sorry! Writer was drunk last night. Apologies.

1. k

2009-05-26T13:03:00.000-07:00

This is a weird city.

When I had come to the arsehole of the world, I found it dead. I felt imprisoned in it. Trapped between the forest of four storied lifeless buildings. I wanted to break free. I wanted to run back home. Coming from a fast paced city, I felt the zero pace of this suburb suffocating. I wanted to run madly around it. And I wanted the place to run with me. I wanted to fill it up with action. Pump Life into its laziness. Send its adrenaline rushing. I wanted the people create a cacophony. I was not used to this silence. I wanted to change this place. Because I badly felt out of place here.

And then Dilip came up with an idea one evening. To leave the suburbs and visit the city. We took the city bus.

And the moment I stepped into the, I felt the lost hustle and bustle of my last city come back to me. The city had embraced me in its arms. It had dissolved me in. I had felt the rhythm of it. I had touched its heart beat. And it had touched mine. I had found life on the barren patch of land. And I was into an affair with it.

Content was gushing through my heart and spreading all over through my veins. That was when I had discovered a connection between us. A connection between me and the city. A connection between my city and me. A connection between this city and my city. A connection between the two inseparable entities. A connection of love, hate, friendship, jealousy and other such contrasting feelings. A connection with feelings. A connection which is today an Expressway. A dream project that had come true.

My hatred for the place slowly turned into love with time. I have developed a thick bonding with it now. But the period of this struggle to create it was troublesome. Yet all is well…that ends well.
As I stand on the footpath of JM Road waiting for her, I realize this. That this is a weird city. On one hand it isolates you, and on the other, it clutches you close to her heart. A crazy city.

She doesn’t come yet. But I hear weird voices coming from a distance. I walk in their direction.I am supposed to wait for Aparna near the large Gulmohur tree. Opposite Crosswords. Our regular location. We were to go to her place as her parents had gone for a wedding to my city. Which also means I will have to rush with my undertaking, as the distance between the two cities was just two and half hours by Expressway, and they could return any moment. Otherwise, there are other days too, when they go to office. But that was during the day. Such evenings seldom occur.

The sound gets sharper. I am pulled towards that mysterious sound. It sounds like a cacophonic rhythm played aloud on speakers. With a harmonium and little cymbals. The curiosity builds up in me. It grows. It grips my being. Like a huge creeper it winds itself around me and drags me towards itself. As I approach closer to the voice, the words slowly appear before me from the cloud of voices and music. Their haze moves aside as I advance closer to the words. At last they fill my ears with their sharp edges.

‘Hare Rama. Hare Rama. Hare Rama. Hare. Hare…
Hare Krishna. Hare Krishna. Hare Krishna. Hare. Hare…’

The words wrapped around me. I felt the soothing coldness of them touching me. I opened my mouth to follow their rises and dips with my voice. And the phone rang. A hard vibration and then the tune. ‘Vibrate then ring’.

I am shaken out of reverie. I come back to Anay. I see four bald foreigners dressed in light saffronish pink robes. They were chanting the name of Rama and Krishna in their own trance. A similar stated Indian stood besides them with a counter full of books on Krishna. And the center stage was grabbed by the ever famous Bhagwad Geeta.

The book of the books. The base of Hindu culture. Quoted some thousands of years ago by the Lord himself, to guide his beloved friend Arjun. It has been the national bestseller since the day it was spoken. People went crazy for it. And not just a generation, but generations after generations. It had given an identity to a religion which was struggling for a holy scripture. A religion which only had epics, statistics, philosophy, psychology, mathematics and medicine but no holy scripture to follow. A religion which must’ve felt left out without it. And it must’ve come finally. From a sage with fourteen assistants writing it. Smartly inserted in an epic. Safely spoken out of an Incarnation’s mouth.

It’s relevance changed over time. From a way of life, to a code of conduct, to a secret knowledge of the high castes, to a religious propaganda, to a means of attracting west, to a base to run your religious sect and endorse it to laymen, to a subject of research. It has traveled a long journey.
It has been the motivator of wars. The source of clashes and reason for uprisings. The bloodiest of hostilities have initiated from this holy book. Covered under the veil of righteousness.
In modern times it is the weapon of the fundamentalists. The senior IIM Baba’s management curriculum. And book of trust for the Indian courts. ‘Geeta par haath rakhkar kasam khaaiye…..ke main jo bhi kahunga sach kahunga’.

Yet Geeta is the source of life for so many people around our lives, who follow and believe every word in it religiously.Another religion sellers were putting the word of god on sale once again. Along with an exclusive cover showing Krishna driving Arjun’s chariot.

‘Bhagwad Geeta. As it is.’

And the ISKON logo.

But what had caught my eye was the picture of Krishna. A young confident gentleman as on the book. Firmly holding the straps to the horses. Eyes set on the opponent, road or the aim, whatever applies. A charming lad with a peacock’s feather on his crown. A friend, a philosopher, a guide and a God! Krishna the ultimate being. The pole star of the Pandavas. The lover of Radha. And the man behind the Kurukshetra war. The US of those days. And the meaning of my name. Krishna.

The phone rang again. I hurried thrusted my hand into my jean’s pocket and pulled it out. ‘Aparna Calling…’.
I press ‘Answer’.

“Where are you?” her voice overcomes the surrounding traffic.

I look around for a landmark. I see the petrol pump. Oh Damn! I am not supposed to be here.

“Near the petrol pump"
“Why did you go there??.....weren’t we supposed to meet opposite the Crossword?”
“Yeah…but I felt like walking few more steps…”
“Shut up! Liar….now wait there…I’m coming..”
“Okay!”

I had met Aparna in my free time. Every time is a free time for me actually. But then I had enough time from my lethargy to go to a cybercafé and check social networking sites. And in one such visits I had found her through a common fan club. I loved these sites then. These were my gateway to socializing. At minimal costs of 10 or 15 per hour, I could a hell lot of people. From different places. Of different ethnicities and with same enthusiasm to socialize. Finding new friends. I would say, finding someone to lie down with. Socializing is just a name. All that everybody wants to do is to get laid. And they find new ways to do that. Social networking is a new medium for it. For the likes of me, who cannot afford pubs, discos or even coffee joints, social networking comes as an answer. I had met Aparna through one such endeavour. I wan on a Dom Moraes’ fan club. She was there too. I dropped her a ‘Hi!’ She dropped me a ‘Hi!’ That’s where it all began. Fortunately she was from the weird city. Localite! Been staying there since childhood. That augmented our chats more. And the day arrived when we finally met. And then there were coffees, poetries, movies, readings, screenings and at times shopping too. Rest all followed too. Sometimes I feel I am in love with her. Sometimes I feel, there would be a vacuum after she leaves. Sometimes I feel, we should be together for lifetime. But, that’s just sometimes. There are no promises. There are no commitments. There are just moments to live. All we do is just live them to the fullest.

