கோவில் கதவில் தாட்பாள்-
இறைவனை உள்ளே அடைத்துவிட்டு
நிம்மதியாய் தவறுகள் செய்வதற்கு.
-------------
இறந்த காலத்தின் இனிய ஞாபகங்கள் பொங்கின -
வெள்ளை சீருடையின் செம்மண் கரை கண்டு .
........
என்றோ திருடிய அவளின் கைக்குட்டை
இன்று நனைகிறது - என் கண்களில் வழியும்
துளிகளில்.
........
காதலின் உச்சகட்டம் -
என்றும் எட்டாத கரையை
ஓயாமல் தழுவ துடிக்கும் அலைகள்
[கொஞ்சம் trite கவிதை :)]
........
வாழ்கை வண்ணங்கள் அனைத்தும் துடைக்கும்
வண்ணமில்லா வெள்ளை -
கைம்பெண்ணின் வெள்ளை புடவை.
........
சித்திரை வெய்யிலில் அடைமழை -
சிணுங்கிய கைபேசியில் உன் காதல் கவிதை தாங்கி வந்த குறு மடல்.
........
அமாவாசை - நிலவின் த்ரோகம் - என்றும் உன் வானில் நான் இருப்பின் என்ற சத்தியத்தை மீறியதால்.

And so I built the castle in the air,
They say it's foolish, still in this I've got a flair.
Strong, wide gates, pillars of marble,
walls of glass and a giant, ornate gable.

Grace and beauty confluenced to form the colonnade,
Dreams I had, of walking the cloister, sipping a cup of lemonade.
Dozens of Murals I painted along the wall,
Alas! Imagination fueled with passion is hard to stall!

By the time I was done molding the cornice,
My heart swelled in pride and self-praise.
I had built the most beautiful of castles,
Right there, flexing each of my tired body's muscles.

But is life ever free of hassles?
There was rain and all it did first was to make the castle dazzle.
But soon it became a storm and oh my heart started to race,
Right there, the bricks started falling off with rapid pace.

And so, the palace, the one of my dreams, broke.
Silenced by the fate, my heart never again spoke.
Oh Why, Dear God! I yelled out to Him, but it came out as a mere croak.
But then He always is hiding beneath some invisibility cloak!

I still think back of the castle as it was,
as it should have been, as it didn't turn out to be.
I often wonder, and at times, I pause,
to think if it is with everyone or it was just me.
P.S.: Any poem should be interpreted and never explained. I am not going to do that. but I wonder if each of us are haunted by the ghost of one of the castles we had dreamt of. :) Do comment even if it was bad -Arjun

Oh friend, I do miss you bad,
your end, that was pretty sad.
Panting and sweating, you breathed your last.
Thanking God, perhaps, for the pain ended fast.

When the flies were done with your moribund face,
I began digging your grave, your dead scent giving me a slight grimace.
As I lowered you into the pit,
your pale lips seemed to smile a bit.

Red anger, black pain or pink joy or macabre blues,
what made you smile that smile, oh my! my head started spinning loose.
For a brief instant my mind mused about the hangman's noose,
But the deed I did seemed too just, bringing my heart a final truce.

And so I buried you in a land hallowed,
And with your farewell, my life got hollowed.
Over the wet mud, I placed a single rose,
I hope its fragrance seeped through and reached your dead nose.

I often think of the times we shared,
Oh my! to you, my soul I had bared.
But yet, you chose to betray my faith that was blind,
and tried to back stab me for some petty gain of the monetary kind.

And so, that day, I brought down the hammer on your skull,
and oh, I admired the blood gushing down your face, dark and dull.
Don't dare break the sacred bonds of friendship next time around,
If at all you get another chance, another birth on this holy ground.

2
Paarthi was giggling, with his mad eyes dancing and watering with mad pleasure. His head shook uncontrollably with each giggle as he watched Palani get severely rebuked for her 'misbehavior'. For some unknown reason, the supervisor never hit her. But getting the barrage of verbal abuse, watching his red eyes seething in their dark sockets, getting a shower of the occasional spit that flew when he spoke was surely not much pleasant either. She had been talking to Sorna, one of the other girls in the 'chemical dough' section, during work time. The supervisor moved to Sorna. She was the girl with the big head. Yes, her head was about half the size of her body. The supervisor aimed a blow to her face and she flinched back in reflex parrying the blow.
"What? You trying to be smart? Take your punishment like a grown woman. Your head itself is the size of five grown women and men put together!"
He aimed a full blow and brought it down close to her cheeks without hitting. She twitched a little out of reflex. Watching it from behind the supervisor, Paarthi let out a loud giggle. His eyes were tearing badly, with streams of warm drops flowing down to his chin.
"You still trying to escape? You are so childish. You know that only worsens the punishment!"
Her large head was trembling in anticipation and the supervisor watched it in amazement. Two careless drops, slid down from her large eyes, mixing with the sweat that was welling up all over her face. The supervisor slapped her hard, across the face, leaving the mark of four of his fingers on her rough face.
"You think you all are some big officers? Meeting each other and talking during work hours? How dare you! Next time I see any of you talking, I will slip a cracker into your bloody mouths."
Paarthi was almost ecstatic and walked slowly to his place, with a triumphant smile.
I thought it was stupid of them to have laughed out when Paarthi was around. Smiling itself was considered an offense. Laughing was a deadly sin and they got punished by the demonish God, God of the factory, the 'teacher'.
As soon as the supervisor left, all eyes were focused on Paarthi. He did not look up and kept giggling as if remembering some joke he had dreamed about. He was the supervisor's boot licker who would report any offense minor or major that the kids were up to. Everyone cursed him badly in his absence, but would not dare to talk to him about it. He solicited his share of favoritism from the supervisor and usually got a better meal and breaks in between work. But all of us knew that he primarily did it for the pleasure he got from seeing someone get scolded, watching them getting whanked, seeing them wail aloud in pain. Maybe it gave him a sense of importance and power and potency to be able to bring about so much pain to a person. He felt as if he had the wand, the magic wand that could bring about pain to anyone he chose. Inside the depressing walls of the factory, most of us clung to one or the other fantasy, imagined world to maintain sanity. Maybe this feeling of importance was his medicine to survive in there. It doesn't justify things he did, nothing would. But during those silent moments, deep inside, I can understand and even sympathize with his sadistic urges. Perhaps, the 'factory' does more damage to the mind and the heart than to our malnourished bodies.

Sorna sat down in the corner, lips trembling with the fear, pain and she felt the part of her mind which had still not hardened to insensitivity suffer from humiliation and shame. She remembered her mother explaining to her with a warm kiss that she had a big head because she had more brains than others. Her mother had rebuked the doctor in the GH, who had suggested it was hydrocephalus or 'excess water in the brain', calling him just another dumb government doctor. Her mother was a tailor and half the women in the village wore blouses she stitched. She had shown her daughter her calloused hand as an evidence, swollen with long hours of cutting and sewing fabric.
"See. I spend lot of time working with my hand and so they're swollen. You are spending your time thinking and so your head is slightly swollen" She had reasoned. It had seemed so convincing for Sorna at that time. But her mother's impeccable logic had not been able to shield her from the incessant teasing she had to endure, both inside and outside the factory and in her school that she had attended for couple of years before starting her 'career' with this 'company'.

The supervisor went to his place and started scanning a B grade tamil magazine that he kept hidden inside a large register just in case the owner happened to visit the place. As he dove into the ocean of vicarious bliss of the obscene stories and pictures, he did not see Kamakshi walk over to Sorna and pat the back of her palm.
"Please, Don't cry. Everything will be alright."
She was lucky that Paarthi too was busy counting the number of matchboxes completed, a white collar job he had cajoled the supervisor into allotting him. And I thought I saw something in her eyes that I have not seen often in the tired eyes of robots in the factory. There was a determination I could not place, a decision, a promise that she had made to herself that I could see in her eye. 'For how long?' I almost muttered and something told me it would linger, that she was strong. After all she was well into her fourth week without whimpering once.

1
Most probably it was a Friday. It must have been, for the owner was a religious man and whatever minor thing he did he looked for auspicious days. And invariably he asked new joiners to start work on Fridays. He said we should always start on a good day for it was the beginning of our 'careers'. He believed that the 130 of us who were working in his factory were ‘employees’. And so it must’ve been a Friday when Kamakshi walked into the factory, looking at the factory as if it was the neighborhood exhibition. Watching her walking with that awe stuck look in her face smelling the thick nitrate fumes for the first time, I was reminded of my first day. I had joined around three years back. I was eleven then. I was pulled up from bed at around 5 AM and when I started protesting for some more sleep assuming it was my mother, I smelt the thick stench of whiskey and opened my eyes to see my father standing there with a toothy grin.

“From today you don’t have to go to school!”
I smiled thinking he was joking, or that maybe they had announced in radio that schools were closed because of rain. But it was so unlike him to bother about whether or not I went to school.
“Go and get ready… From today, you’re a grown man. You are going to work in a nice place. There won’t be teachers and homework.”

I kept blinking, unable to understand what he meant and sleep suddenly deserted my eyes. I could feel my heart beat rise and I wanted to run to mother as I always did whenever I was scared. I was very scared to hear father talk like that, especially when mother was sick and bed-ridden.

“But I have to go to school. Mother wants me to study and make it big in life!”
“All of them are bastards – people who run schools. It is just for them to make money. We need not keep paying the fees for the non sense they teach. A B C D won’t feed you. Only money can.”
It still did not make sense to me for I was studying for free in a government school. I kept staring at his face. The toothy grin was now replaced by a stern, authoritative glare.
“Your mother is sick! She won’t work and how will we all eat?”
And looking at him, in the harsh, yellow light of the bulb, observing his eyes shine like those of a wolf who has spotted a new herd of sheep, everything became clear to me. With mother getting bed-ridden, he wasn’t getting money to drink.
“I think she is probably faking it. Maybe I should whip the bitch and make her go to work. She can’t keep lying down here all day while I am starving.”
And whatever resistance I had been planning to show subsided with that. It was his calculated move to make me accept without protesting and it paid off. I had seen mother getting beaten up numerous times when she refused to give him money.

“Please don’t do anything to her. I will go and work.”

And so I had walked down the same aisle that ran through to the length of the factory, sniffing the stench of the chemical for the first time, feeling lost and apprehensive. And the moment I reached the supervisor’s ‘office’, which was nothing more than a wooden table and a foldable metal chair near the rear end of the factory, he had scanned me just the way he was scanning Kamakshi and had barked at me my first order of my professional career.
“Go to that corner and start applying the glue to the box.” He was pointing towards few people who were furiously displaying the marked dexterity of the hand, folding up the cardboard pieces into small boxes, gluing the edges in a quick reflex before picking up the next piece. I walked to the cluster of the machine-like people who seemed oblivious to the world around, as if they had been sucked into a dream world, as if they were holding on to the dream by the quick movement of the hands, by churning out so many empty boxes or maybe they were reconciling to their own empty lives as they piled up the boxes, submitting silently to the monotony like an ox tied to the wheel. I turned towards the tin of glue that lay barren amidst the robots, with it's ugly interior brimming with greenish glue. As I was getting into a daze, watching the quick succession of their thin, fragile fingers dipping into the glue with perfect harmony and pace, the supervisor said with an amused smile.
“Don't dare eat the glue. It's mixed with cyanide. You will drop dead like a frog if you try.”
His eyes shined in their deep sockets as he repeated with unrestrained chuckle.
“You will drop dead like fucking frogs.”

Kamakshi, unlike me, was directly deployed at the matchstick filling section. Looking at her eyes bulging in wonderment at the grace with which the kids were filling up the boxes with the matches, I was half-expecting her to break into an applause. The supervisor did not have any warnings about cyanides to proffer to her. Maybe he assumed she was smart enough not to try eating the chemical dough. But being in the factory for years, I had seen the kids eat anything they could get their hands on, from the peeling paint in the wall to the wooden chaff from the sticks. Not everyone brought food from home for lunch. The small cup of watery tea and the occasional bun that they were provided for lunch was not enough for some of their unaccustomed appetites. The smallest kids, those between the ages of four and six, at times cried out of hunger- an unforgivable offense according to the supervisor. He is a noble man who doesn't like to see anybody shed tears. In fact, he spanks the kids so hard with his rough cane that their cries are magically muffled in their throats. This is his way of making the kids grow up, to become men and women who would face life without wailing about it. He claims often that he has his way of helping us, the kids, learn things in life. At times, this claim seems to be justified. For instance, I have seen him cure so many cases of 'leaking barrels'. Those are the kids, the youngest ones, whose bladder does not hold up to the factory's standard of two scheduled urine breaks in the fourteen working hours they put in every day. They know that asking permission to take a piss break is completely forbidden and so try hard to tighten the bladder muscles that eventually weaken and give in to the biological urge. The supervisor then gives his 'treatment' of pulling down the dress of the child and caning the buttocks till they redden or till the cane warms up with the impact, when he would push the child onto his own urine, making them clean the mess with their dress. The rest of the day, they would have to work naked, exposing their scathed buttocks. Most cases of bladder dysfunctions were, thus, instantly cured by one application of this treatment, though some of the youngest ones needed two or three instances.

People like me and this Kamakshi were the lucky ones, to be arriving at this 'school' as the supervisor sometimes called the factory when we were old enough. Most of the other 'employees' grew up here and seldom remember much about the outside world, except the traces of it they see when they walk back home late at night- the sounds of the nocturnal insects, the howling dogs, the dull sodium lamps burning down the darkness of the night and the hoards of men thronging the wine shop that were open till midnight. In the mornings, these kids would mechanically walk up to the factory, eyes half closed and burning, the cold morning mist biting against their faces. Most of them had never been anywhere other than their houses and the factory. Most of them had never been on the inside of a school or mixed with children who went to school. Neither had any of them had the luxuries of playing marble with the neighborhood kids or rolling a cycle tire with a stick and watching it slide down the road, or pluck a mango in the neighbor's field. We had lived and played and laughed and cried in the outside world, the real world before coming to this factory and only a handful of the factory's employees had been that 'lucky'.

Kamakshi had started to pick up the matches with faltering hands, dropping more of them outside the boxes than inside. The supervisor watched her fumbling through it for few minutes and left the place. The spanking would not start until next week. He gave enough time for the new ones to learn.

Watching her fiddle with the matches nervously, looking up at her 'team mates' for help that she would never get, I was trying to decide how long she would last in this hell hole. I put it at one week – maximum.

Alas! Here they fall, the droplets of happiness,
wetting my face, body and soul with bliss.
Slowly they wash off the layers of misery,
Touching my skin like a soothing kiss.

The drops awaken every part of me,
rejuvenating the heart, like a cup of tea.
Filling my mind with dreams of shine,
Of attaining all the success that never was mine.

"Where were you so long??" I ask the droplets,
"Why did you take so long to rain?
You could've poured down long back and
removed all my pain."

"Oh I have been raining all the time.
But you don't have a clue" They reply.
"For it was you who always hid
behind umbrellas of gloomy blues!"

Years have passed, many a birth.
Dear, I am still mystified by your mirth.
That day in the middle of nowhere,
When we had so many moments to share.

Those eyes that whispered secrets to mine,
those cheeks that with every smile didn't forget to shine.
those cherry lips that make my heart shout,
'Is there something about you I am not mad about?'

That day in the middle of that heavy rain,
We walked hand in hand into nature's shrine.
The lush forests brimming with trees of pine,
that shy touch of your hand lulling my senses like a bottle of wine.

As the rain droplets kissed our faces,
Our lips had joined making our hearts furnaces.
The moment froze as we got into a daze,
heavens slowed down to an ethereal pace.

Have you forgotten those moments, my dear?
Oh God ! With all my heart that eventuality I fear.
Can you listen to my heart? Hear! Hear!
We were forever destined to be near near.

For months she had bugged me for a single ride,
In my boat to wander the sea braving the tides.
I said 'o.k' on that December morn,
To see her face bloom like golden corn.

She wore a bright pink saree,
And a smile that made her look lik a fairy.
'That wave will take us.
oh no, this one wil.' she kept yelling.
Laughing like a child with excitement her face swelling.

And then there was a wave that did overtake us.
When the sea swallowed the boat silently without any fuss.
I held her tight against the raging waters,
at moments like these hopes and faith falters.

Oh you goddess of sea, couldn't you show some restrain?
Without her how do you expect me to sustain?
Nowadays when I go out to fish,
I can hear my heart does buzz a fond wish.

I want to search the seas for her soul,
Maybe she is roaming, scared of the sea's nightly howls.
Maybe one day I can again see,
Her smiling eyes even if my life is the only fee.

I was sweating despite the evening's chill,
For my mind was thrown in a stupendous whirl.
She had agreed when I asked her out,
In a dazed moment when my wish came out loud.

When she arrived with that graceful stride,
her lips wore a smile that was devoid of pride.
She sat down at the table within my hand's reach,
Her eyes spilling truths the teachers failed to preach.

'HI' she said in her sugar-filled voice,
soothing my heart to a hazy poise.
My lips still trembled as they breathed words intertwined,
And my heart did mumble that she was too good to ever be mine.

We spoke for long about nothing specific,
when life felt like a song loud and terrific.
was it Music, Movies, Poems or history,
topics we talked that day still remains a mystery.

For in my mind I was lost in a dreamy duet,
the love for her awakening in me a puny poet.
The date that day ended with a walk through the wood,
Fate that lay ahead was too good,oh yes, too good.

I held her hand as we kept walking the path,
our fingers mingled unsure of the aftermath.
When we reached her door, she stood still for a moment's interval,
when with love for her my heart began to well.

Our lips touched for the briefest of time,
Words weren't spoken, it was a silent mime.
Pain, Fear, Love, Bliss and Longing,
Were all bundled in that kiss our destiny was kind in bringing.

