5. b

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

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

I take a long puff.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


(Contd.)

Chapter %

5. a


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

And the televiser begins.

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

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

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

“Why?” the old blind king interrupts.

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

“Both?” wonders the old blind king.

“The enemies especially…” the televiser clarifies.

***

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Yes…let’s do it!”

***

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

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



(Contd.)

4. e

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I turned to Samrat.

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

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

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

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

***

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

I smiled.

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

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

I hugged her tight.

***

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

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

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

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

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

Lost.


(Contd.)

4. d

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

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

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

I saw only one option before me.

***

“Kitna?” I asked her.

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

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

“Kuchh kamti nahi hoga?”

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

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

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

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

The trick can be played from the other end too.

“Theek hai.” I accept.

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

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

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

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

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

She stood before me.

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

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

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

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

“Haan…chaalu karo!”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

'Difference'

(Contd.)

4.c

I kiss her into her bedroom.

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

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

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

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

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

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

A stand before her looking into her eyes.

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

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

***

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The word suddenly rang hard in my ears.

Heartbreak!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

(Contd.)

4. b

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

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

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

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

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

Flashback:

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

She owned the road. And the hills aligning them.

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

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

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

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

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

Apu took the cigarette from my hand.

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

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

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

Flash Forward:

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

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

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

I still wonder how Apu could go so abruptly.


(Contd.)

Chapter $

4.a

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

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

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

“Bye Ani”

“Bye Apu”

“……Love you!”

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

“Bye”

“Byeee”

“T’ta”

“T’ta”

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

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

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

***

Structure of a Perfect Last Meet:

Block 1:

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

Block 2:

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

Block 3:

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

Block 4:

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

Block 5:

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

Block 6:

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

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

Block 7:

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

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

Block 8:

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

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

Block 9:

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

Block 10:

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

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

Block 11:

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

Block 12:

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

Block 13:

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

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

Block 14:

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

I push my way through the crowd.

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

Block 15:

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

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

Just like that.

(Contd.)