Her scooty halts beside me. Its shrill horn fills my ears. She wont stop honking till I plug my ears with my fingers.

“Yes…Yes…Yes! I saw you Appy!....now stop honking!” I say shouting over the honk device.
“Why are you standing here?” Ma’m asks.
“Waiting for you…”
“But you were supposed to wait there.” She points out to the large Gulmohur.
“But I am waiting here!” I hold her hand and change the direction.
“leave my hand you jerk!”
“I won’t!”
“Bachao bachao….dekho yeh gunda meri iijaat loot raha hai!” She gets faux melodramatic. Aparna occasionally burst into such fake overtly melodramatic episodes. With enactments that match the flavour of a 1980s Masala movies.

“Yahaan tumhaari awaaj sunanewaala koi nahi hai raani….aa jao meri baahon mein!” I perform my Amrish Puri.

She punches me in my belly. I cry ‘Bitch!’. She snaps ‘Arsehhole!’ We both laugh.

“Now tell me….what were u doing here?” she always has this tone of authority as she talks to me. Before the world, she is just clinically harsh. A hard nut to crack. Which I had already cracked with the cyber nutcracker. I only had to enjoy the core now. And I had got used to it now. So much that it would not be easy to let it go.

“I was seeing these books!” I pointed at the ISKON books.
“Really??...you liar!”
“Really!”
“Bhagwad Geeta?”
“Not exactly….all of them”
“Why?...want to wash the sins of sleeping with me?”
“Is that a sin??...Then let me be a sinner”
“This assures me that you weren’t watching Bhagwad Geeta at all!....jerk!…You must’ve reached here come chasing some girl…”
“No really…”
“Yeah…I know…..Bhagwad Geeta...you are Krishna anyways...but in sense of women...not otherwise!!”

The line struck me hard. ‘You are Krishna anyways’. I couldn't her the rest of the sentence. It just vapourised in air. That one line give birth to an unfamiliar turmoil within me. It churned within me my state of being. I felt something come to my throat. Maybe the same universe I had swallowed with butter when I was a kid. Which Yashomati Maiyya was shocked to see. I look up. A blue tarpaulin hung some feet above me. It had cast a blue shadow on my body. As if it was an integral part of me. I remembered the notes of a Basuri that Ameya had taught me in the school years. The peacock feather my Granddad had given me many years ago, came swinging down from the branch of the tree above me. The words reverberated in my ears. ‘you are Krishna anyways’

“O re!....what are you thinking?” She pulls me out. Like most women, she too was good at it.
“Nothing!”
“Nothing??....liar….Must be thinking of a new way of getting me laid…..saalaa Fucker!”
“Yeah…that gaali suits me in your case!” I divert the investigation with humour.
“Yeah…yeah…come get seated now and molest me on the road…horny arse!”

I sit on the pillion seat. I neglect her words. Her only words that remain with me are, “you are Krishna anyways”. Was I Krishna? Would I quote Bhagwad Geeta? Would I start a war? Would I cleanse earth of wrong doings? Will I carry Gowardhan mountain on my pinky? Or will I dance over the Shesh Naag‘s fang after defeating it? Or……will I bed 16000 women?

Aparna rode past a cow. I found the cow staring at me. And me at her. Like an old connection that goes beyond centuries. Of a God dressed up as a Gwala or the cowherd and a cow standing behind him. It seemed to me like the same one.

I knew her…in my last life!

* * *

(Contd.)

1.j

2009-05-25T12:56:00.000-07:00

I was taken aback by her answer. Is this what all her pain and sufferings come to?

“Tell me na Anay…What do you think?”
“Is it important?” I snap back.
“Yes….It is!” She almost shrieks and starts crying again.

I hold her again and start comforting her.

“It is important what you think….please tell me what do you think...” She says in a tear soaked voice.

I feel pity for her at that moment.

“Should we talk about it here?” I ask.
“Let’s go to the room”
“Let’s go to the canteen”
“I don’t feel like going anywhere today….let’s sit in my room”
“Okay..” I agree.

I am the only privileged one who is allowed to enter her room whenever she or I want. At times, it makes me comfortable to enter her room. It is always so tidy. Unlike our room. Messy. Even the messiness in her room has tidiness to it. Except once or twice, when one of the Victoria’s Secrets was lying noticeably on the heap of clothes on her bed. And I always get something homemade to munch whenever I enter her room. But today, that pleasure might not be on the list.

I enter her room. Shamita goes straight to the loo. Preeti is about to leave for her lectures. She greets me. I greet her. She picks up her books and leaves. This is usually the time when studious are in a hurry. She reaches the doorframe and turns back.

“Please try to put some sense into her….she has gone crazy” he says in a soft tone to me and leaves immediately. She doesn’t even wait to know my reaction.

Shamita comes out of the loo and sits on the bed with her chin resting on her knees. He shorts slipped down slowly as she sat folding her knees, pulling them close to her chin. Without her knowledge, a phenomenon had been uncovered. I stood staring at it mesmerized. It ended into another Victoria’s Secret. I had an uncontainable urge to touch the phenomenon. I went closer pulled by them. On being close, the phenomenon mesmerized me more. I stretched out my hand. Everything around me darkened into an illuminated darkness. The phenomenon glowed in its place. It was the moment of rendezvous with divinity. My hand was almost upon it and the world brightened up suddenly. Realization struck me on my medulla oblongata. I was standing near the bed she sat on. I hadn’t been there to slide my hand over the phenomenon. My presence there had a higher cause to it. I Sat down besides her. I offered her one of my chewing gum strips left in my pocket from I don’t know when, to comfort her. She smiles with tearful eyes and takes it.

“Tell me now Anay…what I should do?…” She says.

It is a difficult question for me to answer. If she was to decide purely on my response, I would’ve clearly asked her to ask that bastard to Fuck Off! But the problem here was of love. She still had the same amount of love she had for him before. And with this, things would never change by my statement. People, especially women, become blindfolded in love. And in this extreme psychological condition, they never accept logic presented to them by individuals surrounding them. So I had to find an answer. And guess who helps me now. Bollywood!