His blood is still in my hands,
the blood of the man that I killed.
Try to bring him back with all your wands,
You cannot succeed even if you are divinely skilled.

I squeezed his throat till he choked,
For I had passed him a death sentence no one could revoke.
And so I throttled him in a way not too benign,
till my guilty pleasure reached cloud nine.

He fell on the ground with the loudest of thud,
His face young and fresh even in death like a blooming bud.
There was even a trace of a smile,
Oh that one did haunt me for a while.

I buried him deep in the cemetery of heart,
Satisfied that I had become a king in this art.
For beside him were laid down the other guys I had finished,
For they were all traits on whom my hopes had diminished.

But I do miss him quite a lot,
Maybe for him I always had a soft spot.
Those were days when life was carefree,
That innocent guy I killed, he was once ME.

Alone in a boat, far away from all living souls,
Trying hard to float, amidst the dreams of distant goals.
Braving the storms of the rough seas,
Mirages of surreal lands that disturb the peace.

Here I am in the middle of it all,
Tying the sails high so that they don't fall.
For the sea is tempting me to just drown,
Maybe its a plot it plays, my boat and me that it craves to own.

It's been days, no it's been months,
Maybe years since I started from shore.
In search of unseen lands guarded by serpents,
Buried treasures too lucrative to abhor.

Fool I was called, the mad old fool,
For my burning quest my mundane life failed to cool.
So I embarked on a journey that changed my life,
When I decided nothing could distance me from my destiny's prize.

Maybe in the lands that I left long back,
there are stories being told how I abandoned my shack.
Maybe they teach the kids how dreams can cause harm,
For they are convinced that I would return not,even if I pull off many a charm.

The world wanted me to be yet another Tom, Dick or Harry,
Leading a small life with small joys and pains, devoid of any glory.
But my destiny wished otherwise,for here I am out to write my own story,
This voyage shall rewrite history for winning is now a need and no longer a luxury.

O ye Dude, you are too crude.
Where are your dreams, did they too conclude?
There was a time when they did reign,
Long ago when you had a hope of shine.

Revolutions that were to be unbound,
Resolution you took to make your dreams profound,
Where did they vanish? Did you give in under strain?
You once showed a zeal in your every grain.

O ye loser, do you not cringe?
To have lost the fervor, dreams you failed to clinch.
Were you weak or too meek?
If not then why the *hell* did you creak?

Was it the pain of making focus remain?
By losing it now what only have you gained?
A nobody you were, A nobody you are,
In the years to come, a nobody you will be!

Years of dreaming, Years of Aiming,
Years they shall be of wasted wistful longing.
When you tilt your eyes to sleep, do you not feel your own anger?
For you could've managed to win if only you had taken the pain to linger!

If you want to read my stories in PDF format, you can download them from the following links:

• Au Revoir

• The Promise

Please do leave your comments on the blog or mail me at toarjun@gmail.com

17
The Past that Passed away
Marriage gave me more reasons to love Sheela. But I chose to love her without reason as always. In those initial days of matrimony, she would wake me up with hot coffee, wrapping a towel over her hair. I would pull her to bed and sniff at the aroma of sheeka in her hair. We would sometimes go for a morning walk, but only if it was a holiday. I would start thinking of her even when in office, of moments from the previous day and, more often than not, of the previous night. I would call her up many times during the day just to hear her voice. We would together learn cooking, burning most of the dishes. She would fervently ask me stories from my office. She continued working in the accounting firm. We would spend the weekends going to movies, eating out in restaurants and end the day with a long walk in the beach talking about a thousand different things and that day we had chosen music.
“There was this song I used to listen to when I was thirteen. I am trying to find what song that was. They played it so many times on TV.”
“What about that?”
“No. I so badly want to listen to it once more. But I simply can’t recollect what song it was. I felt so happy then.”
“Hmm… let us try to recollect. How did it start?”
“Stupid question, hubby. That is what I don’t remember.”
“I meant what instrument? Do you remember any line from it?”
“No. But there is a long guitar piece. It is night time. A guy plays the guitar and a girl listens to his song. The tune is awesome.”
“I know hundred songs that satisfy these criteria.”
“I know. I used to wish then that my prince charming will come to me one night playing the guitar. You know at thirteen you tend to believe in such things.”
“What a pity I never played guitar.”
She laughed the short laugh she kept for times when she was playful.
“What?”
“That song- I want to listen to it again. I want to listen to it for hours.”
“Why suddenly?”
I turned to see her cheeks getting red, she had stopped walking. Her fingers curled mine like tender climbers. She came closer to me and whispered into my ears.
“Because they say listening to nice songs makes the baby beautiful and healthy.”
“Hey! Really?”
I took her in my arms.
“So, tell me. How does the name ‘Winnie’ sound?”
“You are going to name the baby ‘Winnie’?!”
“No! It’ll be the teddy’s name. Everything about the baby will be special.”
And thus the dream started - the dream of having a new purpose in life, of assuming new roles, of having one more person to live for, another person worth dying for. I would realize later that dreaming was an addiction. It was highly contagious and soon we were charting out every detail of our future with our son or daughter. We wanted to give the best of everything to him or her. She often claimed that she could hear the baby talk. I would then pretend to hear it too by keeping my ears pressed against her ever growing belly. She would push me away with a smile saying the baby would speak only to her. And I would keep looking at the smile emanating from her face, shining with each passing day. And in the early hours of the morning, she would wake me up from sleep and start crying without a reason. She would sometimes mumble that she had become ugly. And I would keep assuring her that she looked splendid. I would keep patting her back till she dozed off holding my hand close to her face. I knew she was scared of the process and so was I. She would throw tantrums at trivial things like me watching TV with a high volume or forgetting to turn off the hall light. I began reading up stuff on the net about pregnancy blues and how to handle it.
That day we had returned home after a routine monthly check up. The doctor had warned us that she was getting weak. That she should avoid straining herself physically. And so I started talking to her about the topic I had been putting off for long. She was checking the pills she had been prescribed.
“Darling… you heard what the doctor said.”
“I know what you are getting at.”
“Listen. I know you feel it’s too early. But I feel office is straining you out. I am worried, honey.”
“I can’t sit at home all the time right from now. I really can’t. The walls of the house seem so depressing during the afternoons when you aren’t home, when I am alone. And I asked our baby. It said it is ok if I go to office.”
It had been getting difficult arguing with her over things. She saw my face looking worried and planted a brief kiss and left the room.
One afternoon two weeks after the day of the checkup, I got a call from one of Sheila’s colleagues. It was one of those rare moments when I knew it was bad news before I picked the phone. I arrived at the hospital in fifteen minutes. My heart was racing hard. I could see the tears rolling down my cheeks in the reflection in the rear view mirror. When I reached her room and saw her curled up over the green sheets, I breathed a sigh of relief that at least she was safe. She did not open her eyes as I went and took her hand. The doctor who was a fat lady of about fifty forgot to verify if Sheela was awake and spoke loud enough for the people in the adjacent room to hear.
“I warned you last time, Arum. She was weak. I asked her not to strain. You guys obviously ignored my advice.”
I hushed her in vain as I noticed few careless tears rolling down Sheela’s cheeks. Through the narrow slit between her eyelids, I could see her emptiness and it made my stomach churn.
That night after reaching home, when I was about to switch the lights off, she muttered something incoherent between her incessant sobs.
“What is it?” I asked her, holding her close.
“The baby… It kept asking me. ‘Mom, why weren’t you careful? Didn’t you love me enough?’ I still keep hearing… its voice...its cry.”
“Baby… It’s not your fault. Trust me.”
In the days that followed I learnt a lot of lessons about loss and the pain it caused. I was myself hurt badly by it, but what pained me more was to see Sheela worsen with each day. Tears are not a terrible thing. Only when all the tears have dried up, the most terrible things come out. They are resignation, despair and more emptiness. The days became longer as she kept sitting in a corner in complete silence. Nothing I could say would even make her react. I was scared to see her like that. I was scared of what she was doing to herself. But beyond everything, I was scared that she would lock herself into that depression forever. She would wake up in the middle of the night and start crying or worse still keep talking to the baby just like when it was still there, safe in her womb. The depth of her sorrow made me helpless. I realized nothing I could say would help her move on. Every little thing around us seemed to remind us of the baby, like the weekly reminder she had set in her mobile to go to the nearby Amman temple, she had heard people say that it was auspicious temple for pregnant women and the goddess would protect the baby and child, or the ‘Winnie’ teddy bear, the first gift we had got for our unborn child, that was wrapped in gift paper, she had insisted that the baby should tear it open when it could, moreover she had read up that the fur could prove harmful to new born babies, or the music therapy cads she had collected to listen to, that were supposed to keep the baby in the belly tranquil and happy.
And so for months to come, even after she resumed going to office, she did not revert back to being her usual self. Her cheeriness and smiles seemed to have died in her womb with the baby. I would return home after a tired day’s work only to see her gloomy face, our conversations would be short and empty. I would convince myself that it was my hectic work that kept me in office till late night than the urge to not return to the new loneliness and distance that seemed to have crept between us at home. There were a few days when the thickness of the atmosphere seemed to choke me, when I would try to reason out with her.
“Honey, Even I am affected. You have stopped talking to me nowadays. This is not getting us anywhere. I don’t expect you to get back to normal soon. But at least let us be together at these times.”
“I know what I am doing is unfair. But I can’t help it. Nobody will ever understand what I am going through. I am sorry. But I can’t seem to come out of it.”
It was the intensity of such statements and the lack of emotion in her voice that made me feel even more isolated. I could’ve hugged her had she been crying, but she seemed to have been deprived of all emotions.
Things between us might’ve become normal; the wounds might’ve healed with the magical touch of time. Devil, they say, inhabits the tongue at times. And he certainly did on that day of gloom when, in the middle of a fight, that was becoming too common between us, I passed that imprudent remark.
“You never listen to me. We have paid enough for your stubbornness.”
The moment the words came out of my mouth, I wanted to take them back. But there is no way to ever do that in life and so the damage was done, the wounds that had been slowly healing were dug open.
“I am sorry. I really did not mean that.”
Her lips were trembling as she turned away from me to hide her face. She whisked off my hand as I tried to touch her shoulder.
“It hurts. More so because I know what you said is true.”
18
Present Day
Two months had passed since the unholy day when the evil, young doctor Sridhar passed a death sentence on me. I had started taking the medication ensuring care to not let Sheela find out about them. She did notice that I was taking days off very often. But she did not know how often I fainted or how cancer had successfully spread all over my body and was multiplying in millions every day. But all that did not matter that day. I was taking extra care to ensure that everything would go properly as planned. I noticed the thick beard as I passed the mirror and noted that it looked full of wisdom and experience though it was a result of negligence. Sheela was surprised to find me home before her. We ate a very ordinary meal watching a news channel cover yet another scandal involving a murder of an actress. She finished eating and walked to the bedroom, mumbling the usual reminder not to keep the volume too high.
Five minutes before midnight, I woke her up with a kiss.
“Happy Birthday, honey.”
I hoped she didn’t see the tears in my eyes. Something told me I wouldn’t live to see her next birthday. I took her hand and led her to the other bedroom that I had decorated myself with heart shaped balloons, wreaths of foliage and flowers, banners and loads of candles. The heart shaped cake had a thick strawberry icing. I had planted and lit twenty nine candles that formed a smaller blazing heart. But its heat was nothing compared to the warmth we shared. Her eyes were shining in the candle light as she saw deep into my eyes.
“Thank you, Sweet!”
No one is cuter than her in the whole wide world, especially when her eyes shine like that, when she calls me ‘sweet’, when she smiles that warm, cozy smile. She is the cutest.
The cake tasted very sweet, more so cause she bit the piece before feeding it to me. I held her hand and switched on the music system. An old romantic number started playing as I held her hand and started the Waltz. I had learnt the box step from YouTube and practiced it whole day. As we kept bumping into each other in the attempt, she started laughing loud. I had forgotten her last birthday when I was on an official trip. The sound of our feet gently thumping against the floor sounded musical. The midnight breeze lifted the curtain of the room as the moon tried to peek into the party. It was three days to the full moon, but it looked full enough for me. We kept talking about a million things that night, like the first time we met on the bus stop, how I proposed to her that day in the middle of the road, those three weeks of silence and how our love bloomed to matrimony. I held her hand tight that night before sleeping and forgot all my worries. She kept talking, punctuating each sentence with those soft kisses. I had been fantasizing of late about the heaven those believers claimed existed. But right then I was convinced there could be no place happier than her arms, no time more peaceful than right then. And in that peace, I fully forgot that I had kept the prescription sheet over the fridge. I had planned a full day’s outing for her birthday. But she woke up on her twenty ninth birthday to the news of her husband’s near date with death. That was when I decided if there was a God, he was cruel.
19
The moment I entered the dimly lit room, I regretted it. A group of people seated in the middle of the room turned towards us and smiled. I sat down at the end of the group, on a wooden chair that looked as wasted and dull as the people in the room. Sheela sat down next to me and locked my fingers with hers. This hold, I knew, meant I had to be strong. It sometimes annoyed me to accept that she could so easily see through my feigned layers of courage. I cursed Dr. Sridhar for suggesting that I should attend this meeting and myself for agreeing to it. It was a cancer patients association meeting where they ‘exchanged faith and courage and prayed for each other’ to quote his words. I had resisted the urge to explain to him that I was an atheist. In the four months since the diagnosis, I had heard enough about cancer from people and the Internet.
“Mr.Pandurangan will now share a few words with us.”
A man of about fifty stood up and smiled at us cheerily, as if he was about to deliver a pep talk to a football team.
“I was diagnosed with colon cancer two years back. I underwent surgery and have been taking chemotherapy sessions. I am getting weaker by the day the cancer is getting stronger.” He paused while I prayed that he would not talk further. “I am too weak and am no longer able to work. Now the doctors are saying I need to undergo another operation. I am not sure if my body will be able to withstand another one.” He paused, deciding whether or not to continue. A much younger looking woman, who must’ve been his wife, patted his hands and helped him to his chair. But before the chair person of the meeting could start talking, another bald-headed woman had stood up.
“My name is Raadhika. I was diagnosed with brain cancer three months back. The head-aches are becoming unbearable.” She was sobbing in between each word. “I am not able to smell things.” There was one more fit of sobbing. “I used to look beautiful six months back.” Her sobbing became too loud and she couldn’t continue speaking. Her mother escorted her to her seat.
“Let us all now pray for Mr.Pandurangan and Ms.Raadhika for a speedy recovery and for strength to withstand the treatments.”
The chair person went around the group talking slowly to every person as most of the group started praying for the two people.
As I saw those people closing their eyes in a terrified reverence, I was reminded of lines from a William Blake poem I had read when I was in school.
‘Did he who made the lamb make thee?’
It was the poet’s rhetoric at the fierceness and destructiveness of the tiger. I kept thinking of the God I did not believe in, wondering why these people were so immersed in pointless faith when their god had cursed them with so much of misery and pain. But the realization that I too was one among them, destined to rot with the same evil growth hit hard, as the chair person came near us.
“Hello sir, are you not praying?”
“Why should I even pray, sir? Did your god save you all? Did he free you of your misery? Did he not push you from pain to more pain all the time? Do you still want to fool yourself into believing there is a god and he would pull off miracles to save your precious life? Well, Sir, I am sorry I even came here.”
I was almost yelling at top of my voice. The people in the room were looking at me, horrified, as if I was the representative of the devil who so blasphemously dared to comment on the follies of their foolish god.
I got up and rushed to the door before anyone could speak and I could hear Sheela apologize to them, that I was getting depressed often nowadays. I sulked into an empty chair just outside the room. Sheela rushed out of the room to me.
“I am sorry about what I did there.”
I was digging my face into her shoulders- the only place where I could dare to lose my defenses and cry.
“I am really sorry.”
“You don’t have to be, baby. It’s ok. We won’t go to such places from now. It’s ok.”
And slowly, as she kept patting me and reassuring me that it was ok and that things are going to be alright, the pain seemed to fade away- the physical pain I had never bothered to tell anyone about and the agony of being sick, the fear of how it would worsen, the fear of rotting, the fallen dream of a happy future that would never materialize. She was my medicine for all my illnesses and that day, in the dim lit corridors of the hospital, I knew she was my angel from the God I did not believe in.
20
In the past few months I have seen it all: fear, pain, frustration, helplessness, more pain and more love. Sheela tried her best to look strong, as she saw my condition go down day by day. I sometimes wish it was a road accident that would take my life. The slow, methodical breaking down towards death was too painful, physically and emotionally. Some of the treatments seemed to work, but their effects didn’t last for long. People I knew, friends and relatives, suggested a million alternative medicines, like ayurveda, yoga, homeopathy, Reikei and so on. Sheela would wistfully look at me, but I did not go near any of them. I was scared of getting hopes high, of mine and more importantly of hers. I refrained from taking the pain killers Sridar had prescribed unless I could no longer bear it. Even if it was painful, I did not want to lose the last few days in unconscious slumber. There would be loads of sleep afterwards, when sleep would be the only thing I was capable of.
These were also days when I realized just how deep the bonds of love were. I had asked my parents not to visit too often. But I knew that my mother could not stop herself from crying all the time if she saw me. I could not stomach her perpetual crying. Sheela feigned as much strength as she could. On many days, when we would visit one doctor after another, when each of them would expend maximum efforts in explaining to us just how magnificently the cancer had spread across each of the organs like a emperor bent on conquering the world.
Sheela would listen to it almost nonchalantly. She would go to the Amman temple that she had stopped going to since the miscarriage. She would pray for hours and then return home with loads of vibhuthi . She would smear it across my forehead with her eyes closed in a silent prayer. I hope earnestly that she is not praying for me to live long. She takes care of me like a baby, like the baby she could not have. I am sure that she would have made a very caring mother. During the day when she would leave the house to buy stuff, mostly my medicines, I keep staring at the ceiling in the bedroom or keep staring at the pictures from our wedding album. In those pictures, I see a life that was and could have been- a happy life, without worries, without cancer, without miscarriages. I sometimes wish I could go back to those days of happiness. When I was a kid I used to believe we could traverse back to any point in life if we wish for it with our eyes closed tight, like in the movies. Nowadays I try that a lot of times. There are a million points in my life where I would like to go, in fact any other point than the present. But that trick, I have found, is false. We are stuck with the present whether we like it or not. I sometimes cry when she is not around, to let out the pain and the memories. It seems to heal the agony, if only for a short time. But when she is there with me, I assume the role of a wise husband who has to be mature and strong. In such roles we play for our loved ones lies the beauty of life as far as I have lived it, like those times at night when she would wake up from sleep on hearing my groans, when she would ask me if it was paining.
“Not at all, honey.” I would lie or would feign to be sleeping if talking itself was incredibly painful. At times when the pain was tolerable, I would smile at her, and she might go back to sleep, holding me close to her.
Maybe she thought holding me tight would ward off death if he came knocking. Maybe she was right or maybe she wasn’t. I will soon find out. At times when she was too weak to appear strong, she would break down and cry and ask the one question I didn’t know the answer for.
“Why us? Why is this happening to us? What wrong did we ever do?”
On another day in another life, I might’ve explained to her that there was no such order that only the bad would suffer and the good people would always live happily ever after, that life was a matter of probability, a matter of chance like the rolling of a dice. But now I was not the same man. I would simply respond with a hug or a kiss. If I have enough energy, I would mumble a promise I know I cannot keep.
“Listen. Whatever happens I won’t leave you. OK? Trust me. I will be with you until death do us apart and even beyond that. I will be your shadow protecting you, looking after you.”
It must’ve been the intoxication of the medicines or the gloominess and pain that evoked such irrational statements from an atheist like me. Or maybe I too just want to believe in a few things if it will comfort my disturbed self. And with that same borrowed belief, I want to pray for her peace, she has seen too much sorrow in too short a time. I want to go off before it gets too painful for both of us. But I try to keep wide awake when she is not around for I do not want to leave in her absence. Maybe in the warmth of her embrace death will not be that painful.
21
His wish was fulfilled soon. He died in his sleep, wrapped in her arms. She woke up and put him in her lap when she realized the moment had passed. She patted him and rocked him in her arms. After nearly an hour, she called up his parents and then hers. She knew there would be loads of people rushing in; people who thought he had passed away, for only she knew that he had not gone anywhere. It was a secret between her and her man. No one would understand it and nobody needed to. She knew he would keep his promise and she knew he was just with her. She could feel him right there, comforting her with a warm hug.
She did not want to cry for crying would mean she accepted that he was leaving her. She would never accept that. He would forever be with her, and look after her the way he did while he was alive and that hope was the only reason, only strength that held her fragile soul then. She already dreamed longingly of the day when she would join him and they could spend eternity together, for their souls were bonded with infinite love.
Au Revoir!

11

I checked the traffic ahead through the portion of the windshield of the auto which was not covered with Rajni stickers. I was precariously holding on to the dozen plastic bags full of cheap clothing accessories I had bought from Ranganathan Street.

“Shit! The traffic is too heavy. I hate Chennai for this.”

As I completed the statement a truck moved close to the auto releasing sooty smoke into the cramped interior of the auto. I strained hard to close my nose with my palm without losing hold on any of the bags.

“Shall I hold some of them?” Sheela offered. I handed over a couple of bags, and checked her face in the rear view mirror of the auto. Beads of perspiration were flowing down her forehead, wetting the sandal in the center. But unlike my weary face, her countenance showed no signs of impatience or irritation.

“Do you need to go home urgently?”

“Not really. But this traffic and pollution is too much to bear.”

She kept looking out of the window at the passing vehicles like a foreign tourist admiring the ethnic beauty of the place.

I looked at the auto driver’s face on the rear view mirror and noted that he too was thoroughly irritated with the traffic and felt some solace for having someone equally irritated with the circumstances.

I turned to see if Sheela was done with admiring the traffic and realized she would never stop. I had met her in the T Nagar bus stop, waiting for a Besant Nagar bus just like me. After seeing the buses overly crowded, she asked if we could share an auto ride.

“How is your new job?”

“Well, it is no longer new, but it is good. What about you? Did you … er…”

“Yeah… I got a job. I am a junior accountant at a financing firm.”

“Oh cool… I felt guilty the other day when you said you missed your interview.”

“Hey you don’t have to feel guilty. I might not have gotten selected after all. I don’t regret anything at all.”

“It is rare to see someone who doesn’t regret anything.”

“No. I mean it. If we keep analyzing what if things were different, we can never really understand what life is teaching us. In every twist of fate is a lesson, a message to us, to understand what the inner meaning is, to find the solution to this puzzle called life.” She paused.

“Sorry, I talk a lot at times! It is one of my most annoying characteristic.”

“What are the others?”

“Well, you will have to be a very close friend to find out.” She said with a smile. We reached Besant Nagar and it seemed like the ride ended too soon.

“I am looking forward to it.” I said as she got down of the auto.

She looked at me with raised eyebrows.

“To become a close friend, to know the other annoying things.”

“Sure. Goodnight.”

12

I woke up with a start as my mobile started singing in the dark and with eyes closed, trying to remember back the dream, I picked up the call.

“Lazy bones, why did you pick up?! That was supposed to be a missed call.”

“I am sorry.”

“Ok. Come soon. I will be waiting near the park in fifteen minutes.”

I sat up on my bed realizing just how intertwined our lives had become. It had been three months since the auto ride. And as if by the ‘twist of fate’ that she had talked about, we kept meeting often and had become close friends before we knew it. She would call up my mobile and wake me up in the morning, I would rush to join her for the morning walk, and we would call each other at least once during the day and usually talk well into the night. There always seemed to be something to talk about. We would both say ‘bye’ only to continue the call after a minute finding some other topic to talk about.

We seemed to have so many things in common. We were similar in so many ways and it was fun to talk to someone who shared your views. Again we were so dissimilar in so many other ways and it seemed fun to endlessly argue trying to justify each others’ stand. Before I realized it, she had become an indispensible part of me, a part I loved to go back to, the part that seemed to fill me with so much of life, the part that taught me to look for the brighter side, the part that opened up my mind and heart to absorb the world for what it is.

Right from the beginning I knew she was a better person compared to me. I seemed to live life inside a bottle while she seemed to be sailing happily in the wide ocean. Thus she became my window to a new life, a happy one.

She took me as one of her best friends. And I was amazed that I could be so genuinely friendly to a girl and at last the wounds from the Soniya episode started healing slowly. Unlike me, Sheela would never fully open up to me. But I did not expect her to. But I was an open book to her. I would tell her about my latest crush in office or my latest triumph in career or my latest problem with parents. There wasn’t anything I could not tell her. It made me wonder how someone could start caring for another so soon. At times when she was out of town, I would feel empty inside and keep looking at my mobile longingly as if it had the key to my life and my happiness within its plastic casing. I would divert myself by going out with other friends. I had had so many close friends in life, but somehow she seemed to be so ideal a friend that at times I felt sad thinking of what life will be like if this part too ended like the most good parts always seemed to. And for a really long time, I was too careful not to grow any other expectations of this relationship, for I knew it would definitely spoil it. She was my best friend and that was what I wanted of her.

Months passed by and my work got more hectic. I had to put in long hours every day and would end up working on Saturdays and Sundays at times. Unlike in school and college, I did want to rise up in my profession and the job I had gotten into was taxing. I would tell her loads about my work, about my goals, my future plans. She would hear me out patiently, track my progress and keep reminding me of them whenever I lose focus. I knew I could never be that way to her even if I tried. I too would try to ask her about her work, about what she wanted to become. But unlike her I could never be so selfless. I understood that there would never be any symmetry in our relationship.

She would sometimes ask me to join her in her innumerable service work she involved in, like weekend tuitions in an orphanage, or teaching art work to mentally challenged kids, or the hygiene awareness programs in slums. I would always have some excuse or the other to not attend such things. She would never force or complain. When I asked her why she did these things, she would simply smile. It was a simple smile of humility unlike the ones Soniya flashed. At times when I did join her in these ventures, I would watch her so enthusiastically teaching a mentally retarded kid to hold a brush or cut paper in shapes, or talk to the slum people about their day to day problems, I realized that she did that to feel normal, it was in her very nature. I was proud of the way she was and accepted that I could never be like her, but it did not matter, for she always liked others for what they were and never expected them to be like her. Naturally she had a large group of friends, but somehow I knew she was closer to me for some unknown reason which remained a puzzle to me just like the million other things about life.

13

And thus passed two years of my life, as she continued painting so many pages of my life with her presence.

“It is such a lovely morning!”

“You say that every morning.”

“That is what amuses me! How is it that every morning is so lovely?”

I rolled my eyes and kept walking, rubbing my eyes to ward off the sleep.

“Why are you so sleepy all the time?”

“We kept talking till three last night! It spoilt my sleep.”

“How more rude can someone be.” She said with a smile.

“My mom told me something today.”

I kept silent which meant I was listening.

“It’s a silly thing actually. But I wanted to tell you.”

“Cut the crap. Just tell the thing.”

“Wait! You are one impatient idiot. There is this alliance that has come up, someone one of our relatives has suggested.”

I stopped walking. I kept looking at her face. My heart beat had risen and I hardly knew why or what I was praying right then for I was supposedly an atheist.

“The horoscopes have matched. So mom is asking me to talk to him. Hey. Are you ok?”

I realized I had closed my eyes though I wanted to close my ears or rather her mouth.

“I am OK. What did you decide?”

“I have been putting it off for two years now. They aren’t ready to give me more time. My mom is bent on getting me married off within this year. I am thinking I’ll talk to him- maybe email him or something.”

I kept remaining silent. I had never fully realized she would one day get married and leave the place, somehow that seemed to mar the picture, the picture my life had been transforming to. I was feeling this hatred towards NRIs. I had never felt possessive about her before and it felt really strange.

“So in a couple of months, you will be free of my torture.”

“Yes. I am looking forward to it very much.” I said wryly.

“You are the rudest. You know what; I don’t like this idea of marrying someone in the US. It sounds so stereotypical. I’d rather wait for the prince charming who’d sweep me off my feet.”

“You would live happily wherever you go.”

I couldn’t believe I said that.

“Hey, why are you turning sentimental now?”

“I am not. I just said you’ll be happy, it’s the guy who is going to suffer forever.”

“That’s more like you. I will tell you later about the guy after I talk to him.”

She did not call me that day. She did not answer my calls.

I kept calling her mobile about twenty times. I could picture her talking to the unknown NRI guy, getting to know him, getting to like him, exchanging pictures. I felt nauseated and kept calling her number till I heard the announcement that the phone switched off. It was then I knew it, that I needed her in life, that I couldn’t do without her.

When she called me early the next morning, I yelled badly into the phone.

“Are you done romancing with the US guy? You couldn’t even bother to pick up your phone?”

“What?!”

“I kept calling a hundred times. You did not even bother to respond!”

“I am sorry! Listen… My father got a heart attack! I was at the hospital whole day.”

I felt shame run through me as she continued speaking.

“I forgot to take my phone. I was not romancing with anyone! ”

“I am sorry, Sheela. I really am. I got mad. How is your dad now?”

I reached the hospital in half hour.

“How is he now?”

“They say it’s just a mild attack. But I am freaked.”

Her mother was sitting nearby, sobbing silently. Her father was lying in the bed and looked motionless. I had been to her house only a couple of times, though her parents knew we were close friends.

It was during those hours in the hospital when I kept assuring her that everything was going to be alright, that I decided I will tell her how I felt about her. Despite the years that had passed by, I suddenly remembered the day when Soniya left me and how it had left me lonely. I did not know if I would be able to move on in life if Sheela too left me when I told her. So I mulled over whether or not to tell her and the mulling stretched for the length of a whole month, thinking and re thinking of whether a day would come when I would muster the courage to tell her and imagining how it would feel if she ever said yes.

She looked up in surprise to find me near the park before her, that too on a Sunday.

“It’s such a lovely morning!” I said with a smile.

“Day of surprises I guess. What are you going to do next?”

“What happened to that US groom you told me about?”

“Oh. Forgot to tell you. We chatted for about one hour that day. He rejected me saying I am too impractical! I really loved the word ‘impractical’. Anyways one US guy escaped the torture.”

I found myself smiling.

“You seem to be really amused. You knew he’d reject me, didn’t you?”

“No. I only know that I love you, Sheela. You are the liveliest person I know. I want to be with you all my life.”

I couldn’t believe my ears voicing aloud my deepest feelings. I was astonished to find myself so much at peace that I was smiling wide, like a man without a worry.

“Is this another joke?” Her eyes were wide open, looking straight into mine. I noted with amusement that I wasn’t tensed. I felt a peace with the world around. The park was empty except for a few sleepy dogs.

“No, Sheela. I never realized this before.”

“This is shocking, really. I thought our thing will never come to this.”
I wasn’t listening to her; a voice in my heart told me she was mine. I was looking at her that day, as if I had never seen her before in my life. Beads of perspiration coursed down her cheeks and coalesced under her chin, wetting her neck. I noted that her hair looked cute tied back in a rough knot.

“I don’t know how to react to this.”

“You need my help with that?”

“No. I need some time. Let’s not talk about this till then.”

Both of us kept standing there, looking into each other’s eyes. After a long silence when I kept admiring the way her face hid the fact that she was scared, she mumbled a ‘bye’ and walked away slowly, turning back thrice to look at me. I started dreaming of my future with her, of getting up each day to see her face, to hear her say ‘What a lovely morning!’, of talking to her for hours in person late through the night, of watching the stars shine down and count them together, of joining her in all the mad things she did, of being her most intimate pal.

14

For three weeks we did not talk to each other. Each day of those three weeks was a painful vacuum, when all the hope I had in me kept vaporizing with each passing day. I was so vividly reminded of the tearful eyes of Soniya the day she left me. All the images of being with Sheela seemed to carry with it a heavy load of agony like that of a dream I never should have dreamt. I resisted the urge to call her up or to stroll down in the morning to join her for her morning walk. I believed she would turn around on her own and say ‘yes’, but with each passing day, that belief was put to test and the days seemed to stretch pointlessly long with a huge hollow where there would be moments of talking, arguing and watching just how mad she was. I relived every moment we had shared in my mind, replaying every word spoken. It amused me just how well I remembered each word uttered, each moment that we spent- they were etched in my memory forever, and when I started considering the possibility that she would never return, the images in mind got more vivid, a sad tune seemingly blending into the scenes in mind, the tune of agony of never being lovable, the tune Soniya had composed and planted in my heart, the tune that had been subtly playing all along while I fooled myself to believe I was being happy, and that sad tune played louder with the passing of each day, until I could bear it no longer. The nights would extend right into the dawn as I would keep watching the ceiling of my room, trying to figure out what was happening in my mind. And so on that Sunday, when I had slept off at around 6 am, my phone started chiming loud waking me up from another fuzzy dream.

“Hello” I did not bother to look at who the call was from. The phone had lost its relevance in my life for three weeks then. There was a long silence and in that silence, I heard her. I woke up with a start and started listening to the silence, wishing I could hear the heart of the person speaking at the other end. I heard her voice after the longest minute of my life and my heart leapt with joy at as the sounds of her voice flowed through the phone.

“How are you?”

“I am doing great.” I lied.

There was a long pause again and I thought I heard the sound her soft sob and that hurt me. The sad tune started playing wildly in my mind, the tune of agony I was getting so used to, but now it was way too loud and way too cacophonic like the crying of a starved child. The sobs continued unabated, gradually growing into a loud cry.

“Why are you crying?”

“I… don’t… know.”

“Please don’t cry. It hurts.”

I wanted to cup her face in my hands and tell her not to cry, to kiss her tears away.

“Whatever it is, please don’t cry. It seriously hurts!” I could hear my voice break down. I regretted giving her so much pain.

“Don’t… avoid... me… please! Don’t ever ignore me like this… again… I feel so lonely without you…”

It was the first time I heard her crying. I had always thought of her as a very strong woman.

“I won’t. I promise I won’t.” Her crying continued for sometime as I continued to reassure her.

“I’ll always be with you, forever! Trust me!”

The sad tune had stopped; it had been turned off by her words, replaced by a soft silence, a silence that re fed my heart with all the sweetest dreams, of being with her for a seamlessly infinite future. The journey from that day through to the day of our wedding was the part of life I would most cherish. The moments when we walked together hand in hand for the first time in the same road we had walked in for so many times , the moments when she held my hand for the first time in her strong hold, her fingers had curled up over mine, in an effort to bond me to her for eternity. I would always remember the blushful smile on her face on the day of the wedding, when she wore the bright red sari.

“I love you, princess.” I whispered into Sheela’s ears as I hugged her from behind, watching our reflection in the mirror. She looked every bit a princess with the crimson mehndi lining her hands and palm, her hair covered with flowers of every possible colour.

“Darling, you are looking too good, not at all like you.” I said pulling her close.

“Hubby, you are looking every bit a beast, as usual.” Her eyes glinted in the yellow light of the candles.

“I will show you what a beast can do.” I pounced on her, pushing her to the bed.

That night was special in so many ways as we wrote tales of intense passion and love. It was the acme of our story. Had I known it would soon spiral down, I might’ve expended more effort to preserve the moments, to record them better in my mind. But the happiest moments are mostly lost forever when we get too intoxicated with the happiness of the present to bother about the melancholy that future holds in the dirty darkness of the unknown tomorrow.