“What does your heart say Shammy?....what do you want?” I speak out my favourite lines.
“I want to go back to him...”
“Then that is your answer”
“Really?”
“yeah Shammy…nobody else can decide your happiness except you…..so do only what your heart says…If you want to go back to him…then go back to him!...Just be a bit careful…and I know that you will be” I place my hand on her head.

Never ever try to preach a person in love about his mistaken path. One, you will be categorized as Bad. Two, you will not be heard at all. Let them learn from their experiences. Burnt child dreads fire. Had learnt it in fourth standard for a scholarship exam.

She smiles amidst her tears. I smile back.

The smile says it all. She is going back to him. Sidelining every moment of pain and exclusion. She was prepared to run back into his arms. She had already decided it. All she wanted was a social approval. He roommates had already declined her idea, leaving her helpless. Shaking her predetermination. Leaving her in tears. And I was the twig which she needed. Upon which she could step and raise herself. Rise high and touch her otherwise insoluble decisive perplexity about going back to him. And now that she had it, I am assured that she would go back to the bastard. I resolved her dilemma. But it had given birth to a new question. How were Harshad and Piyush to be told about it? Without letting them know the past. Without bruising Shamita’s character. Without letting them feel that I am lying to them because I am close to her. And without letting the thousand other qualms clog the minds of those two chauvinist male lovers, whose minds are certain to run in all directions towards her, excavating and envisioning her existent and inexistent past. It was difficult.

Shamita had wiped her tears with the right mega sleeve of her top. The glumness on her face had disappeared by now.

“Thank you Anay!......you are the best!” She says turning to me and hugging me again. This time, out of happiness. Tighter than last times. For a second I gasp for breath after her blitzkrieg hug. Then I feel a venom spreading into in the heat of the hug. I loose control over my equilibrium. I am about to tumble over the edge of her bed. To gain my balance back, I struggle to grab something for anchoring myself. I land my hand on something and it sinks into it. It emits a warmth that envelopes my hand into it. The warmth which reaches my heart like a lightning and fills into my body. My half alive corpse gurgles with bliss. I dig my hand deeper into it. My fingers ink into it, curling up. Involuntarily forming into a gentle clutch, kneading it in a reach for support.

I am holding the phenomenon.

(Contd.)

1. i

2009-05-25T12:51:00.000-07:00

It is one of the most uncomfortable moments in my life. When a girl hugs and cries. If I am into a relationship with her, it is my chance to further proceedings. But if it is a girl who is just a friend, I become utmost uncomfortable. Like now.

Her tears were drenching my T-shirt. He arms were around me. She was sticking to me. In her entire self. I could feel her warmth. I could see her collar stretched to her shoulder. I hugged her and patted her back with extreme efforts to divert my feelings. As I took my mind off the volcanic movements within me, I realized that she was crying.

“Tell me Shaami Kabaab…what happened?” That’s what I call her. Shaami Kabaab. It has long story to it. We used to call her Shammy. People still do that. Then one day I tasted Shaami Kabaab at Mohd. Ali Road. And the name reminded me of her.

Next day I called her that. Shaami Kabaab. She was mad at me. Reason. She asked why I called her that. And I replied she could be as hot to east as Shaami Kabaabs. But the name became the connecting factor between us. It was an anchor with which I pulled her out of delicate moments. The name always draws a smile on her face. Or at least made he open up. Like now.

“He called up again last night!” She said wiping her tears.

I hugged her tighter. The ‘He’ she refers here is her ex-boyfriend. I would take the liberty to call him a bastard. In truest sense. I consider bastard the worst of abuse. That is because other abuses just hit you. They degrade you. ‘Bastard’ abuses your source of life. Your mother. Her character. And her integrity. It’s worse than son of a bitch.

That bastard went around with her for two years. In third year, he broke up with her. Got another woman. Got married. And in fourth year, he started calling her again. Saying that he missed her. That he wanted to be with her again. That he was not happy with his married life. And this girl, lost into the past every time he called up. And the old flame turned into fire. And each time he was talking to her on phone, she had to fight this fire. And after that, she spent at least eighteen hours surviving the great emotional upheaval she went through on the phone call. And when he couldn’t convince her, he abused her on phone. Easy way out. Last night was one of those kinds. And the morning was this one.

“Don’t cry Shammy…come on….what did he say
He…….he said…..he said he loves me!” She cries more.

Bhenchod! What a move. Now he just doesn’t need her. Now he has realized he loves her. And what about all these days she had spent with her irritative loneliness? Where was he then? Where was his love when she was going through the post break off turmoil? Everybody, and I mean Every damn body had to face her aggravation then. And now, the bastard comes and says that he loves her. How convenient!

“Bastard!” I finally say it before her.

The moment the word is uttered from my mouth, her demeanor changes instantly.

“No Anay…” She said wiping her tears “…He means it!”
“How do you know…”
“He cried last night on phone…”

What a judgment of genuineness. He cried on phone last night. And what a woman to believe it. How easily his tears could change her attitude towards him. What do we classify this as? Naivety or stupidity?

“….He wants me back in his life Anay…” She said further.

I just nod my head.

“What do you say Anay??” She asks me.

“What do you feel?”

“I want to go back to him Anay!”

(Contd.)

1. h

2009-05-24T23:04:00.000-07:00

It is a house just around the corner. A few steps from my house. Not a long walk. Then a right turn. A few steps more into the large arch formed by two Gulmohur trees. You will stand before a gate. You have pull out your mobile and call the number. Someone will appear on the terrace of the bungalow and will ask you to wait. And then, within a span of five to ten minutes, Shamita will appear at the gate.

How she looks, depends upon the time you visit her. If it is early morning, she comes as untidily as she can to appear sexy. The collar of her top sliding to her shoulder. One of the Victoria’s Secrets peeping out. Shorts or Pyjamas, depending on the season, creased and crumbled. She comes tying her hair, her waist flashing the silver chain around it glows in the morning sun with her belly, as she raises her hands to hold the silky mass in place.

If its breakfast time, She comes with wet hair and radiant face, the splendour that usually surrounds a freshly bathed girl. But this woman makes it even more special. She comes out softly drenched. Like hurriedly dressed up after her bath, without caring much about wiping the water off. And in this dampness, her wear holds on to her closely. You do feel like watching a miracle.