15

Present Day

I vomited blood all over the wash basin. I was coughing badly and this was the first instance when I felt the illness. So far the cancer had only been on the papers and reports and had not made its presence felt. But now the time had come for it to reveal its persona with a grand entry like that of a drama artiste in some heroic play. I washed up the mess slowly as the cough continued and I frantically searched for the pill the doctor had prescribed to take if I vomit blood. The coughing sound and my screams of pain were loud enough to prompt the ‘reception’ clerk to come rushing to the room, using his key to enter. Darkness seemed to pervade the room, dimming the lights in the room, even the full moon shining down from the cloudy sky, hovering above the line of mountains, through the narrow window. The maroon fluid gushing out of my throat felt warm, making the insides of my throat feel like sandpaper.

“What happened, sir? Shall I call the doctor?”

I tried to open my mouth to answer him, when another pout of blood splashed out from my mouth, wetting the brown carpet on the floor. I fumbled through the medicine packet to dig out the pills and swallowed a couple without drinking water.

“Shall I call a doctor?”

“No. I am alright.”

I sat down on the bed, trying hard to ignore the burning sensation in the throat.

“I have blood cancer.” I told more to myself than to the short clerk whose eyes widened on hearing the word.

He immediately went a whole meter away from me.

“You don’t have to do that. Cancer doesn’t spread like that.”

“I know, sir. Don’t mistake me. I just get little freaked about hospital and illnesses.”

“It’s OK. Even I used to be freaked about things. Just now I have started getting used to this illness.”

“You look too healthy to have cancer, sir.”

I did not know if it was a compliment. I did not thank him. He left the room assuring me that I could call him anytime in case I needed help. I smiled thinking the poor man must’ve been imagining that I might die any moment. But then the realization struck me like a lightning that maybe it wasn’t entirely impossible. Only when I took the glass for some water I noticed how much my hands were trembling. I took my phone and called Sheela.

“Hello”

Her voice seemed to soothe my nerves. I pressed the receiver close to my ears.

“Hi. Was free. Wanted to talk to you.”

“Ok. I just now came back from office.”

I talked to her for five more minutes about nothing in particular. Talking to her made me feel at home. I tried to ignore the metallic stench of blood emanating from my throat. I left Ooty that night, convinced that home was a much better place to be at that moment. I thought of telling her the truth as soon as I reached home, but changed my mind when Sheela opened the door in the early hours the next day and welcomed me home with the usual warm hug. I needed the hug more than ever. I did not want to see her cry that day. I did not want to see her cry ever. She was too precious for that.

16

When I opened the door and saw my mother and father, I wanted to cry badly. I wanted to hug them and tell them I was hurt and that the world had been rude to me. Images of my childhood ran through my mind, when I would return home after getting hurt while playing. As I would graphically explain how I had got hurt, they would keep re assuring me that everything would be alright and it wasn't a bad wound. My father would pat my back and say in a soft voice.

"You are a grown up boy. You shouldn’t cry for this."

Even if the wound was small I would rush to them and report to them, for I used to believe that telling them would surely heal the wound. After all these years, that kid in me woke up again and wished fervently that my father would say it's not a major illness and I shouldn't cry for this.

"You have become so weak! Haven't you been eating properly?"

She told this every time she visited me. I was their only child and would remain just a child to them forever. It felt good to have people with whom I could be just a child, even if it hurt them at times. Once I had proceeded to tell in graphic detail what exactly I thought about my father’s wisdom and decisions. That was when they left the house and started living in a two room apartment in the suburbs of the city. And now I had even more sorrow in store for them. All these years, they had nurtured this dream of seeing me well settled in every walk of life, just when they would have breathed a sigh of relief; they were going to face things they'd have never imagined.

"How is your health? Have you been taking the pressure pills properly?"

"Yes, but it has been shooting up now."

I repeated my ever-neglected plea for taking up a complete health check up. They always seemed to have some reason for not doing it.

"We are happy now. With all these pills and stuff we are able to manage. Old age is an ailment no one can escape." He said with his usual loud laugh.

'No, father. Actually, I have escaped old age. I will be gone in a few days now! Just that I have to rot with cancer till then.’ The thought felt humorous for some reason.

I waited for the first opportunity to talk to my father alone. When he got settled in the balcony sofa holding a coffee cup, I took the opportunity to do something I had never done in my life.

"Father, I want to tell you something..."

He looked up arching his thick eyebrows and looking into the eyes that so blatantly resembled mine, I started talking.

"I have said things to you which I should not have said. You know, after getting a job, getting married, I was beginning to think I understood life just too well, to the extent that I found your guidance irritating.”

There was a long silence. I kept staring out towards the sea from the balcony, unsure of whether he would talk or start crying. But he was my father, he would never cry when someone was around, definitely not when that someone was me.

“I know you were so hurt though you hid it well. I am really sorry."

"I never thought you would..." He paused, unsure of how to complete the statement. I had reduced the man to this: someone who chose the right words to speak to me, for I had punished him badly for being thoroughly outspoken to me about what he had felt. I realized he would never again take that right with me.

"With age, life teaches you lessons, especially through people you least expect it from. Yes, I was hurt, son. But it has been healing. And I cannot hold a grudge against you, for in you I see so much of myself."

It was difficult to keep talking when so much of tears were thronging the eyelids; I fled the place with some excuse. As I left I caught a glimpse of his eyelids getting wet, I guess with age tear glands cannot hold it back for long.

They stayed till the evening and I sat down and heard all the stories my mother had to tell about every relative and neighbor. And by the time they left in the evening I knew I had given my mother one of the happiest days in recent times, for her needs from me were simple, the needs I had long forgotten to attend to: to spend some time with her and talk to her. It sometimes amazes me how easy it is for her to forgive me for everything I had done.

(to be concluded...)

On Happiness:

Mood: Very Light, Solitude, Reflection

Colors: The entire spectrum from the purplish red of the human blood to the green of wet tea leaves to the blue of the deep blue sea!

BGSounds: The chirping of miniscule birds inside a deep forest, amidst the deafening banging of a waterfall against the rocks.
(I have used 'he' for convenience!)
This post is about the one thing that every living soul is in constant quest of- the mystic mistress called happiness, and her elusive ways. She figures in every prayer and every blessing. Each person lives out his life hoping to some day meet her and then live with her 'happily ever after', but only a handful in a million make it happen or maybe even they give up hope and feign to have enslaved her for fear of looking like a complete loser after spending a lifetime searching for her, seeking the secret of charming her enough to stay with them. Little kids are taught that the only way to have her is by being good, by leading a good life, by doing good things. And as the years pass by, the kids see her shamelessly residing with the meanest people, people who had never tried to put a smile on some one's face, people who cared about none other than their own self. This post DOES NOT tell you how to get her in the traditional sense of the word. Had I known I'd have grabbed her long back and held on to her. These are just the observations and perhaps guesses I have made about happiness which may, like everything human, be erratic.

Life begins the moment a child is ripped off the warmth and safety of its mother's womb, into the
harsh world that cares nothing about it. Every child starts its life with a loud cry, the wailing of pain- pain of losing its haven, of ignorance and innocence, a plea to not abandon it in the the wide world of chaos and indifference. And yet every child is pushed down to this world, to this seemingly purposeless journey where the destination is known but not the path. And he is mad right from the first day. He cries out for help when he is hungry, laughs at times without a reason.
He reacts naturally to every impetus with the basic gestures of crying and laughing. And then he is taught that it is not good to laugh without a reason. He is also taught that only cowards cry, as if cowards are a separate class of people living in a separate world. Every person around the kid becomes a self-appointed teacher of what is good and what is not, for no grown up ever listens to them talk. The child listens to them, fooled by the adviser's success at hiding fear as an indication of strength. And so he stops to laugh, even when he feels like it. He begins to look for reasons even to laugh. He also begins to bottle up the tears that sometimes throng him, the only outlet for all the emptiness and loneliness that is part of human nature. And by closing that one emotional outlet too, he becomes more 'mature' and himself becomes another expert at philosophy about life(Hey that sounds like me!). And he is taught about all the great 'heores' - people who gave up everything they had and ventured on quests to find things they did not have. And now he is taught the worst lesson he would ever get to learn: that happiness can be acieved ONLY by getting things that he did not already have! These could be simple things like getting the 'first rank' in class or getting a good job or bigger things like getting into the Indian cricket team or becoming the next super star. And thus begins the lonely journey towards what some term 'goal' or 'mission'. Whatever they choose to name it, it is equally depressing and equally falsified. Every time he reaches one milestone, the world shows him another and makes him run towards it, mocking him about his pace. He runs faster pushing himself harder, punishing himself every time he gives in to nature and starts enjoying the everyday joys of life, like the song of the morning birds or the sparkling splendour of the stars at night. He learns to look down on anyone else who isn't running the race and emphasizes the belief that only the fittest survive. And then begin his days of failure and days of guilt when he misses out on few milestones. He sees the other people's poise and grieves in shame at his own incompetance. He tries to mitigate the pain by turning to some intoxication: world has enough number of intoxications to sustain all the pain of all its inhabitants, enough alchohol to wet all the parched throats.

Amidst the race, man does the biggest mistake of his life: love. Man fears being alone and when he sees a person who seems to complement his loneliness and fill the void, he readily loses his heart and for some time the world seems perfect. His quest for happiness is whetted by the intial joy of having someone to share his life with, to turn to when he gets too overhwhelmed with any emotion. And then, with time, new vacuums are created, and he finds the other not so perfect and sees his own fallacies and short comings. He gets too deep then to be able to free himself or the other from the pipe dream that they had gotten into. Happiness soon disappears into oblivion, replaced by another new layer of regret and remorse.

And so he plunges into the race again, seeking to get the success that alluded him, seeking to avenge the world for denying him his destiny. The 'goals' keep haunting him, they had long become needs he cannot live without. They seem to define purpose to his other wise empty life. Dreams are good company for a man who has no one else. He forgets to smile, finds jokes irrelevant and becomes sober and serious. He sees people above him who have 'succeeded' and covets their happiness and sense of achievement. He also realises that happiness never stays, that maybe she never would visit even. And so slowly, he begins to crave for the lesser luxury of peace and is denied that too. And one fine day, when the race wears him out, he sits down to relax, to let go of the quest. And then right before he closes his eyes, sees the smirk on the face of the princess of happiness.

'Why didn't you ever come to me? Did I not deserve you?' He asks before he breathes his last.
'I am your gift from God. You were born with me. You thought I was hiding behind the infinite things you chased and tried to find me behind them and always failed.'
'Then where the hell were you?!'
'I was right there within your arm's reach. You just had to look.'

Moral(As All stories gotta have morals!): Don't take life too seriously. No body gets out of it alive anyway! Stay Happy! Keep Smiling!

Au Revoir
10
I could never really forgive Soniya for what she did. For few years after that I could never again trust a girl. Though with passing time I could understand the pthelora of confusions that must've hit her, deep inside I could not accept what she did to me. And to this date I have never once classified what I had for her as an 'infatuation' for the word itself creates images of lust, craving and guilt. What I had felt fo her seemed too pure to qualify as that. But after all these years I can understand that it was not love either. But in the deep repositories of heart, those feelings got buried as unclassified, raw emotions that did not carry tags of right or wrong, good or bad. I guess such emotions are only meant to be experienced and never analysed. But the event left me insecure about people, about relationships. And in those few years of adolesence, I was more than careful not to hurt myself again. I never again looked at Soniya or any other girl for a long time. All girls seemed to be the same and deep inside I feared them. I kept away from most of them and even when in college. Whenever I saw any girl smile, I would be reminded of those infinite variety that Soniya had flashed and then the day will be spent in re living the whole episode. I did not have much hope of forgetting her, but somehow all my emotions seemed to be bundled with imaginations and memory and did not reflect in real life, for I could walk past her without feeling any remorse or even looking at her. But the 'image' of her I had in my mind was haunting me, the word 'infatuation' would play a million times as if it was some verdict from hell to seal off my happiness.

Then I did not have any idea that this was just a passing phase like every other phase that had passed. And then it was life's turn to throw some more surprises at me, but they were pleasant ones. The first time I saw Sheela I did not hear music in my head, instead I heard the sound of cars honking continuously. It was the first day of my work life. I was waiting at the bus stop at eight thirty to catch the bus. And suddenly there was lots of confusion and shouting. I heard the screeching sound of a car racing on the road. I too rushed into the crowd to see what was happening. A school boy had been run over by a speeding car. One girl from the crowd rushed to the boy and lefted him off the ground. She looked around and saw me and beckoned me to help. I too rushed in and carried him to an auto that had stopped nearby and as I deposited him on the auto seat, she quickly said.
"Hey.. You get in too. I don't have any cash."
Even before I could protest I had gotten in and the auto was on the way to the nearby hospital. I kept checking my watch as we admitted the boy into the emergency ward, as I filled up the hospital admission form, as I rushed to the wash basin to wash the blood stain off my shirt, as I gave her all the cash I carried.
"Hey.. Have this cash in case they ask you to buy some medicine or something urgently. I have to go now. I would really like to help here. But today is my first day at work. I am already late."
I had gotten the boy's home number from his ID card and had informed his mother. So I did not feel any guilt.
She started to something and then changed her mind.
"Ok. Not a problem. I will be here till his parents are here. Give me your number."
As she entered the number into her phone address book she looked up.
"Hey.. What's your name?"
"Arun.." I mumbled and left without bothering to ask her name.
I reached office at one that day. I was little agitated that she had asked me to come along. As I was getting used to the new place and the new people around, I slowly forgot the incident. I got a call at around six in the evening from Sheela.
"Hey.. This is Sheela."
I identified the voice.
"Yeah tell me. How is he now?"
"He is OK now. His mom came a little while after you left. And I did not need the cash. Where can I give it to you?"
"Hmmm.. I will come to the same bus stop in about half hour. Can you come there? I can come anywhere else if you want."
"No. I will be there."
As the company bus dropped me near the bus stop I saw that she was standing there, looking tired.
"Hi... How was your first day at work?"
"It was good. Didn't do much today. You stayed at the hospital?"
"Yeah...The boy's mother was alone. She did not have anyone for help."
"Oh .. I would've surely stayed if it was any other day. You know, getting a job is so tough these days and I did not want to leave a bad impression the very first day."
"Yeah I know. Getting a job is a tough thing. There was this interview I was going to attend today. One of the dream places I wanted to work at. I guess now I've to wait."
She turned and left with a smile.
NEXT

Au Revoir
9
Present Day
I walked towards the sylvan lodge that looked at least a hundred years old. As I reached the humble reception that had nothing more than a table and a chair i was surprised to see that it was in fact not empty and the chair was occupied by a puny person. I was unsure of whether it was the person in charge or some neighbourhood boy.
“I need a room for three days.”
As he looked up from the book he was reading, i could see that he was at least forty years old. He quickly hid the book he was reading.
“Five hundred per day. Two thousand deposit..” I paid the amount and slowly followed him to the room. I noted that it was smaller than the bathroom in my apartment.
“There is a balcony there with a nice view.” He said pointing to the corner of the room. I walked over to find that the 'balcony' was protruding only three feet from the room. But the view was splendid. I could see the hills all around, with the clouds engulfing the green patches. Surely this was not one of the famous lodges in Ooty, but it definitely suited the purpose for which i had gone there. I did not prefer the star hotels i usually stayed at. I had lied to Sheela that I was going to Bangalore for a conference.

I had spent the previous day getting a list of medicines that the doctor had prescribed, giving few more tests for god knew what. I needed some solitude, some time alone to think about what I was going to do, to slowly let go of all the dreams of future I had nurtured all along.

“If there is anything you want, you can tell me. I can arrange for it.” The puny manager said with a toothy grin.
“No. I wont need anything. Thank you.”
I did not know if he was asking about booze or something else. It made no difference.
The lake was vast. In every direction I could see the water reflecting the mountains all around. The place was less crowded than I remembered from my previous trips. I sat down in a stone bench, absorbing the enormity of the place. One of the branches from a tree in the bank of the lake was bending down and wetting the flower buds that had grown at the tip of the branches with the sheets of water that the ripples in the water were pushing to shore. Evening mist had started settling down slowly over the water , the air carried with it a scent of wetness and mud. From where I was sitting, I could see a school of thousand fishes in the shallow water, forming a dark sheet just below the water. A bushy brown dog was walking nearby, searching for a warm place to spend the evening. A couple of small kids were playing in the distance. One of them was a cute girl who was holding a balloon close to her as she clung to her mother. She saw me and tightened the hold on the balloon.
I realised that I too was like her in many ways, clinging to things that I held precious. I just wished those things were as simple as a balloon.
With so much life around me, my heart forgot all its woes. Instead of doing all the analysing that I had planned to do, I simply sat there, lost in the beauty of nature all around, finding the world a celebration of life, a place too sacred to be polluted with worries, too serene that I felt out of place for all the worries I carried seemed to have no place in a place so pure. There I sat like a cheating husband, plotting my rendezvous with my new mistress. A mistress I felt no longing for – the mistress of death.

“Do you want a cotton candy, Sir?”
A small boy was standing near me, with many small packets if cotton candy tied to a stick he carried over his shoulders. I did not know what made him think I would be interested in cotton candy. But looking at him then, at his sleep lost eyes, I decided I wanted to eat cotton candy. I bought four cotton candies and as he left pocketing the money I had given, I saw with intense satisfaction that he was smiling. Somehow that smile seemed important then, as if it was a remainder for me about how I had forgotten to smile off late, of how I had forgotten to make people smile, of how I had traded the best things of life for dreams that had no purpose, of how empty my life had become chasing things that did not have life. Darkness had dawned down very fast before I realized it and a thousand stars were shining down over the lake, seemingly checking their twinkle on the reflection. A radio was playing in a teashop nearby. I could not hear what the song was, but the music seemed soothing. There I was sitting on the bench – a dying man. A man who had had it all – a loving wife, a great job, a good bunch of friends and yet I had chosen to be unhappy and discontented. And now when I knew my end was near I wanted to make amends, to restore the beautiful picture that I had been scribbling over, to live life all over again, the way I should have. And somehow instead of feeling angry or sad for my current state, I felt mildly peaceful for at last I had woken up to reality, to see life for what it was and I felt a deep sense of gratitude.
NEXT

Au Revoir
8

“When you reach the heights of happiness, Beware! From there you can only fall downward”
“Pardon, I don't understand what you are saying...” I tried to walk away from beggar regretting i had even bothered to talk to him.
“No one does.. And that is why all of you are suffering... You should know...” He smiled at me with a glint that looked out of place in the eyes of a fully starved beggar. I dug out one ruppee from my pocket and put it in his hand, wishing he would leave me with that. But he did not even seem to notice the coin as it fell down and rolled into the drainage nearby. I cursed under my breath.
“What do you want? ” I asked in a voice that did not hide the fact that i was thoroughly annoyed.
I had been walking home after playing cricket with few friends in the neighbourhood ground. This man had come to me on his own and started talking.
“I dont need anything from you, son. You only do. Don get carried away. For every smile we will pay with tears. For every moment of happiness there will be hours of weeping!”
I couldn't take the depressing words anymore. The stench that seemed to emanate from him gave me an instant head ache. I started walking away, towards home, towards some place where i would not have to endure such depressing thoughts, towards sanity. I shot a glance at the begga
r to see if he wasw trying to follow me. But he was not. Instead he was smiling at me. The smile seemed pervasive, as if he could see through me, read my mind and could see my past, present and future right in my face. I quickly turned away as a man in a nearby shop in the platform muttered “Don't mind him. He is a mad man. Keeps saying so much of shit all the time”

I walked towards home, wondering why Soniya did not come out of her house the whole day.
But I had spent the day engrossed in imaginations about her. I had vividly imagined living with her everyday. I had felt mildly guilty that i had not said I love you after she did. But it had been too sudden and I knew that my mind had completely frozen due to the shock and excitement. I decided I would tell that today and was thinking of whether to buy her a rose or a chocolate to give her when we met. I shyly touched my lips to feel the kiss again, to relive the moment for the hundredth time that day.
As i neared the apartment building i spotted her coming out towards the front lawn. The first thing I noticed was that her eyes were fully red. I could see that she had been crying for hours. I stifled the urge to put arms around her, to comfort her, to blow air into her weary eyes. But there were people around and i simply gave her a questioning look.
“I want to talk to you...” She muttered and walked towards the gate.
She was silent till we reached the end of the street.
“What happened,Soniya?”
“I am so sorry for what happened yesterday.”
My heart started racing. I did not want to listen to this anymore.
“I should have been mature. This is madness. I don't know. Somehow my heart was weak. I cant believe i did what I did.”
I was speechless. Suddenly she was just another girl talking to me, the angel in her seemed to
have vanished.
“I am terribly sorry. Dont spoil your mind with ideas. We are too immature. Lets not talk again. Ever again. I am terribly sorry.” She was sobbing in between the sentences. A part of me wanted to hug her and tell her that she was wrong, that we were destined to be together, that I loved her and would take good care of her, that she was an angel from heaven. And another part was cursing her in my mind using all the bad words i had learnt from friends.

“Do you not love me?” I breathed out the words using the 'love' word for the first time in life with a girl.

“I dont. Neither do you. All this is infatuation.... ”
I died inside and tried hard not to break down. I could see that her heart shaped lips were trembling as her tears flooded her cheeks. Seeing her crying pained me deep inside. I did not want my angel crying because of me. So I watched her silently, forgetting to let those thousand drops of tears that were stagnating my eyelids to flow.
“I will always love you, Soniya...” I said madly, matching her crying with my soulful voice.
“I think of you all the time. I love you with all my heart and soul.”
She was crying hard and simply walked away, drying her face in her dupatta with an ever so graceful stride.
I waited right there, hoping she would come back to me flashing one of her smiles, to tell me that she was only playing around with me, to hold me close and re assure that she loved me too. I even had a silly doubt that she was doing this to trust my love, whether I would leave her if she talked like this. But then she never came back and this was the last time I ever spoke to her.
NEXT

Au Revoir

7

“Hey thanks a lot..!” She was flashing the ugliest smile that ever left her lips.

Soniya was waving at the bastard. He was the ugliest person I ever saw. He refused to leave, making his bike roar as he kept showing his disgusting teeth. His hair was parted in the middle, he was wearing a ring in one of his ears. After full five minutes, he left with Soniya waving him off with many ‘bye’s.

This was one month after the Mahabalipuram trip. I had started talking to her more often. But it never got personal. But I had seen or imagined I had seen shyness in her eyes when she spoke to me. I had heard music in my head in those precious moments of silence while we were talking. And now I had seen her coming in bike with that creature.

I decided to take a walk to cool my boiling blood. But as fate would have it, I met her near the gate. She was discussing something with Mrs Pramila, the apartment secretary.

“Hi!” Her face bloomed on seeing me, but I realized her face always looked that way and had nothing to do with seeing me.

I muttered the dullest ‘hi’ possible and kept walking towards the gate.

“You are sounding too dull. What happened?”

“It's nothing.”

She looked anxious. I kept walking towards the gate trying not to look at her excessively pleasing face.

“Wait. What happened, Arun? You seem to be angry with me.”

We were walking on the street. I was disappointed to know that my face so clearly revealed my anger.

“Wait! I cant walk as fast as you do.”

“Who is that guy?”

Now I had crossed my limits. She could have just said 'that is none of your business' or at least 'what has that got to do with you?'.

I had stopped walking. I was staring at the line of houses of on the other side of the road to avoid having to see her face. I had never seen her getting angry. Despite all the anger, I knew I would break down if I saw anger in her divine eyes, and definitely not forgive myself for being the reason for it. Angels did not need to explain to mortals why they do what they do. Thus, I was standing there, toen between two alter egos, one worshiping her the way I always did, the other feeling too possessive though nothing ever warranted me to be possessive about her. I had pushed my luck just too far. But I was satisfied at being honest.

“He is just a friend.”

We kept walking in silence.

“He looks so gay!” I muttered.

She started laughing. She pinched my cheeks and withdrew her hand immediately.

“I won't talk to him if that is bothering you so much. He isn't a close friend.”

There were a million thoughts flooding my mind.

'Implies I am a close friend.'

'Angel considers me an important person.'

'Angel considers me THE MOST important person.'

I did not know where that thought sprang from. We did not talk for the rest of the walk. WE reached the apartments in about five minutes. I had not once looked at her face- the longest span of time I had been without looking at her while I was with her.

“You will come tonight, right?” She asked casually.

“Where?”

“To the new year celebration tonight.”

I had completely forgotten that it was December 31^st. We usually had dance, song and other programs that would go on till midnight. They usually gave me complex that I had no such talent. I would soothe that feeling making fun of everyone performing on stage. I usually had my own group of losers to give me company.

“I may not come. I am not really interested.”

“Hey.. Neelam is dancing. Do come. It will be fun.”

“You are not dancing?”

“I don't know how to dance.”

'Your every movement is a dance. You just be yourself on stage. With every single graceful stride you cannot but paint the best dance strokes.'

“Moreover I am planning a mega rangoli. I will need some help.”

“Then I will surely come.”

She left without flashing any mysterious smiles at me.

I slept off that after reaching home. And predictably enough I dreamed about her. She was wearing cow boy hats and taking me on a horse ride. When the galloping of the horse became too fast, I frantically for something to hold onto.

“Hold on to me.” She whispered into my ears as the hat flew off and her wavy hair spread all over my face. “I will never let you fall.”

The celebrations had started already when I went down at 9 PM. All the latest songs were blaring from the loud speakers. I scanned the crowd for Soniya but she was nowhere in sight. I sat down and endured nearly an hour of dances and songs. I was beginning to get restless when I couldn't spot Soniya till eleven thirty. I took a third round of the compound searching for her and found her in the front portion of the apartment buildings. A beautiful girl was extending a bouquet of flowers.

“How is it?” She anxiously asked. Here she was, my angel, looking for my appreciation like a kid. Her eyes were glowing like two balls of fire. She was wearing a jet black top and a faded blue jean. The moon was shining down on her face. The satin skin of her face had patches of the rangoli powders all over it.

“How is it?” She asked again. But I was too dazed to talk. Everybody in the apartment complex were at the other side of the compound where the music had grown louder as the clock ticked closer to midnight.

“Beautiful...” I whispered without taking my eyes off her face.

“The colors...” I said pointing to her face.

“Oh. Must've rubbed face with powder in hand.” My hand was still raised, pointing to her face.

“You are beautiful... “ I told her the third time. A cold breeze swept past us and I sensed her coming closer to me.

“I look like charcoal next to you... ” I continued, intoxicated.

“No. You are really cute...” She was whispering too. The huskiness of the whisper felt like whiskey over her honey coated voice.

“The way you keep looking at me, the longing and admiration, the jealousy and possessiveness...”

She had taken yet another step in my direction. I could smell her perfume and even her shampoo.

“The way you can never really have enough of being with me....”

My fingers had touched her face now. I felt something close to what Armstrong must've felt on touching the moon. I moved my fingers slowly over her face. Her face felt like warm silk. I could see the pink rushing into her fair face as she started blushing. My fingers reached her heart shaped lips and I could feel them trembling.

I took my hand off her face. And it was then that she planted her strawberry lips right over mine. The clock had stuck midnight. Crackers were being burst and the loud speakers were blaring a happy new year song. Her lips tasted mildly of strawberry or so I imagined. In my mind, I was in one of the heavens, maybe the one she descended from. I could feel the angels of heaven showering flowers around us. The crackers lasted for about five

minutes. It was a stroke of luck or destiny that nobody bothered to come to the entrance of the apartment complex for those precious five minutes. She broke the kiss and took a step back.

“Love you...” She was breathing into my ears. I saw a glint of madness in her eyes that looked very familiar. I realized it was the same madness that had been gripping me ever since she walked into my life. She planted a soft kiss on my cheeks and walked away, turning to flash the most mysterious smiles of all.

NEXT

AuRevoir
6
Me and Soniya were going out. But by no means was It just the two of us and included Me, Soniya and thirty more people who lived in Akshaya Apartments. The residents had been planning a picnic for quite a long time. After a long debate, they decided on Mahabalipuram. It was a place that almost everyone had seen, but to go as a group there weren't many good places. And when I heard that Soniya and Neelam had never visited Mahabalipuram, I got excited. I decided I will be their guide, conjuring up stories about each place. I bought a travel book on Mahabalipuram a week before we left. It cost me a month's saved pocket money. I did not want to take any chances. On the day of the tour, I knew more about mahabalipuram than most people in Mahabalipuram. I was worried I shouldn't sound too geeky.

This was about two months from the day the angels walked into Akshaya. In these two months I had spoken to Soniya only thrice other than the accident day. Some how I was content on watching her from a distance. The three times when we talked were only brief 'hi', 'byes' while I was playing cricket in our compound garden or when she was putting rangoli. Yes, she was really good at rangoli and it was heavenly to watch her slender fingers so carefully deposit the coloured powders that seemed to transform magically into a beautiful picture.
I had not even noticed that we could actually overhear everything happening in B8 before Soniya came over. Then it had been one of the million irrelevant things. With each passing day, I was more convinced she came down from heaven. She became my sweet obsession. I would come home every day, guessing what colored dress she would be wearing, what song she would hum as she relaxed in the balcony for those precious fifteen minutes each evening. On a few prosperous days, she had even slept off in the balcony, clutching some dull novel. Those were days I heartfully thanked my parents for buying that house. I was overcautious and never let her even get any hint of being watched. It never occurred to me as a wrong act. To me her mere presence in this locality was a gift from god, a prasad I dutifully accepted. I would admire the way she bit the golden chain around her neck, I admired the way she stretched out and relaxed after a long tint with a book, I admired the way she unconsciously kept adjusting her dupatta, I admired her sweet voice that soothed my soul even when she was fighting with her sister, I admired the sweet little hindi songs she sung along with the TV. Now I come to think of it, there were so many things I admired about her that my full capacity to admire seems to have got exhausted in those few months I spent admiring her.

But when it came to talking to her, I got too self conscious. I could never bring myself to stop looking at her face and this made conversation really difficult. But Soniya was friendly to everyone. She would talk for hours to Mani uncles daughters, her immediate neighbours. From what I had overheard, her favourite food was chinese, her favourite actor was SRK , her favourite author was sidney sheldon, her favourite outing place was besant nagar beach and her favourite person was her sister, Neelam. I had stopped looking at Neelam right after the first day. Though I classified what I had for Soniya as 'admiration', for me even seeing some other girl then was nothing short of adultery.

Those two months of medidating about her eventually made me want to talk to her more and when I came to know about the trip, I started planning.
On the morning when we were getting ready to leave in the mini bus, there was the shocking news that Neelam was sick and so Neelam and Soniya weren't coming with us. But the shock was short lived as Mani's daughters pleaded with Soniya and convinced her to come. It also turned out that Neelam had only ordinary fever. I thanked god for the wonderful opportunity. Soniya would definitely have stuck close to Neelam had she come.

The travel time was fully spent on talks and boring tamil songs kept blaring from the speakers. Anything other than the hindi tunes Soniya hummed or sung were cacophony to my ears. Other than an idle two line chat about the weather I did get to speak to her through out the journey. But the accidental brush of her hand against mine, as we were distributing the plates when we stopped for breakfast, did leave me dazed. I noted with extreme anger that Rajesh uncle was talking to her all the time, enquiring about all irrelevant details about her course. I secretly cursed him in my mind using all the 'bad-words' I could remember. I pitied my angel. This was a price she had to pay for being beautiful. The moment we set foot in Mahabalipuram, Soniya mouthed the one question I had been waiting for.

"Do any of you know about the history of this place?”

I bounced in with a triumphant expression, and started my well rehearsed
lecture.

"The actual name of the place is Mamallapuram. King Narasimha varman who ruled it was called 'Mamala', meaning great wrestler...” And so I continued to a dumbfounded audience. I cautiously cut out the statistics and dates though I remembered them to sound casual. Soniya was thoroughly impressed, especially with my narrative of Arjuna's penance. By the time I finished, she was putting her arm around my shoulder, batting her eyelashes in wonderment. My heart was leaping with joy. My mother was throughly confused, as the previous time we had been to mahabalipuram was when I was five.

From that time onwards till the evening we were together. Me and my angel. But there were those annoying girls as well. And when the sun set and the full moon rose over the sea, we sat down in one of the rocks near the Five rathas.

We had spent more than two hours at the beach, wetting our feet in the waves. A couple of large waves even made my angel hold my hand for support even if it was for just a few seconds.
"It will be so nice to have hot tea in this weather.” She suddenly said while another one of the waves broke.
In the next five minutes, I had run to the shop about half a mile away, collected tea in a plastic cup and rushed back with it, taking care not to spill it anywhere.

"Hey.. You went all the way just to get this? I was just wishing!”
I handed her the cup with a small smile. I was happy. I did not do that to impress her. I wanted to have the satisfaction of fulfilling atleast one of her wishes, even If it was a trivial one. She was my angel.

The sand from the beach was sticking to her legs. Her wavy hair was flowing with the heavy wind, as she narrowed her eyes to avoid the sand from getting into it. And to my surprise, the nonsense sisters ran away to their mom to annoy her into buying them a shell with their name inscribed on it. Soniya did not go. She kept looking at the broad sea, the skies, the moon which seemed very ugly in her presence. She sipped silently from the tea cup.

"This place is beautiful... Everything about it. From the statues, beaches, rocks! Everything is so beautiful.”

“You are more beautiful!” I couldn't believe my ears as I mouthed those words. I expected her to slap me hard or just walk away. But I did not feel any remorse. I felt it my duty as an 'admirer' to let the art work know it Is priceless. She was looking down at the tea cup, unsure, maybe of how to react.

“You are the most beautiful girl I have seen. The most!”

She was still silent. For few moments the whole beach ahead of us felt empty. There were just the sky, sea, me, her and the moon. The waves provided the suitable music by splashing hard over the rocks to second my words. I looked into the sea and then to her. She was looking at me. She was no longer confused. She smiled at me another of her mysterious variety of smile and breathed the word in her usual honey coated tone.

"Thank you!” There seemed to be an emphasis on 'you'. The whole return journey was a blur. I remember feeling that I had started smelling of the perfume Soniya used, the name of which I never found out. Years later, Sheila would bring the same perfume sample in a clothes store and ask for my opinion and I would reply
“It is not good. Don't buy it.”
NEXT

Au Revoir
5
I used to cycle back home from school. It took me around twenty minutes. I would have to rush to the math tuitions after reaching home. I usually spent the cycle rides planning what I would do that evening. But in the past few days, the cycle rides like all other time were spent contemplating the beauty of my neighbor angel. I had found out from mother that her name was Soniya. Her elder sister was Neelam. But my meditations were always centered on Soniya. She was in her first year of college. That meant she was about four years older than me while Neelam was seven years older. As I took a turn to the bea to the beach road trying to recollect how her voice had sounded when she said that musical ‘hi’, I failed to see an approaching bike and he hit my bicycle hard from the front pushing me to the road. I had been coming too fast and so skidded for a distance bruising my elbows badly. There were cuts in my face too. Grains of sand stuck to the wounds. The biker was yelling at me. A few people had rushed to help me get up. And then was the moment of shame. There among those who had rushed to the spot was my dream angel, walking towards me hastening her graceful stride with anxiety and recognition. I got up on my own and was pretending to check the bicycle. A couple of spokes had come off from the rear wheel.