If it is afternoon, her loose hairs curl up on her top. A plain light colour with a dark shorts below it. It’s a lazy afternoon after all.

But it’s the evening that tops it all. All make up. All high end clothing. All high end footwear. Everything that is created to make a woman look beautiful. To top it all, a perfume, that acts as a pheromone driving the guys crazy. It is the time when guys like Harshad and Piyush are struck in the heart. And motorbikes pass innumerably on the road before her room. It’s the time, when the middle-class girl from Mumbai becomes a Cinderella. And Princes contest to have a single glimpse of her. Nobody had ever turned their head when she used to pass by when she was graduating with me. Even I had to hang around, owing to my set up with Sonia. Maybe she had discovered her beauty at this place or she had improved with time. But for me, she has always been the old Shamita. The mediator with unexpressed sensuality. I stand before the gate of the house.

It’s breakfast time. I am expecting the usual wet marvel. It’s the everyday breakfast together and then going for lectures. The lectures part I avoid. And I am successful in holding her back from doing so, at times. These are the times when she doesn’t want to attend the lecture. It’s her decision and not my skill. At these times she doesn’t even want to be around the campus. We have many places to go in such situations, places which I had explored last evening or last night. Other times, she resists the temptation and attends lectures. At these times, I get back to my regular pastime like hanging around somewhere in the campus.

I had called her up around three minutes ago, and Preeti, her roommate had appeared on the terrace to deliver the message that the princess will be descending from the castle in five minutes. I have to wait two more minutes for her now. But that is just a theoretical statement. The truth is she can come down in any lapse of time ranging from two minutes to half an hour. And all I can do is wait. Another phone call can be made, but holds the eternal risk of you being signed off as impatient.

I am prepared for the delay. The repressed have no voice. They only can resent.

I pick up a Champak flower fallen beneath the small tree in that bungalow’s courtyard. The tree had grown enough to shower its flowers across the compound netting. That is a thing I like about trees. Thy grow with their own mind and decide it on their own, if the flowers or fruits have to be given to the owner of his neighbours. It is one of the simpler ways nature can slap human faces.
The flowers are so pretty that I cannot resist picking one up. I smell it. The fragrance is enticing. It has been an unknowing habit by now to give the flower I pick up, to Shamita.

I stand looking at the flower. I know she would take time. And suddenly I see her coming. I stay stunned. Not just because she is early. Also because she isn’t in her breakfast look at this breakfast hour. It’s her early morning disarray. Unkempt top and creased shorts.She comes to the gate and smiles forcibly. I find it odd. This is unusual. Not as unusual. It does occur. But whenever it does, it does mean there is something that has gone wrong.

“Good Morning!” I greet her with the flower.
“Good Morning!” She smiles sadly looking at the flower. I get the usual partial bear hug in return.
“What happened?...u haven’t taken a bath?” her Victoria’s Secret on the shoulder catches my eye. I try hard to get my eye off it.
“No yaar!”
“Why?”
“Don’t feel like re!” She ties up her hair. The waist chain glitters with the belly. Another Victoria’s secret peeps out. My heart begins racing. I turn my eyes away.
“Breakfast?”
“Nope” She pulls her top to cover her belly. That stretches her top over her attributes. Another lovely moment.
“Don’t feel like that too…”
“What happened re?” I ask with a false concern. But there is an evident disturbance on her face.
“Nothing.”
“Tell me yaar…come on….something has happened…It’s on your face…You can’t hide it from me…” I can be aptly phony when it comes to women. Or maybe I am truly concerned about them and I don’t recognize it.

She just nods.

“Come on…tell me…” I place my hands on her head.She suddenly hugs me and starts crying.

1.g

2009-05-19T12:02:00.000-07:00

“Shamita”

He ha ha ha ha. I feel like laughing out loud. LOL in chat terminology. I was unable to hold the spurt of laughter gushing out. I held it back with great efforts. If it hadn’t been for Piyush, I would’ve laughed badly. On his face. Melodramatic mess saala. What a joke. Two great individuals falling in love with a same woman. Holy cow!

We stand at a point, which has been visited upon by numerous Hindi films. A plot so old, yet so popular. A love triangle. An poignant situation where romance meets geometry. I always wondered which type of triangle is a love triangle. Acute? Isosceles? Or a right angled triangle? Can Pythagoras theorem be applied on the love triangle. Which is the adjacent side? And which is the hypotenuse? Do the theorems of triangular similarity apply on them? Or can they be trigonometrically evaluated? Are there any theorems that are related to these triangles. Maybe those would solve them for better.

Like this new triangle that was being constructed before me. There was a straight line. A line that connected Harshad and Piyush. And a point emerged at a certain distance near this line. Or was it always there, but realized later? But the point doess intrude in the private space of the line. And lines were drawn. From the two ends namely Harshad and Piyush to this point. The triangle formed. In geometry, a triangle always binds the three points together. It’s because pencil lines lack feelings. They are just lead scratches on a paper. When the triangle comes to life here, it feels. And that’s where it starts differing from geometry. In a human triangle, the third point divides the line joining the first two points. No perpendiculars and no bisectors. Just presence. And no geometric law has been able to solve this dissection. I wish Pythagoras had given this a thought.

The line between any two of them was going to be dissected soon. That’s the law. My law of human geometry.

“What happened?...why are you quiet?...she is a good girl na?” Piyush seemed worried by my contemplative silence.

“Yes…of course dude!” I replied. “No doubts about that!”

“Then??....is there any problem…..I mean I am asking you because you are closest to her….Tell me if there is any problem….I will solve it! ”

“No problem man!”

“Do you like her?” He speaks it out directly like a naïve soul. I like it more than the path Harshad had chosen to get the same information.

“No man!” What I have is just lust. You love her. You have more right to approach further.

“Then…?”

“Isn’t she a bit different from the girls of your choice?” Yes he had a choice. He came from rural India. And like the rural youth, he was always taken aback by the amount of freedom enjoyed by the urban women. They are attracted to them. They want to spend nights with them. They want to peep into their cleavages. The want to stare at their thighs. They want to possess them and get laid for a million times with them. But they only want a homely female as a wife and as a lover. Reason is simple. They cannot trust urban women. A judgment arrived at, looking at the way the urban girls dress up. Piyush was one such epitome of hypocrisy. He had always maintained on sleeping with urban girls, whom he was unsuccessful in wooing even a single one till date, and marrying a rural girl, of whom he was assured about morality, clean character and preserved virginity. But I knew he would hook one. He was rich. And that says it all. But I never thought that something of this sort would ever occur. He had fallen in love with a girl he would otherwise not trust, by his measurements of character evaluation

Yes….but she is different….I know….my heart says so!” He replies.

What Ghanta different! Just say you have gone head over heels over her and have secretly kept aside your hypothetical ideals beneath your mattress. Bloody hypocrite

And if she isn’t?” I ask him generally, “I mean…I am asking you generally!”
“Then I will get her straight!”

Yes. Like million boyfriends in this country who hit their girlfriends when they seem to loose an argument with them. Like all those lovers who forcibly get their girlfriends to bed. Like all those macho men who restrict their girls from socializing after they get into a relationship with them. Like all those embodiments of masculinity who verbally abuse the queens of their heart with choicest of abuses about their character. And she, like all those girls, who gullibly swallow up all this, will bear it all, if she falls in love with you. Like all girls who undergo this wordlessly, for god knows what reason, maybe for the sake of love, she too would endure it all and succumb to you. In that case, you would be damn lucky.

“Yeah….right!” I said.
“So….what do you think?....should I go ahead with it?”
“What does your heart say?” I thank the great Bollywood line churners for this.
“That I should”
“Then you should!!”
“Thanks man!” He hugs me tight.

Out of helplessness, I hug him too. I realize, it is not he who is hugging me. It’s a trouble to follow that’s wrapping me in its arms. He almost cries as he hugs me.

That night he is in a different high altogether. Everybody comes home. We drink, smoke and chat. But he doesn’t tell anybody about his new found love. He is the usual chatter dick. I feel privileged to be a part of his secret. I feel filled up with his respect. I feel like hugging him now. But as the honor fills into me, also does a fear clouds my mind. What if I am not able to keep his faith in me alive? What if I break the delicate toy of trust he has placed in my hands. I smoke more. And so do I drink!

(Contd.)

1.f

2009-05-18T12:08:00.000-07:00

“How do you feel?” He asks me.

Absolutely fine! What else would I feel? You have fallen in love. People falling in love take themselves in high regards. I’ve seen quite a few of them. They tend to ask such questions. Even worse at times. ‘How do you feel?’ was a lot better one. It at least considers your position. The questioner deserves gratitude.

“It’s great!....finally you have found your soulmate!” Courtesy Harshad! for that elegant word.

“Yes….I think she is my real Jeevan Saathi….god sent!....just for me….our knot has been tied in heaven…trust me!”

Confidence is the greatest possession of strong men. Strong men like Piyush. They even know what God has in mind for them. It’s divine to know such truth. I wish I possessed even a quarter of that magnificent power. The power to recognize the aptness of every occurring in your life. That too, when you only know only a single facet of its occurrence. I respect such enlightened existences.

Out of the respect, I smile broadly and nod. I also wink in addition, to make it look more genuine.

He takes it as a smile of acceptance. He speaks further.

“What?....will just keep smiling or will you ask the name too?”Yes I will ask the name. And I will also pretend to be happy to know it. Also will I congratulate you on your great choice and then feel concerned about your families. I have a plan of action ready. And I have just practiced it to perfection. You don’t know. There was one before you with the same declaration.

“What’s the name??.....Tell me quickly….I am dying to know!!” A class act. Some things need no rehearsals.

He blushes. I feel llike saying “Wow! You look so cute when you blush!”. But I avoid doing it. That would put me to the risk of being his next crush. Maybe his Jeevan Saathi too. I didn’t want to be in that situation. Yet I couldn’t avoid commenting on his blush rush.

“”Oh man!...you are blushing like a girl!!...” No girl blushes this way. Also, girls don’t blush this way. That is quite a chauvinist idiom. Like many other of them. Using it could land me in problem with girls, which I didn’t want. So I usually avoided using it, to prevent myself from hurting delicate feelings of delicate hearts in those delicate beings. But as I said, I had to comment on it. It was too compulsive an urge to restrict. “What to do…It’s happening for the first time…” He replies blushing even more.

First time? Was he falling in love for the first time. This twenty six years old bullock was falling in love for the first time? What was the problem? Didn’t he have balls or did his hormones start functioning on this very auspicious day.

“Really?...That’s nice…so tell me…what’s her name?”

He says it in a tone even he himself wouldn't have heard. And he blushes again.

“Arey……louder…a bit louder….I dint hear you” As I said, he stamped his foot on the floor like a girl.

Then wearing an XXL sized smile he said in a slightly higher pitch….

(Contd.)

1.e

2009-05-14T12:58:00.000-07:00

I buy a cigarette from the Panwallah below the Gulnohur tree. It’s his closing time. His dingy shop winds up under the swift moments of his hands in a light of a dim kerosene lamp. He smiles to me in the kerosene light as he hands me over the cigarette. The smile theory works again. I give him a drunken smile in return. He laughs.

It is usually a ritual at his shop to light the cigarette in your own. To pick up one of the thin white strips of the card paper, carefully descend it in the chimney lamp. Pull out the strip carefully and light your cigarette up before the strip turns into ash. A dark black line, difficult to stay firm in d wind. I try to look out for the strips. He bends over his one foot counter and lights me a match. This is how the smiles repay you. I light my cigarette on the small flame at the tip of a small stick, protected by his cupped hands. I smile again. He smiles back in acknowledgement. Not a word spoken between tow of us during this. Yet, like a jet stream flow the words amongst us.
I start walking up the hill again. Slowly smoking my cigarette. Walking against the mild breeze that runs down the hillock. The smoke I blow out, runs along with the wind. And the moonlight, like concierge, keeps an eye over them. Monitoring their slow progression down one hill. And up the other. The wind and the smoke go hand in hand.

I keep walking ahead. The cigarette to keep me company, in this lonely, sleepy town.

I take the turn towards my room. A pregnant woman sits on the public bench with her husband. They are having an ice-cream. A cheap one. Mewad. I pass by them. They don’t look at me. They are engrossed in the world of their own. They remind me of Mom and dad. My Mom always said that she used to have a lot of ice creams when I was in her womb. My mom and dad would’ve looked just like them while having an ice cream. And a smoker must‘ve passed by them when they were doing so. But they probably wouldn’t have noticed him. Not probably. For sure they mustn’t have. These two didn’t notice me. Maybe when their child grows to be of my age, he too will pass a couple having an ice-cream. And they won’t notice him. And the cycle would go on.