“Are you OK?”

I kept wondering why she was singing a song right then. She touched my forehead and was examining the wounds. It slowly dawned on me she was asking me something. I kept standing there, like some war hero, exhibiting the souvenirs from the latest battle.

“Are you OK, Arun?” Now I was shocked. I had not even considered the remote possibility that she would know my name.

“I am OK. It was nothing.” I hoped she hadn’t seen me falling off from the bicycle. I wished she would think I got hurt while racing with a friend or while overtaking a car.

“Shall we go to a doctor?”

“No. I am really ok.”

We walked towards our compound, pushing my bicycle which was making strange metallic noises as the spokes of the rear wheel rubbed against the road.

I tried hard not to keep staring at my angel. Now that she was walking so close by it was a really difficult task. It felt really unfair that she too had to walk like me. I was angry with her father, the retired bank manager for not buying her a car. It was unfair that the angel had to walk through the same shit filled road like just another ordinary mortal.

“Which school?” she casually asked. Her heart shaped lips seemed to join at an angle that made it look extra cute.

“DAV” I disliked the very name of the school.

She walked silently, immersed in thoughts. I continued watching her face, the way the two drops of sweat from her forehead left a wet trail as they flowed down to the rich valleys of her cheeks. I had an urge to wipe off the sweat and blow air into her face.

“How do you go to college?” I would’ve gotten heart attack if my angel took a city bus to commute to her college. I could already visualize a hundred men ogling at her in the bus. Somehow it felt like a gross imperfection to even imagine her going in a city bus.

“I have a scooty.” She said with yet another new variety of smile. She seemed to have endless varieties of smiles. Like a magician pulling off an unexpected trick, she was throwing the different types when I least expected them. The present smile seemed welcoming signaling that she did not find it an intrusion of her privacy that I was asking her questions about her life, even if they were about the most trivial things.

We had reached our apartment building. I looked at her hoping she would ask me to go to her house and put medicines for my war wounds.

“Hey wash the wounds with dettol and apply some anti septic.”

“Yeah , ok. ” I guessed my voice revealed my disappointment.

“Ok then. Take care. See you, bye.” She flashed a smile of yet another variety whose meaning I couldn't decipher.

I walked home, wishing I drove a bike instead of a bicycle and could drop her every day to college – at least on days when her scooty had some problem and though it was just another fantasy, I was already wishing her scooty would break down often. But there was also the frightening possibility that some other classmate would drop her. I almost chuckled in relief when I remembered that Stella Marris was a women's college. But she would definitely have boy friends. Or rather friends who were guys. I was beginning to hate those hypothetical 'friends who were guys'. And by the time I finished wishing that those friends' bikes meet with horrible accidents, I reached my house.
NEXT

AuRevoir

4

I was checking the mirror for the hundredth time that day. I was still not convinced if I had shaved properly. My face looked fresh and much younger without the bushy, uneven hair growth that had been sprouting all over my neck. My first shave gave me immense confidence and my skin tone seemed to have 'improved' from dark black to brown all of a sudden. The smell of cologne aftershave was strong and intoxicating.

"They are Punjabi people. They moved in only yesterday."

I was idly over hearing the conversation between my parents about our new neighbors.

"He has just now retired from some bank. She is a house wife. They have two daughters."

I was beginning to get interested.

I was fully alert waiting to know more about the mystery girls. I could already visualize the sizzling Punjabi sisters. I could almost see their round, shiny faces. I was hoping at least one of them was in my age group. Or they could be twins, even identical twins. I rejected the wish thinking it will be too boring to see two similar looking girls, I could us a little variety. Right when I was deciding on the exact facial features for the two girls, my mother’s next statement woke me up to reality.

“Both of them are studying in Stella Marris.”

Now I was both disappointed and excited. I had certainly heard about the reputation of Stella Marris. Many of my friends had even enlightened me on the theory that attractive physical appearance was a qualifying criteria to get into the college. I spent another fifteen minutes in front of the mirror to ensure I looked fit enough for the unknown angels’ eyes.

I alternated between the tv video games and checking the flat B8 from the balcony. We lived in A8 and the balconies of the two houses faced each other. A few men were moving the furniture to the house but there was no sight After noon I got tired of the waiting and my interest began to fade at least momentarily though I did not go for the usual Sunday cricket match at my school ground. I was crossing newer levels in the latest super Mario game that never seemed to have a last stage when the lightning started. There was an immediate power failure as it started thundering hard.

“Arun, bring in the clothes I have wrung in the balcony. Looks like it’s going to rain hard.”

I reluctantly walked to the balcony, feeling too bad that I had to again start at the beginning of the stage in the game. The wind was strong and all the windows were drumming against their frames. The thick smell of wet mud filled the air, announcing the onset of a downpour. I hurriedly pulled off the clothes without even bothering to remove the clips. If I had not paused to enjoy the wet breeze, I would’ve missed the most beautiful picture I had ever seen. In the balcony in B8, two testimonials of God’s aesthetic touch walked over, oblivious to the presence of their devotee who was right then writing off his soul to their divinely appearance. It was then that I had the greatest dilemma I ever had to face in my life. It was about whom to direct my attention at that very moment. One of them was tall, fair and chubby, with a mature face which showed she was the older one. Her face seemed to emanate a warm feeling of genuine affection and love to the world around, pleasantness mixed with mild pride at being a source of beauty to the place surrounding her like a cheerful butterfly – my mind was at complete loss in trying to describe and classify how she looked as I noted the way her upper eye lashes kissed the lower ones as she closed her eyes, feeling the light drizzle on her soft face. She was wearing a baby pink churidar and matching ear rings. For the first time, I noted that their balcony was jus ten feet away from mine.

As I was getting engrossed in her, her sister came forward offering a better view. And THAT was more than my weak heart could bear. Those days I would classify beauty into two categories:

First, The ones you would want to own and keep close to you.

Second, the rare ones that leave you in total awe, making you feel happy about that you are alive, re assuring that there is a god and a tasteful one at that, the kind you read of in stories, and never hope to meet in person, the out of earth angels. This girl belonged to the second type. She was excessively fair, the color of jasmine and moon. She had neatly carved sharp eyebrows over the shiniest pair of eyes I had seen, her wavy her was overflowing over her shoulders, shining like black silk. She was wearing a sky blue salwar with a matching blue hair clip of an unusual shape. Her lips were the shape of heart, like two slices of the freshest strawberries. Her smile was unearthly and wise like the ones you saw in the images of goddesses. Her face seemed to echo the delicate transition from a cute child to an attractive adult. She also had a pink glow and a shine which made me wonder if she was on incubator from the day she was born. . Even the couple of marks from past pimples seemed to add to the heavenly face rather than mar its beauty. They seemed to reassure she was human too, as if she was an angel who was cursed to live among humans, to fill the deprived earth with beauty and goodness. She was extending her hand to let the lucky drain drops touch her fingers and the grace with which she moved again filled me with intense awe. Before I could remotely recover from the spell they had cast on me, the inevitable happened. They noticed me staring at them as I tried desperately to look disinterested as I removed the last of the clothes that been hung for drying. But instead of getting irritated or angry as I feared, they simply smiled at me mouthing a silent ‘hi’.

I gave an almost toothy grin. But I felt a little bitterness when I realized they would’ve probably have classified me just as a neighbor ‘kid’. I wished I was older than them. I wished they would see me as handsome young man. I came back into the room and went straight to the mirror to check my face. I was too disappointed to see my hair in total disorder. I hoped my angels hadn’t noticed it. But they had hardly seen me. I did not have any complains. It was pure luck that of all the apartment complexes in town, they chose this one. I could hardly breathe when I fantasized about the different possibilities about how I could get close to them. At that age I hardly knew of what was causing all this unrest and upheaval in my mind whenever I saw pretty women. My knowledge about hormones and other biochemistry that caused these changes was hardly existent and I took it as just another passing phase of life except that it never really passed.

But that Sunday when the angels came into my life I would’ve hardly imagined what was to come, and I feel in such surprises lies the beauty of life…
NEXT

Au Revoir
3
I tried to sleep that night hoping I would wake up from this nightmare to a world where i did not have cancer , where my biggest worry was to meet a one month project deadline. Office and work seemed distant then and so did my home, for locked inside myself i had traveled far, into unknown lands where the dying men belonged. I seemed to have aged a few decades in the few hours after I knew of my deadline. The mechanical part of my brain noted idly that i would in fact not be eligible for the insurance. So I would not be able to save a few thousands in taxes. I almost chuckled thinking of how intensely calculative i had become to be bothering about taxes and insurance right then. And the thought flow always lead to the topic of my near date with death.

And then I thought about all the recent illnesses, the frequent head aches and began relating everything to cancer. Before long my mind concluded that even the bike accident four years back had been because of my cancer. I felt as though the cancer had been there right inside me, waiting to show itself, watching me every minute. And right when my mind was attributing a childhood typhoid to cancer as well, I woke up from the semi sleep. Sheela was fast asleep, wrapped in the light blue sheets. I walked over to the balcony. It had a view of the beach. On nights when i did not get sleep, I would keep staring at the sea, bathing myself in the salty night breeze. And such sleepless nights had been more frequent than the past in the last few months.

I sank down in the chair in the balcony, letting the vastness of the dark night engulf me. I could feel a tiredness of the mind, a weariness born of months of hectic schedules, meetings, sleepless nights. I threw the bed sheet i had wrapped around me as I felt it looked like the typical cancer patient costume.

From where i was sitting, I could see the tarnished face of the moon. It suddenly seemed too dull and dark. I kept staring at it as the dim circle seemed to transform into a well, too deep and too hollow. At the bottom of the deep well, I could see my own reflection on the shallow sheet of water. I could hear a voice tell me that it was my well of happiness and it had dried up almost to its floor. And yet, on the water, I could see myself, I was
not my present self though. I was a much younger, much happier person, untouched by the weariness of work, just ready to face the world, just ready to make a life. And slowly, the well seemed to engulf me, to take me on a rendezvous with heaven which i realized was moments from my own past. I closed my eyes, thankful to accept that gift, to relive those moments in silence, sipping from my past which was soothing like a glass of old wine.
NEXT

Au Revoir
2
I parked the car and walked towards the lift. It was one of those rare times when my mind was completely blank. Maybe it was the million different things that tried to capture my mind's attention that made it fully dormant or maybe the first and eternal confrontation with death silenced my mind in humble reverence. I went to my apartment without bothering to wish back Mrs. Manju, the one who lived in the opposite flat. I slept off with my shoes on, in the sofa and slowly the thoughts started unfolding, in sleep where I couldn't suppress or direct them and slowly like the onset of the evening dew, layers of thoughts settled on my mind. Even in half sleep I realized my mind was undergoing some transformation. And then I had the strangest of dreams, I don't know if it was a dream or just a fragment of memory playing in the vivid screen of my mind. It was a scene from my college days. It was one of those past-midnight chats that were usually about nothing in particular but everything in general. Most of them were laced with booze, but this one chat was when I was sober.
“What will you do if You find out you are going to die in ten days?”
Ananth was posting the question to everyone and scanned the room for any responses. All of us ignored his question as usual. He repeated the question, more loudly now in his ever so irritating voice.
“I will bang a hundred gals in those ten days!” I announced more to shut him up. But the idea seemed exciting.
“Did you realize that means you gotta bang one every two hours twenty four minutes assuming you are at it for twenty four hours.” Ram announced within a second.
“Thats not a big challenge. I can do better than that.”
“No. You will actually be spending every moment of those ten days fearing and trying to accept death.” The eternally drunk Vikram declared from the other room. None of us knew he was even awake.
“You will spend those days regretting every mistake you did, wishing life had been different and you had done things differently.”
“But thats boring. I would rather stick to the hundred gals thing.”
And then Vikram had smiled a strange smile at me. And now sleeping on the sofa in my house on my first day of the rest of life with cancer or rather the first day when I would start counting my days, his smile seemed to travel through ages and reach out to my present and then I got this creepy thought that Dr.Sridar looked like Vikram, the same height, the same pointed nose. And then he was bending down over me and shaking me violently. I knew he had come for my blood. To make me 'pay' for my sins or whatever he had said all those years back. Vikram had died the year after passing out of college. None of us had been surprised.
I woke up, drenched in sweat and Sheela was bending down placing her palm over my forehead to see if I was running temperature.
“What happened? How did you come home so early?”
“Had a little head ache. So I came home.”
“You are having head aches so often nowadays. Fevers too. May be we should see some doctor.”
And then I remembered that I had had fevers quite often in the recent past. Every thing started to fall in place.
“What are you thinking about?”“Nothing.” I was thinking of how to start telling her. I watched her face. I tried to remember the last time I had said something that had brought about a smile on her face. I couldn't think of one instance in the recent past when I had made her happy. Only a barrage of hundreds of fights were playing in my mind. And then without notice the thought came and brought with it a lot of peace.
I was not going to tell her. The idea bowled me over with its simplicity. I failed to think of the bigger picture and chuckled to myself in some insane pleasure for having averted the need to frame the right sentences to tell her the truth. I remembered moments in my schooldays when I got the same satisfaction when I would hide my Math papers from mom. It was as if I could always change reality by rejecting to speak about it. By preventing people from knowing. I soothed my mind saying I'll tell her after it gets confirmed, after the other test results came. I wanted to think the doctor had said there was some chance that the previous tests had gone wrong. But the evil Sridar gave no such hopes. He had almost promised on his profession that I had cancer. A part of my mind rejoiced nonetheless when I decided not to tell. I kept looking at her and realized after many months that she was really beautiful.
I thought of how everything would change the moment I spill the truth. The knowledge about my condition was like a bomb, which would explode any moment killing all happiness and more importantly the 'normal' feeling around me. And I thought nonchalantly that my life would end the moment the truth came out. My life as Arun Kumar. My life as an average husband. My life as a Project manager. My life as a normal human being full of all the small mistakes. In that small bundle of truth was wrapped my entire life for once it was opened, I would be just another dying man and all my mistakes would have been instantly forgiven. I did not want that. Thinking of the past few years was making me sick. I had lived the life of an average man. Not the dream life I had wanted to live years back when I was still forming what would become my self image, When I was dreaming of a good future and was not too busy to live life by the second. And so that day, watching Sheela make tea for me, I decided not to tell anyone the truth for as long as possible.
NEXT

Au Revoir

1
It was the first Monday in weeks when I was not in office before ten. As I saw the frosted sundial of my old citizen ticking a eleven thirty, I cursed myself for the umpteenth time for choosing that insurance company. I found out that the other companies did not require so many tests after signing up for that policy.

I scanned the lobby where i was made to wait before i could collect the reports of the tests. The hospital was one of those recently built ones that looked too cheerful and lacked the sobriety one expected of hospitals. I switched on the walkman in my sony ericcson and tried to listen to some music to stifle the urge to slap the hospital staff who were making me wait for hours for the report. But soon I realised I had never loaded any music into the phone. I smiled to myself thinking of how much i had changed for there was a time when I would listen to music all the time no matter what I would be doing. Things had been hectic at the office with the project dead line just a couple of months away.

I turned the FM radio on and a peppy A R Rahman number greeted me. I closed my eyes and eased a little in the chair. I was woken up by a pleasant looking nurse a few minutes later.

"Dr. Sridar wants to talk to you. "

"Can I just have my reports please? I will meet up the doctor later if He wants me to. I am already too late. I have to rush to my office."

"No, Sir. He wants to speak to regarding the reports only."

I followed her dutifully to the doctor's cabin. There was this geeky looking young man who was looking at the computer screen in front of him with utmost interest sitting behind a fancy looking table. He looked up at me as I entered and beckoned me to the chair opposite him with a pleasant smile.

"Good Morning Mr. Arun."

"Good Morning, doctor. You wanted to see me?"

"Where are you employed Mr Arun?"

'Thats none of your bloody business. Just give me the damn report.' My heart screamed.

"I work at Riversoft." I said bluntly.

"OK. Let me come to the point. We had run all the basic tests. A few of the tests showed abnormlities.There seems to be malignant cell growth in blood. I am afraid you have blood cancer." He blurted the whole thing in one breath. I wished it was some other doctor I was talking to. I wished I was somewhere else. I wished i was still sleeping in the lobby irritated by the delay. I did not know how to react. Somewhere in me there was this faint craving to hit the doctor across his face for all the blasphemous truths he dared to reveal to me. All of a sudden the hospital looked more sober than any place I had known. It seemed as if all the cheeriness had been sucked out of the place by this
The moment felt surreal. I kept looking at him, my new god who was dictating to me my new future. Sensing my thoughts, he proceeded to the next rehearsed line.

"We cannot afford to delay, Arun. We should run a few other tests to see how advanced it is, whether there has been metastasis and so on. You should start taking the treatment very soon. Cancer is curable." My thoughts had left the place temporarily. The gravity and the seriousness of the situation was too strong to bear. I irrelevantly realised that the doctor was too short, that with his pointed nose he looked like a character out of some comic book. But comic characters did not break such tragic news about cancer and death. Next few thoughts were about Pramila, Sheela's colleague. She had been diagonized with lung cancer. I tried hard to think of what happened to her after that. I had not bothered to ask about her to Sheela- the same way as i had never bothered to ask Sheela about the million things in her world.

The young, short, evil doctor Sridar was telling something in his lecture like voice. I did not bother to follow any of it.
"Don't worry, Arun. WE will start the treatment this week. Take these tests now. We will get the results in a couple of days."
I left his cabin without thanking him. All the tests i gave that day were a blur. They took a lot of my blood out of the veins off my left hand. I did not mind. I wryly thought that after all it was cancerous blood.After an hour, I was driving home. It was the first Monday in years when I did not attend office.