I come to my room. I climb the rusted iron stairs and stand before the main door. I knock it. Piyush opens it. I smile to my luck. The ever enthusiastic fucker. Enthusiastic to the extent of opening the door before anybody else would even move from their seats.

“Welcome my friend…..welcome!” He welcomes me with open arms. He puts his arms around my shoulder and takes me into the passage.

I wish someone or the else comes to disengage his hand from my shoulder and talk more than the types of majestic greetings Piyush delivers. But no one comes forth. I doubt if there is someone to do that. I pass by Samrat’s room. It’s closed. I sense the danger. We reach our room. It’s empty. Within the resonance of my mind, I yell out…..Maa ki aankh!!

“Where are the rest?” I ask.

“They are gone to live their lives….” The royal arse replies.

What a pity! People go out and live their lives. And they leave poor Piyush back to sulk alone.

And he is left all for me. To fill his bullshit into my ears. I need more ear buds. Cleaning it off my ears stays a task at the end of the day.

“….and so did you!...but you returned before them…” he continues.Yes I did return my friend. To listen to you.

“I was with Harshad…..he had some problem…” I try to explain. I know it would be in vain. Yet I try.

“Did I ask??....I am just happy that you returned.”

I smile.

“What happened?” I ask with a face of a seer. To guess that something has happened from the way he is talking, doesn’t require you to be a seer. But this does shock him.

“How did you know that something happened…”

“I can understand dude!”

“You are the only one who understands.” He hugs me.

I hold him by his hands and slowly move him away from me, careful enough to not hurt his delicate inner self.

“Now tell me…..what happened?” I am not so eager to know. But the venom has to be spilled. Or he will keep spitting it on us every now and then. And I am sure the magnitude of his distress could range from ‘nobody dried his rinsed underwear’ to ‘Someone shot a cow in Iraq’. His has a problem. And it is that he has problems. And the problem further complicates when nobody understands him. Except one human being. Me!

“There is a problem”, he says.

I had guessed that already.

“What problem?” I ask.

“See…” I hate it when he says this. See. It spoils the entire tempo of emotion that he and the listener are being flown in. After an emotionally charged preface, comes a word which pulls the entire effect to a mere ‘matter of fact’. Like a women speaking about importance of contraception after a wild sexual encounter. See. Yes I am seeing you. Speak further. He would. I knew that he would. And he did. “…..I am disclosing this only before you…because only you understand me….”

I nod in acceptance and acknowledgement. Gandu!

“…I don’t want anybody else to know about it….”I move my head sideways this time. Indicating, ‘Trust me mate! Nobody would!’.

“….I….have a problem….”

One more time, and it would be a hat trick.

“…..and it is that…..I am in love!”

Goodness gracious me! One more time. One more moron.

Unbelievable! I couldn’t believe myself. What was I hearing? Another son of a bitch had fallen in love. And guess what?!...Who is the most eligible man who could be trusted with this information? Me! Of all their friends…Me! Of all their friends in the world….Me! I am the trusted. The loyalist. The man who could understand. The worldly wise. I am the ultimate human for all the people in love could come and entrust their secret with. Damn them!

(Contd.)

1.d

2009-05-13T12:38:00.000-07:00

“Shamita!!!”
I am shocked. But I don’t show it. Or maybe I am not that shocked that I should display it. The reaction just doesn’t come the way it should. I say something lame enough for him to believe.

“Wow!!....great choice man!!!” that’s it. I said it. And the fuck!...he believed in it.

“Isn’t she beautiful??”
That is called love. It makes you blind. Blind enough to oversee the obvious.

I just nod. I can’t comment beyond that. She isn’t beautiful. She is just provocative. She is sensuous. She is seductive. But by no ways is she beautiful.

“She is the most beautiful girl in the world”, He says next. Fucker is too clichéd. Can’t even come up with an original line. Unable to comprehend his seemingly undying love for her I ask.

“How did this happen?”

“Even I don’t know…”

Wow!!!

“And around when???” I am the unstoppable questioner. I at times wonder at my ability to gather enough eagerness to welcome boredom in the worst patches of boredom of my life.

“The first day when she entered the class….she was with you….but I knew then itself…You were not her boyfriend!!...”

This man before me is a psychic. He rightly knows things. Should I inquire about the gender of my unconcieved offspring at this moment? Will he tell me if it’s a he or she???

No I wasn’t her boyfriend. She just graduated with me. Was in the same class as mine. And was a part of my friends pool. But No. She wasn’t my girlfriend. Nor was I her boyfriend. It was a sheer fact that we ended up being admitted into a same college for post grad. That’s it. It all ends here. Although I tried a bit to get her admitted into the same college as mine. And had always felt a pull towards her within the darkest corners of my heart and lower corners of my body. I had my plans for sure. But no. We weren’t a pair. And very unlikely to be one.

Also a secret bit of information which I have tried to conceal within the same dark corners of my heart. She was the closest friend of a girl whom I had chased in vain for four years of my life. And she was well aware of the fact. Those four years are a long story. And this is not the time for it.

“How did you know that???” I asked. Of course I was curious.
“Body language…”
No not a psychic…he’s beyond that. The art of understanding body language. He knew it all.

Harshad was the pet name for those enlightened with the knowledge of all knowledges. Understanding body language.

“I looked at her face for the first time and kept looking at her” He continued.

That’s the reason I could never fall in love with her. I never looked at her face. I kept looking at her other attributes instead. They were equally interesting. In fact more, with the fact that they popped out most of the time from her garments.

“And it was then…that I knew….that it was her!!!....my soulmate!!!” Back to Harshad, “…My true love”.

Soulmate. Enough of this bullshit. I can’t take it anymore. But a free beer! It’s all worth it!
And it’s not exactly bullshit. It has an element of amusement to it. If I hadn’t been bored enough, I would’ve laughed. Laughed loudly. Laughed my heart out! Ha ha ha ha ha! But I am too bored to do it. Out of it, I look at my glass. It’s half empty. By laws of psycho-physics it also means that I had gulped down half of it. Or more than half. By laws of pessimism, my glass is half empty. By laws of optimism, my glass is half filled. In any damn case, I need a refill. I pour the rest of the beer left in the bottle into my glass. The sight of the small guzzling bubbles in the golden entity soothe me. I stare at them for some time. They emit a sense of calmness through their upward motion. A small hollow sphere, leaving from a convex floor and rocketing towards the surface. It completes its journey in a fraction of a second. And yet it attains the completeness by bursting on touching the surface and disappearing completely. Like an instantly achieved Nirvana.