NEXT

Death of Faith

The prayer beads lie frozen in my soft hold,
As this irreverent realisation begins to unfold.
My knees have worn out cause of kneeling before you,
Mouthing my prayers that have always been just a few.

Every trial you threw I tried to pass,
But you did never stop Alas!
Now I am done and you can take the spoils,
Basking in glory of breaking thy believer's pleas.

The lips that breathed thy name with every breath,
Is now sealed in a hopeless dearth.
The gleam of faith that floated in my eyes
Has been darkened by the unravelling of thy lies.

Did i ask for a gold mound?
Or was it to have me crowned?
A little peace was all I sought,
Which you denied with your diabolic plot.
Drops of happiness you did shower,
With the curse that they'll reappear never.
Burying all beliefs of wrong and right,
You tormented me along my pathetic plight.

But I have no complaints
For It was My mistake to believe
Ignorant of the tricks you had up your sleeves.

Hey God! You are slick and smart.
But I know now that you exist not.

The Fighter

Races i ran losing all the time telling myself the lie that the next race will be mine.
But then a voice told me it's just a choice.
To fight this madness or shy away from all the sadness.
And thus i made my mind.
In a strong decision too rare from me not to be one of a kind,
I'll fight till i can fight no more
and then push a little some more.

For the world is just for the fighters in us
and losers can all die without fuss.

The Promise

11


Present Day
Arun drove to 'The Ponni', one of the recent restaurants that had come up in Srirangam. It was only two miles from Vijay's house. The restaurant, true to its name, was just on the bank of the river, in a stretch where there was considerable water flowing in the stream.
His heart was racing from the time he had called her. The telephone conversation had been too short. She had picked up on first ring, when he had told her who it was, she remained silent for a long time. Arun was angry, he wanted to shout, to scream, to cry. He did none of it.

“Thanks a lot for coming, Arun.”
She had said in a voice which did not sound excited or accusing.
It had been unpredictable and distant.
He had asked to meet her. She had suggested the restaurant and time.
And she had cut the call.


Arun sat down at a corner table and checked his watch. Time was five twenty.
He had a pang of disappointment that she unlike him had not come early. He mentally prepared himself to meet her. Vijay had said it will be a shock. It was one of those moments of his life, when he had no idea what
was going to happen next. He knew he was disappointed, shocked. But he did not know which of these emotions was dominant right then. He guessed it was anticipation of seeing the person who was so deep a part of him and yet so distant. He had no idea what they would be talking about.

The restaurant was empty except for a couple of families dining at the other corner of the place. Arun was watching one of the kids who was playing with a ball. It was a small girl, wearing a bright green frock that was too big for her. She kept stepping over it. And when she ran to get the ball her brother had thrown at her, she fell down face down. As she was getting up with great effort, a woman in a red saree walked in to the restaurant. The child looked up at the woman and started screaming out of fear.
The woman quickly covered her face with her right hand. The child's mother rushed in and apologised to the woman.
Priya started walking towards Arun's table. Arun kept staring at her face, which was disfigured badly on the right side. There was a mesh of dead flesh that looked squeezed hanging on the right side of her face, hiding most of her right eye. Her right hand had only two fingers. The whole of her face was scarred. Arun was not prepared for this. His insides were churning. He managed to mutter.
“Please, sit down.”
She hurriedly tried covering her face with the saree, sensing Arun's shock.
“Hey, you don't have to do that! Really. Vijay told me about the accident.”
“I thought he would have. But still you seem too shocked.”
Arun could not recognize her voice. It was definitely not the high octave voice of a girl he had always associated with her. It sounded like an old woman. On the phone too he had thought her voice was odd, but assumed it was because of bad signal.
“How are you, Arun?” She was looking at him. There was no emotion on the part of her face which was not yet dead.
“I am OK...”
They both were silent for few minutes. It seemed like hours-decades-ages as the truth was ringing on Arun. Priya broke the silence.

“I guess you too are confused about where to begin.”

“Yeah, I am.”

“Let me help you. You wanna know what happened to me. About the accident?”

“I am not sure I do.” Arun almost shouted.

“Are you angry, Arun? With me?” It was more like the voice he remembered. But not fully.

Arun was silent.

She looked at his hand, on the dull watch ticking on his left wrist, and the first smile of the evening blossomed on her face. Arun was watching her forgetting to blink. The woman of his dreams was right there in front of him, within an arm's length. There were hundred questions that needed to be asked, a hundred explanations, a hundred stories about where life had taken each of them during these years they had been physically apart. But he realised that all that did not matter right then. He was with his angel, the princess of his heart. he felt a mild urge to slap all thosee who had told him it was just a 'childhood crush'. But his heart was too absorbed in the present, in every moment as he sat there opposite her, to be bothered by any other thoughts.
They had ordered things without thinking about it, both thinking of what to say next. And then, just like the olden days, Priya started talking, breaking the ice.

"It was so sudden- everything about the accident. I was twenty four then. I was going back home with appa after attending a friend's wedding in a rickety mini-bus. It was crowded and appa was sitting near window. The bus got into a deep puddle, lost balance and rolled over. It was instantaneous. I lost consciousness. And woke up to find myself in this beautiful form."
Arun realised she must have narrated the accident a thousand tiumes before. She sopke about it without any emotion.

"I am really sorry." He muttered half to himself. She ignored it and continued to eat the dish that had arrived a little too early. Arun turned towards the river, watching the splendid orangy light of the evening reflected in the water.

"I came looking for you..." Arun said without looking at her.

"I know. Vijay told me."

There was a serene silence when he too pretended to be eating the food he had no hunger for.

"Shall we eat ice cream? You always liked ice creams."

"Not anymore. We'll order if you want."

"No, No need."
She smiled to herself.

"So your tastes have changed."

"With respect to food and ice cream, yes."

"Hmmm.. Hey how is your wife? Vijay said you have a daughter."

"Yes..." He took a pic of Veena and his Priya from his purse, unsure of how to answer that question

Priya looked at it for a long time.

"What is her name?"

"My wife Veena and my girl is Priya." She looked up at him and there was a flicker of emotion which he couldn't classify.

She hurriedly turned towards the photograph.

"Your Priya is cute and your wife is really good looking."
Arun tried to think of something to say. There had been a grain of longing and pain in the latter compliment.

"What about your work? "

"How much longer should we keep talking as if we are just old friends?" Arun asked sharply without preamble. He knew he was now talking to his girl who would understand him and not the ever so clever and curt Veena. He could be himself to this one person.

She appeared little surprised and became silent. Arun paid the bill and slowly walked towards the river. She followed him silently. The sky had darkened with heavy clouds and so was their hearts. He continued to walk till his feet was immersed in the shallow stream.

He looked towards the distant horizon. She came close behind him.
"Why didn't you contact me Priya?"

"It was complicated. I..."

"You too thought of all that as just a passing cloud?"

"NO."

He felt her coming closer to him.

" Appa had started talking of wedding and i kept refusing. I always knew you'll come for me."

She had moved closer still.

"And then the accident happened. I became orphaned. I moved to a working women's hostel. Every day when i see myself in mirror, I 'll turn away. i don't find fault with the thousand people who react on seeing my face nowadays. There was not a shoulder i could cry to.

"But I was determined to face it bravely. And the only thing that kept me going was your thoughts. Somehow, deep inside I knew you would come back for me."

He couldn't breathe. He touched her hand and held it tight in his. The rain started pouring down without warning.

"It is time. I should be going."

The meeting was going to be incomplete just like so many things in his life. He stood there watching the rain.

"It's raining. I will drop you."

She did not protest. They walked towards his car. Within moments they were driving towards her house, as she kept showing directions. In few minutes they reached the sylvan house she was now living at. She opened her door and got out adjusting the saree.

"Then why didn't you contact me?"

She kept silent.

"Why didn't you contact me?"

"I was afraid! I was afraid that my present condition might disappoint you."

"You thought I'll leave you because of an accident? because of a few scars on your face?"

'NO. I always knew My Arun would keep the promise. That you would come for me and take me with you. I knew a half disfigured face wont change your love. But if you had seen me and had even had a little disppointed look in your face, I would've died. I was afraid of facing that eventuality. i didn't want the single bubble of hope i had pricked. " All the strength and nonchalance had left her face. Pain was painted on their faces. She was crying, with the tears mixing with the tears of the sky. Arun had reached beside her.

" I cant explain more." Priya said between sobs.

"You don't have to..." Arun whispered into her ears and took her in his arms, hugging her close. She let the tears of all those years flow to his shoulders. He moved his face close to hers. She instinctively turned to her right to avoid the disfigured part from touching him. He kissed her right over the scars. Both of them stood there in each others arms, forgetting the world, forgetting the accidents, the confusions, the things that had torn them far apart. In their minds, they had traversed time and were again the sixteen and seventeen year olds, whose hearts were just then painted with warm love.

They wished time stood frozen, like it never did. At last, she broke the hug, planting a shy kiss to his forehead. His eyes were still closed. His lump in the throat had left him for good.
"I love you, Arun. I will continue to do so. That is what will keep me going."
"I love you too." He whispered, still refusing to let her out of his arms.
"No, Arun. It is not right. You have a wife and your own cute Priya."
Arun wished this part never came, that they had continued to hug.
"Shower on them all the love you have for me. Live life happily, Arun. The knowledge that you are living happily somewhere, that will make me feel good. Will you do that for me?"
He remained silent, looking at his angel, fearing he would lose her again.
"I couldn't control the urge to see you, to know what had happened all these years with you. So only i contacted Vijay. This day, the last few hours, they are enough for me da, enough for a life time. I will live happily in those memories. "
He was still silent.
"Take care da. Go now. It is getting really late. Take good care of Veena and Priya."
"I will. You take care too." He couldn't rtecognize his voice. A part of him refused to wake up to reality, the part which had wanted to remain for eternity in the warmth of that hug.
"See you then. But not for anytime soon." She said with a smile. She turned back and walked to her house, wiping off the tears she had so well controlled. She did not want him to remember her crying. He started the car and drove in the rain. As the rain lashed against the wind shield, he started replaying the moments of the evening in his mind. But he was in no hurry, for he had his entire life ahead of him for that.
----------------------------------------The End------------------------------------------------

The Promise

10

And so the years passed after he returned from Madurai, awakened to reality. He tried
not to think of her or his defeat in making his dream come true. It hurt more maybe because everything that he had held too close to his heart felt too trivial- a product of
adolescent confusion he had carried with him for years, that had become
an integral part of him.
He flooded himself with too much work to escape from his emotional trauma and almost succeeded.

Eventually his mother brought up the topic of marriage. After a period of refusing
bluntly, He gave in and did not involve himself in any part of the process for 'choosing' a girl.
Veena was yet another girl who was brought up to be married off to an NRI. Arun realised
there were the city was filled with so many of them-good looking, seemingly delicate and all
girly smile, ready with their passports and maybe even the Visa application
filled except for the husband's name. His parents and that of the girl decided that Arun would be the name to fill up
that column in Veena's papers.
Arun had no complaints about the entire thing. She looked good,
and initially soft-spoken. Even though he was not entirely sure
if he would again be emotionally attached to
anyone as closely as he had been to his childhood crush-he had convinced himself it had been just that,
he ventured casually to matrimony.

On the first night he spent with his wife, he thought it would be dishonest if
he didnt tell her about his 'childhood crush' and so he narrated the entire episode with as
much non chalance as he could muster and was half expecting her to react, to yell at him for hiding this till then.
But much to his surprise and disappointment she just said,"How Sweet". That was when he realised that his dreams were a thing of the past, a 'sweet' thing that happened too long back. He badly wanted to shake her by the shoulders and shout "No! it's much more. It's my madness- a part of me that has lingered for years now." But he realised it was pointless- no one cared now.

He was never unhappy with Veena. In fact there were those few moments of intimacy when the ghosts of
his past did not haunt him, when he could look into Veena's eyes and tell her he loved her. But he knew something was missing in him, in their relationship- he did not care to find out what it was.
It would be one of the many things in his life that remained incomplete.

And then Priya was born. Despite all his efforts to crop out the memories, holding
the little baby in his hands, the only name he could suggest was Priya. He had looked at Veena expecting her to raise her eyebrow. But She had completely forgotten the 'sweet story' by then
and the name turned out to be one of the few things they agreed upon.

Little Priya brought in more color into his life,
and even bridged the void between him and Veena.
He would rush home everyday to hear her speak the new words
she had learnt, to tell her those tales
about people of a faraway land,
to see her eyes sparkle
in awe as he would describe in his best possible tone
the tales about magnificent castles and
armies. Life seemed really good to him for sometime.
So much that he even thought the
confusions were things of the past. But then, like other things, that peace
too was not to be forever, for it all crashed down when
he got that call from
Vijay one monday morning informing
that he had met Priya. The choked feeling returned and so did the bitterness in his throat.

Next >>

The Promise
9

Sendhil,the cleaner boy, looked impatiently at Arun and Vijay and the plates with half eaten dishes in front of them. Customers like these irritated him. They kept talking and would never finish eating. But this two people were worse. They weren't even talking. They were just staring at nowhere in particular for about an hour now. He had many bad experiences with such customers. They were rich and could afford much better places. He didn't understand what made them come to this wretched restaurant. His job was to remove their plates. Mani, his latest 'assistant' will then wipe the table clean. But he would be spanked by his employer if he took the plate before the customers were done with eating. He' ll not be spared if he took them away too late. So 'timing' was very important. He had his eye on all the tables, ready to pounce the moment someone gestured that they were done with the meal.

Vijay scanned the restaurant for the want of a better thing to do. For the past half hour he had been trying to think of some way of asking Arun the one question that was staring at them:'how longer did he plan to continue this absurd chase?'. He was leaving that night. That weekend had been one of the longest of his life with he and Vijay searching the streets of Thirunagar, a suburb in the outskirts of the city. When he was convinced he had found the right words to phrase the question, Arun broke the silence.

“It's useless...”
“What is?”
“This search. I am going to Chennai tomorrow.”
“But...” He did not feel like asking why when he knew the answer.
They did not speak for another five minutes. Arun was fighting back the choking feeling. He refuseed to believe that he had fondled a dream that was too stupid in hindsight. He had lived a fairy tale and it was time to wake up.

“I have been so damn foolish!” Arun blurted out and swept across the table with his hand in frustration, the tumblers and one of the plates fell to the ground. Sendhil almost screamed a curse. The 'restaurant''s owner rushed close. Vijay got up in time to avoid the water splashing all over the place.

“Sorry, sir. I ll pay for the broken tumblers, sorry really.” Vijay was pacifying the owner.
The owner knew they had eaten for a good amount and did not want to lose such customers.
“It's ok, sir. Not a problem. Just take care of your friend.” he said motioning Sendhil to clean up.

The two of them walked out of the restaurant and walked through the crowded street. An old Sivaji song was blaring from loud speakers in a nearby street.
“Are you sure? You can try other sources.”
“It's not about finding her. She just didn't keep in touch with anyone. She would've if she had even remembered all that.”

Vijay tried not to look sympathetic. He had said the same thing a hundred times before this.
He just patted Arun on his shoulder.

Next >>

It is better to be violent, if there is violence in our hearts, than to put on the cloak of nonviolence to cover impotence.

Mahatma Gandhi (1869 - 1948)

Psychedelic Musings:
4word:
i don't know why i am writing this (article?). maybe cos i am scared blogger might delete
my account if i don add posts... or maybe cos i need to write these flurry of thoughts that
are acceptably incomprehensible or simply because talking about violence makes me
feel important and heroic. With that confessional note, let me begin my worst scribbling to date:)



Violence:
Color: flashing red and black
BGSound: metal clinking

Each of us has had these few moments of intimate contact with our souls when the voice inside the heart took control of the stupid mind that is conditioned by the world to remain dormant.
In those moments (of realisation?) these are the doubts that come up maybe for everyone or just me. These are the moments when we lose our hypocritical pseudo faces and look into our our own reflection in all its ugliness and raw
animosity.this is not about what we have to be. or what we can be. It is about what we want -whether you are meek or strong .Those moments when we shove away the policeman in us
and let our violent instincts take over. When nothing makes as much sense as bathing
the ground with the enemy's blood.
Now, I am not making assumptions about the readers and let the readers not assume that
i am a very strong and macho guy cos i am not. maybe i wont last for ten minutes in a man
to man duel if the other person is strong. as i said earlier it is not about what we can do. but what we want. it is about the ugly person in each of us who is as real and existing as the sweet and cordial outward persona yet sleeps in bliss till one comes face to face with anger.
Raw anger unveils our true selves like nothing else does. when all the cosy embellishments of peace tear away to bare our souls' true nature.

When things are well , we have no complaints about life.
we smell the roses in our garden and reflect on how beautiful this life is. we move about as the 'peace merchants' and advise every other person how stupid violence is. we are hiding the fact that we are finding violence wrong only because we don't want the picture of a beautiful life we carry in our heads get disturbed by few elementary truths. underneath all the layers of social behaviour and self-image, don't we all know that we are concealing the basic lack of strength be it physical, mental or emotional.in our blissful ignorance we walk about the day mixing with people who
are equally foolish and wear their own self-assumed image of a dignified gentleman.
then isn't that act of violence a moment of true fruition when
we realise that world isn't made of roses and there is more blood flowing on the streets than all the wine. For animals the realisation comes the first time they are attacked maybe days after
they are born. it is only in the human beings that the young ones
are protectively reared in an environment of care and warmth, bred to be incompetent and weak.
often most men go to their grave not having faced a real fight. not because there is
nothing to fight for. but because of the conditioning of years that the world is good the way it is
and one must not be greedy for more.often the preachers of such treacherous falsehood are often
much well off than the rest.

They say beauty is skin deep. Then hunger is body deep.Maybe it is only violence that has infinite depth. For it's to vent off the violence that all the wars were fought. Raw violence born of pure greed and a feeling of suppressed superiority.