Harshad finds me lost into the beer glass. He wakes me up.

“Kya hua??....are you sad?” He smartly inquires.

Are you concerned? Or are you taking a guess? Chutiya!!

“No re…I am a bit worried” I am the master of impromptu answers.

“About what?” And now he is!

“If it will be fine with your families….” No! I don’t deserve a praise for this made up reason. As long as one is falling in love in India, this is a question that one does have to worry about. You can consider it an obvious statement. Yet, it did help me in covering up my transcendental state.

“I’ll manage everything man!!....It’s my love for her that will overcome all obstacles!”

Who teaches him this stuff. Where does he learn it from. Is this his own creation or is there an immovable influence behind these words flowing out of his oral cavity. I am learning so much in his company.

“I salute you my friend….you are a real hero!...fortune favours the brave!....and it shall favour you” I am no less!

“Thanks so much man!!”

“My honour…..another beer?”

“Yeah….why not!!.....only the brave drink till they drop”

Fuck you! Are you going to drop? Damn you!

“Even if you do….I will carry you home!” Ignore the upper line. This is what I say.

“Real friend you are!!”

“Yes!!”

“then I ask one more thing from you as a real friend ….”

Such a bugger! I wished to god, if he exists that is, that he should go dumb before he utters another word and lets me drink in peace. But I thoroughly doubt God’s existence.

He goes on, “….I want you to keep this as a secret to yourself….and not tell anybody else!!”

“I promise” I wish I had some real close friends here. I would’ve loved to tell them. But I don’t have any of them here. And so, this remains a secret.

He utters similar bullshit throughout the evening as we drink. Yet I selectively hear him and enjoy my drink. We get amply high. We drink four bottles of beer each. And we leave the place. Drunk. And determined to reach our respective rooms walking.

I take his leave at the chowk. I walk my way uphill to my room. It will not be MY room now. This is the infestation period. And it will be infested by Piyush and Dilip. And the adjoining room by Samrat. The dumbarse senior, whose roommate is into a live-in with his girlfriend and only shares the room with Samrat when her laundry fills her room up. I wish Anshul reaches there before me. Or it will be dificult to bear Piyush alone.

(Contd.)

1.c

2008-07-16T11:46:00.000-07:00

1.c
He isn’t on his motorbike. That is disappointing. I am not getting a drop to my room. I’ll have to go back walking. He sucks today!!!

He comes walking enthusiastically towards me. His stride speaks for him. I look at his face for further elucidation. It has a weird mix of emotions. He is blushes stressfully and looks disoriented. Like chameleons behave when you feed them with tobacco. That is what I am exactly feeling looking at him. He has been intoxicated and he doesn’t know what it is. Maybe he is hallucinating and seeing life size Disney characters around him killing people and eating their guts. Or like he’s just seen superman squatting down and peeing at the edge of the road.

He stands before. I strain my nostrils to sniff the intoxication. I don’t smell any. He smiles awkwardly. Maybe he has just discovered his homosexual side and is about to court me to bed. I move a step back.
“Where’s d bike???”
“Didn’t get it…”
“Why??” I am astonished. He isn’t usually without it. I am also annoyed. But I don’t express it. It’s beer after all.
“We are going to get dead drunk today!!”
“And how will we go to the room??”
“Walking”
“Okay”. He was going to walk after he was drunk. He gives excellent bullshit at times. I am worried about post drinking session situation.
“Toh….what do we do now…..kidhar jaate hai???”
“Kidhar bhi…….that is not important” Then what is??? My inner voice asks him. I hate it when someone answers important questions like these with indecision. Where will we drink? Wherever…..This is no answer. Lets sit in the loo and sip beer. Wherever…

Concrete answers please!!!

“Chingari???”
“Okay…chalo…”

We leave. Once in a lifetime moment. Walking to the bar.

We enter Chingara. He doesn’t speak a word on the way own his own accord. I tried starting a topic to talk with him thrice. He ended those in two sentences. His answers had an irate depressiveness in them. I controlled my fury for beer.

Since it is early, we have options. We choose terrace drinking to enclosed drinking. Drinking in open air. We take a seat near to the highway. I have a liking for ambience. I feel it is always important. The Ambience. Harshad has liking only for alcohol. He does not have any other likings as such.

“I’ve developed a liking….for a girl” Harshad says sipping his beer “for a girl”.

I gulp down my beer.

“Did you hear me???”He asked me. Goaded for sure.
“Yeah”
“What did I say??”
“That you have developed a liking….for a girl”
“And….”
“And what???” I fear I’ve missed something.
“And what is your reaction?”
“I am happy for you dude”. How the fuck was I supposed to react? Dance? Hug him? Kiss him? Congratulate him??? Congratulations!! You are the first mortal who has developed a liking. History will never forget you. Rascal!!
“And won’t you ask who the girl is??”

No!!! No!!! No!!!

“Who is she???” That 'to be Savitri'. I ask lazily.
“Guess..”
“Queen Elizabeth!!!”I take a guess to myself. Its not spoken out to create a chaos.
“Guess…guess..”
“Sorry man…can’t do it…who is she???”

He blurts out her name.
(Contd.)

1.b

2008-07-15T10:43:00.000-07:00

I walk down the way to the Chowk. I stop at the ‘Rajesh Pan Beedi’, pick up a cigarette, light it with the end of a burning rope hung there, playing a ‘lighter’. I smile at Rajesh when he pushes the left over change towards. He smiles at me back.

“Chai??”
I refuse with a nod. He smiles again. I continue with my tread.

This is a long stretch of road. From our room to the Chowk. A slope. We have to descend it around a thousand times in a day. Thos who have motorbikes, don’t count the number of times. Those who walk, like me, do it. A thousand times, when we do.

I feel terribly bored as I walk down this road. So I usually take a pillion ride with someone who has a motorbike. But there is no one today to take me.

I walk lazy steps. There is nothing to catch my view on either sides of the road. Some grocery shops. Two sweet mart-cum-snack bars. People flocked there. I blew smoke. I see the visual signs of Chowk approaching. Fruit Sellers, Fruit Juice stalls. Tea stalls. Pan Beedi Shops. Vada Pav. These shops. Those shops. Shops. Shops. Shops.

I wave to the poster seller, sitting with posters spread on road. He waves back. He knows me, since I regularly buy posters fro him. He sells posters of almost every imaginable entity on the planet. Someday I think, he’ll also sell a poster of my Dad. Then Mr. Karambelkar. Whomsoever he is. There will be his poster too. I throw a quick look at them. There is famous Indian female tennis player’s print there. I stare at it for a moment. I can’t get my eyes off the thighs. Those are gorgeous. Enormous. Marble white. They carry a solace in them. They extract the weariness out of the exhausted bodies that walk past them. Their whiteness flashes before the eyes. It reaches deep within and enlightens the darkness inside. No. There is no moment in the pubis. There is a coolness that soothes the soul. Those souls burning in heaven seek it. For it is their only respite. I walk past.

They all know me. All the hawkers. I have communicated wit each of them at least once in these six months. And waved to them or smiled at them later. Just like that. If or if not I am going to buy anything. I do smile at them. Who does? Who smiles at them? I have no answer. So I create one myself.

I look around just for the sake of it. No sign of Harshad around. I knew he wouldn’t be there. If he would’ve waited, I wouldn’t be there. That is a sort of rule of nature between us. It’s meant to change. Maybe it is the rule of the world. Amongst two people meeting, one always has to wait. That could be a law. A law by my name. Like Murphy’s Law.

I stand near the newspaper stand. I usually stand here when I am waiting for someone. Even for a bus. This place never bores you. If reading doesn’t bore you of course. I stand there reading headlines. But the there’s another interesting thing to gaze at. The Hindi film tabloid. It’s got

pictures of actors on the cover in a proper four frame. And in each frame, there is a thought bubble where statements of those actors are written. Something like Preity Zinta in her bubble says “Mujhe filhal kisise pyar nahi hai”..”Lately…I am not in love with anyone..” And likewise…
I am done reading their thought bubble revealing their inner secrets in a single line. Harshad hadn’t yet arrived. I bought another cigarette and began smoking it. I didn’t want to. But I had to deal with stagnancy closing in. I am going to die soon smoking. With cancer. Lung cancer. And I am going to hold Harshad and such bastards responsible for it. I am writing a letter after I return back to my room holding them responsible for my death.

Respectable Sir,
To whomsoever investigating my death. I am suffering from lung cancer due to excessive smoking. And I heold my friends responsible for it. Either by boring me or by making me wait for hours. In case of my death, see to it that they are bored to death by law or are made to wait till they drop dead.
Thanking You
Yours faithfully
“I”

I see Harshad. Fuck him!!!

Chapter ! - 1.a

2008-07-15T09:14:00.001-07:00

1.a
I was sleeping in the room. Siesta, like the Italians call it. A long nap in the afternoon. After lunch. There’s nobody in the room. Everybody has something to do. Even I have. If nothing, I have to attend the lectures. But I don’t want to. I never do it these days. It bores me to the core. Everything bores me here. No big deal. Piyush is attending it. It’s good that he is. I don’t want him at the room at this moment. He speaks like shit. He keeps speaking. Then he gets emotional and then he starts burrowing into my brain. He can’t be dealt with alone. He is wisely conversed with in public. Wherein you can distract yourself from his overflowing emotions by indulging into a conversation with someone else and divert him to some other self. World seems a beautiful place without him. At least I can sleep. At least. But I am not able to. I am trying hard to lying on the mattress. But I am not able to.

I begin thinking. I know this will work. I wasn’t sleeping because I had nothing to think of. Only depressing shit. Like future and all. Not worth. But they still intrude my state of well being. I’ve just set them aside. I am thinking about aliens. Worth it. Aliens. If they exist. Do they exist? Why can’t they? They must be. We can’t be alone. And space is seamless. I remember somebody saying space is big. It can’t be big. Something is big or small if it has seams. Seams decide a shape. Shape define size. Space doesn’t have a size. It is not big. It is just seamless. Just like that. This thought depressed me as a kid. It still does. It burdens up on me. It presses me beneath it. I feel blank. I feel helpless. The feeling of endlessness fills up in me making me heavy. I feel weighed down. Darkness fills in. My body loosens up then. Strain oozes out of the threads holding my body together. I feel like a puppet that has lost the ties with fingers that command him. I am slowly dissolving into the darkness before me. My thoughts float away from me. Head that held them starts softening up and the creases are soaked in darkness to flatten up. I hear nothing now. Doors of my ears have closed like those large doors of palaces. Slowly with no one in the vision to operate them. Seeming like a miracle. Out of sheer misconception. I start floating. I am transported to a lighter space. Every inch of me is in a repose.

Just then the mobile phone rings. Fucking phone. Fucking shit. Bhenchod!!! Maa ka bhosda!!!
I open my glued eyes with extreme efforts. I abuse the caller more. A thought of it being my father makes me control it. Irritated me picks up the phone. Irritated me looks at the screen. Irritated me sees a name. Irritated me says ‘Madarchod’! Irritated me answers the call.
“Bol”
“Are you free now??”
“No…why”
“Where are you??”
“Nowhere..”
“Fucker its serious…”
“speak”
“Can you meet me??”
“Yaaaaawwwwwnnnnnn”
“Beer”
“Where??”
“Come to the chowk”
“Okay….wait there…..I am coming”
Harshad on phone. Doesn’t bore that much. Just that his humor is sick. Not sick exactly. It’s filthy. It gets stuck in the urinary tract and fecal matters. It smelled. No, It stunk. It was a proof of his lame imaginative.

I toss aside my bedsheet. Sit lazily on the mattress. I am too pissed off to walk over to the Chowk. But the word is beer. And it is Harshad. Generosity supported by the mess of law and order. Baap Ka Maal. My Dad bribes policemen. His Dad is also bribed by several such Dad’s. He gives a part of it to Harshad to get a degree. He gives a part of it to me for friendship, company, suggestion, guidance and all such shit. But this helps me build a gratitude towards society. Because , it gives me a feeling of being fed by all these Dads along with my Dad. Harshad said beer. When he says that means he is going to crash drinking. We will go!!!

Also when he says beer, either he too is sad or he is too delighted. We have to see what it is.
We stand up. Pull up a jeans. A t-shirt. Fuck I need to wash it. Fuck who cares. Waiter’s not gonna sniff my arm pits. Harshad may. But he’d be drunk.

We leave.

A Thought...

2008-07-15T09:07:00.000-07:00

I hate this place. I have been living here for more than an year now. And I tell you…This place sucks!! I call it the arse-hole of the world. A place closest to shit. But not shit. Just close to it. Arse- hole.