I am not preaching violence. But the layers of hypocrisy we all possess is shamefully pathetic. Instead of snuggling in a comfort zone of warmth and safety maybe we should be prepared for facing the violence for what ever we do it is going to be there in the world we live in. In a real life situation which is more probable? that the policeman comes running to save you when you are getting mugged or the guy beats you bad and takes your money? How infinitely secure you can be if you can beat the shit out of that guy, that such people are scared of coming near you? All that you feel is worth protecting be it your family, home, country or the whole world can be protected only if YOU are strong. Maybe it looks impossible to be capable of fighting but it's so
plainly evident that its raw physical strength one needs to fight back. Any other strength should be built on this foundation. and never trifle the urge to fight, for not fighting back reeks of vicious cycle of impotence and weakness. You cannot yield to the urge every time, true. i am not saying we can rough up the guy on the road who bumped into us by mistake. but it's really unmanly to suffer through life just out of fear of fighting. If you don't use violence to protect yourself, to fight
for what you feel is right, someone else is going to use
it on you and you' ll end up being the victim, the loser. People were right when they said only the fittest will survive. The rules of life doesn't see whether you are on the good side or the bad for the only rule is that the stronger wins. so even if you are on the right side, you are grossly dispensable if you are weak. for life is not about IDEALS u have, its about what we DID in
this span of time.

*Fight as long as there is something worth fighting for*

[i have used 'we' instead of 'i' for some comfort. i dont intend to comment on anyone else!]
(Musings to be continued!(sorry:)))

Something like love

Let's know each other,
Walk in each other's shadows.
Let's share any trouble that bothers,
On those walks across countless meadows.

I wanna soothe my soul
in the warmth of your eyes.
I wanna dry my tears
in the breeze of your smiles.

Let's listen to those songs
lines of some foreign tongue.
Let's watch the light of dawn
lost in the silence which we long.

Come to me
For my heart can't stop thinking of you...
Hug me close
For my hands can never let go of you...

Cannot explain what all this means,
For i am not a man of words.
But come to me for to me you mean all,
We'll fly off together like birds.

SeaView Apartments
1

Sriram climbed the final few steps to the terrace on the nineteenth floor with elevated sense of devotion. The voice was giving him precise directions. As he jumped over the pipes running across the length of the terrace, the evening breeze from the sea swept his ragged face. The scars in his face felt as fresh as they had been on the day of the accident. But the voice kept telling him what to do.

"Keep going, Sriram, you are about to find peace and fly away. You can leave this ugly body and regain your own splendid one. Nymphs of the land you are goingto inhabit are waiting for your arrival and the land has been decorated just to please your eyes at first sight. You are going to fly way, son. Walk towards the edge…" the soothing voice was whispering in his mind.

He fumbled his way in the dark towards the edge of the terrace. The wall surrounding the terrace was low and no one was permitted entry to the terrace except the watchman. But Sriram was the secretary of the apartment and the only duplicate keys always resided in his house. He had meticulously waited for the watchman to come back from terrace after the overhead tank had filled up. It was part of the watchman's daily ritual to switch on the water supply once the tank was full.

When he reached the wall, he climbed over it with child-like enthusiasm and looked down at the vast expanse of Besant Nagar that looked resplendent with lights at this time of the day. The sea was visible at the distance, the view after which the building had been named. There were heavy beads of perspiration from the climb to the terrace, the voice had instructed him to take the stairs and not the elevator.

"Extend your arms, son, Why have you been stifling this urge to fly? You were born to rule the skies. Unfold your wings and take a deep breath! "

The soft, cajoling voice told him.

"Thank you, father!" Sriram replied with a voice brimming with gratefulness. He always addressed the voice as 'father' as the voice always addressed him as 'son'.

He touched the scar in his face for one last time.They would be gone in a few seconds from now. He was ready to follow the directions of the voice and break away from this caccoon that was too ugly to be his body. For months now, the voice had prepared him for this golden moment. Standing on the edge of the wall, he was overwhelmed thinking of how much the voice had been doing for him.

He took a deep breath obediently, unsure still of whether he would be able to follow the directions of the voice correctly. The fingers in his feet were beyond the wall and he felt a tingling sensation in his feet. He extended his arms to full length on either side with the sleeves of the red T shirt clinging on tightly to his shoulders.

He remembered Priya's face for one last time. In few seconds he could free himself of her memories. She was the dirty demon that had brought him his terrible fate. The voice had told him about his wife's vices.

A Britney Spears number was blaring from Sam's house in the sixteenth floor.

"Jump!" the voice said flatly.

Sriram jumped with his arms outstretched, looking like spiderman. He couldn't yet feel the wings when he had reached the tenth floor. As he passed by the balcony of Miss. Mallika on the seventh floor, he could catch a glimpse of Mallika's five year old girl playing with X box. He marveled at how quick his senses had become.

By the time he crossed Mr.Ramanathan's balcony on the fifth floor, he was beginning to have doubts about what the voice had said about wings. When he crossed the third floor, he had no doubts for it dawned on him, few moments before his skull crashed into the concrete floor, that the voice had been lying.

"GoodBye!" the voice said with a childish chuckle.

2

Around thrity years back:

Mallika always knew she was special and different from all the other children in her locality. Whenever she walked, for each step, her left leg and consequently her whole body tilted to the left by a few angles. She did not lose her balance because of this but she could never walk as fast as the other children. She lived happily with her father who owned a general purpose stores. Her mother had died giving birth to her.

Whenever she asked about mother, her father would point to the starry sky and say:

"Your mother is up there with god, watching over you with pride."

"But my friends have their mothers with time. Why did she leave me and go up there?"

"But she left me to be with you! So don't you worry, dear. When you feel very lonely and want to talk to your mom, just whisper to your heart, she would listen."

He pinched her cheeks once and smiled.

"Now I think it's time for a story! Which one do you want to listen to today?"

Her eyes brightened on hearing the word 'story'. She loved those evenings when her father would come home soon and tell her those fairy tales. She fell in love with most of the heroes of the fairy tales and would often sleep off listening to her father, narrating the story with animated zeal.

She trusted her father blindly and from then on, when she woke up in the middle of the night or couldn't sleep from fever, she would open the window and look at the skies, her eyes scanning the skies for the star her mother would be present in. in the twinkle of the stars she could see her mother's smile. And in the warmth of the nightly breeze, she would search for her mother's affectionate hug, she would close her eyes with that imagination and hug herself to sleep.

She was five years old when she first heard the word 'lame'.

She was playing marbles with the neighborhood friends. She won thrice against Senthil and took all of his marbles. He couldn't reconcile the defeat and was walking back silently towards home. Sita shouted at him.

"Loser! When will you ever learn to play??"

The whole gang broke out with laughter.

"That too to a girl! you can go and drown yourself!" Ezhil added salt to injury.

Now the laughter mounted to a peak and Mallika too innocently joined in.

That was when the seven year old Senthil lost his cool and shouted.

"That lame bitch cheated and won!" he turned towards her, pointed to her left leg with trembling hands and shouted again with an evil laugh, trying to hide the tears filling his eyes.

Everybody was stunned to silence. Most of those five years present came from families where they would be caned for using such words.

Mallika had heard the word bitch being used by the bigger boys of the area when they got angry. When she asked her father, he had told her it was a bad word and asked her never to use it. But she had never heard of 'lame'. She assumed it was just another bad word. Sita and her other friends started consoling her as Senthil quickly ran off,half-crying.

Mallika went home trying to think of what 'lame' could mean. She wasn't too angry as she could understand losing made Senthil angry and he didn't mean anything when he shouted.

"Appa, what does lame mean??"

His father looked her in the eye for a few seconds and asked.

"Who called you that?"

"So am I really lame? What does that mean?"

Her father sat her down in his lap and kept quiet for sometime. Reluctantly he started speaking.

"No, you aren't lame. Lame means someone who cannot walk. You can walk well cant you? So you are not lame. If anyone calls you that, just ignore them."

"But my leg is different. Why do I walk in this way. Why am I not able to walk like all other people? Is it my fault?"

Her father smiled and said in a low voice.

"It isn't your fault, dear. Your leg is a little weak. But be thankful you are able to walk. It doesn't really matter that you cannot walk like others."

"Ok, pa" she said with a smile and walked back to her room. She did not see her father's eyes well up with tears.

It was just the beginning, for after she joined school, she realized everyone referred to her as 'lame', 'cripple'. She followed her father's advice and ignored these jibes. Some boys found lot of fun by following her imitating her walk. She turned deaf to the tauntings she received and the boys realized she wasn't going to react to them and gave up interest.

She found that most people around her seemed to shower sympathy and treated her differently. They understood soon that the only thing she cared for was to be treated like everyone else.

But things started changing with time. She turned out to be good in arithmetic and English. She was soon the favourite of most of her teachers. As he years passed, she grew attached to her school and

by the time she was in fourth standard, she had her own group of friends and had what she would later classify as the most normal days of her life.

She was returning from school when she heard excited voices in her house. Her walk slowed as she reached the house for she could make out what the people were talking about.

"Gopala, why do you have to suffer alone in this young age? You have a daughter too. She would soon be a young lady and you cannot bring her up alone. Listen to us. She needs a mother and you need someone at this point of time. Raadhika is Lalitha's cousin. She would look after Mallika like her own daughter."

Mallika's body was trembling as she leaned on the door silently to listen. She prayed her father wont accept. She had seen Raadhika twice and remembered how she had made an expression of disgust on seeing Mallika walk.

"Poor Gopal mama. What sin did he commit to get someone like as daughter?"

Raadhika had commented to her mother while Mallika was well within earshot.

She knew her father would never do something that would harm her. But she was afraid Shhama , the wicked old woman who was a distant relative of Mallika's mother would convince her father.

"Give me some time. I really appreciate that all of you are taking these pains for me and my daughter. But I need to talk to Mallika. I will never do something that would hurt her. She is a very sensitive child."

Mallika thanked God silently when the manly voice of Shhama filled the entire room.

"Look Gopala! You are insulting all of us who have come to your house. We care for your daughter as much as you do. She is our Lalitha's daughter. But she is a child. She can't understand these things now and you have already been refusing this for a very long time. We can't delay this any further."

Mallika could have stabbed Shhama to death if she had a knife with her right then. But she was stupefied and went deaf when her father gave in reluctantly.

"You are all forcing so much. I trust you all. I only wish this would all be for Mallika's good."

He left the room with that. The old people present started discussing the probable dates for the wedding. None of them noticed Mallika walking to her room like a corpse. She closed her door and fell on her bed.

She had cried for hours before she fell asleep. When she woke up it was sometime past midnight.

She walked to her window and looked at the skies, hoping to find her mom so that she could share her grief with her. But the sky was clouded and the air stood still, refusing to bring her the warmth she longed for. She closed the window and cried for the rest of the night in the dark room.

The next day her father told her Raadhika would live with them and that she would be her mother.

Gopal did not notice his nine year old daughter cringe when he said 'mother'. She tried not to show her disappointment to her father. She understood that it was possible that her father did feel lonely. She did not want him to lead that lonely life for her sake.

The wedding was planned for the following Sunday. Mallika hid in her room absorbed in a loneliness she had never felt before. She hugged her legs and rested her head on her knees.

But even that kind of peace was to be denied to her as she found out soon. Shhama came to her room and told her with a toothless grin.

"Malliga, Look. It's your father's wedding. It won't look nice if you are seen amidst the crowd. Do you understand? You are a smart girl. You would understand. See, you stay in this room for most of the time. I'll bring you food here itself."

Mallika controlled her tears for her father had once told crying in front of others made one look weak.

3

Present Day

Ramanathan walked down to join the crowd of on lookers. Someone had rung up the police and the compound was filled with shouts of people, mainly the wailings of Priya. Before Ramanthan could walk down to the spot, people were towering over the pool of blood and the body. That was when someone shouted:

"He is still breathing!!"

At eighty, Ramanathan's hearing was still sharp.

As he neared the sea of people, he could see Sam and his friend Chand and few others lift the body and place it into the rear of someone's Toyota Qualis. Two people got into the wagon and they drove off quickly to the nearest hospital.

Priya had fainted in shock. A few ladies were sprinkling water over her face.

Ramanthan could hear a few people murmur about 'suicide'. He felt no great qualms about Sriram dying. The whole apartment knew how he was treating Priya, but Ramanathan felt bad for the girl, the once effervescent, bubbly girl, who was now seen sober and grief stricken most of the times.

Ramanthan walked ahead planting his walking stick with care on the smooth concrete surface.

As he neared the crowd, he asked Mallika.

"What actually happened?"

Mallika respected Ramanathan genuinely and dropped in to his house to talk wit him whenever she was free. Her daughter, Srilekha would play with his walking stick and called him 'thatha'.

"It looks like he was drunk and he went to the terrace. He must have slipped from the top. Poor Priya! All this is too much for the young girl. Its been ages since I saw her happy."

"Hmmm… lets see. He is still alive?"

"Yes. They have taken him to the hospital. But Dr. Pradeep was saying his skull had cracked-Very less chances of survival."

Ramanathan nodded his head knowingly. He had known Sriram for seven years now. But he knew Priya from the time she was six. Her parents lived in the apartments from the time it was built.

"There is too much of crowd and confusion here. The police will be here anytime now they say. They might question us. You had better go home, pa." Mallika told Ramanathan.

"But I saw him falling down. And you know something, he wasn't shouting. I was in the balcony, reading the evening paper. He just dropped down. I thought I was imagining it."

"Hmmm.. don't know why all this happening!"

Priya had regained consciousness and was beginning to wail again.

Mallika too rushed in to hold her.

"Relax now! They have taken him to hospital."

"But Why? We didn't even have a fight for the past few days. I thought he was beginning to get normal. He spoke very little with me. But Why did he do it? I';; never forgive myself. It's all my fault."

"Hush! Calm down, dear. It's no one's fault. He is going to be alright." Mallika said in as convincing a voice as she could muster.

She accompanied Priya in her car to the hospital.

Ramanthan watched it all from a distance and walked slowly to the gate. He checked the time. It had stuck seven. He left the apartment for his daily ritual. He started walking towards the Beach. Lost in thoughts about the incident, it took him longer than the usual ten minutes. When he reached the tiny Vinayak temple, he removed his Chappals and walke in and sat down in the same place his wife had sat down at years back, each day.

He prayed silently the same insane prayer that, his logical mind warned him, could never be answered. The images of blood and Sriram spoiled his concentration. But the usual tear did trickle down at the end of twenty minutes. He got up, rubbing his legs that had got cramped. He started walking back home, towards his loneliness, to his miserable den where he could lay down and spend another sleepless night.

(to be continued!!!:))

1

June 4, 2006.

The Lufthansa flight from Newyork landed in Chennai at 2:15 AM, thirty minutes later than the scheduled arrival time. Mohanasundaram was waiting at the arrival terminal with increasing anticipation. He scanned the hundred faces coming out of the airport for his son. After about forty-five minutes, Arunkumar walked out, waving his hands at his father.

Arun was six foot in height. His head revealed he had had a very close haircut. A subtle French beard adorned the front of his face. His fair, oily skin looked fairer now owing to years in temperature controlled environments. His rimless spectacles clinging to his face added a few years to his 32. The grey watch with metallic strap , a cheap make from HMT didn't suit his typical NRI look. His eyes shone through the spectacles, devoid of any sleepiness which could be attributed to Jetlag or the excitement of coming home after four years.

"Hi!" Mohanasundaram nearly shouted.

"Hi pa, How're you? God, You look very old now!"

"Hmmm.. Perhaps I am old. I have completed sixty-five."

Mohanasundaram lead his son to the black Chevrolet Optra. Arun followed, pushing the trolley on the rough road. Once the luggage was loaded into the excessively large rear, Arun took the keys and opened the driver's door.

"No. I'll drive. You would be tired from the travel."

"Its ok.. You look sleepy. Let me drive."

Mohanasundaram's eyelids were heavy and he didn't argue.

"Just remember to keep left!" he mumbled as he got into the car.

By the time they reached their Besant Nagar residence, the time was four. After about half- hour of answering his mother's queries about Veena and Priya, Arun went to the bedroom which had once been his room and now served as a guest room. He was about to switch off the light when his eyes fell on the photo resting on the wall in a beautiful rosewood frame. It had been taken a year back when his parents visited him. It showed him with his wife Veena and their one-year old daughter Priya. Staring at the picture made Arun uncomfortable. He switched off the light and fell on his bed, knowing well that sleep was out of question.

2

"What! How can you do that?" Meenakshi was asking her son.

"No Problem, Ma. I can drive. You know that I am crazy about driving."

"But Why should you drive all the way to Trichy? I thought you would have booked a train or flight ticket."

"I have not visited the place for so long a time! I thought it'd be fun to go by road. The weather is good too."

"I don't understand why you are doing all this."

It was true that Meenakshi didn't understand anything her son was doing off late. He had not come to India since his wedding four years back. Last year, she had pleaded him to come home to attend his cousin Vijay's wedding. Arun had said he was too busy to attend. But, when last month Meenakshi casually mentioned about Ram's wedding, Arun immediately said he would attend. Ram was a distant cousin and Meenakshi was sure he and Arun weren't close.

Meenakshi was planning to attend the wedding on Sunday and return the same day. But now she was annoyed that Arun wanted to spend the whole week at Trichy.

As the Chevrolet entered the Chennai- Trichy highway, Arun turned on the AC and pressed the accelerator with all his might. Within minutes the car was moving at 100 kmph speed. The whole car had a thick sandal scent from the new car perfume. Sandal was not Arun's favourite fragrance. It was Jasmine that would turn Arun's heart on. As the car sped past the dried up trees on either side of the road, Arun's mind was rewinding to the bitter-sweet memories he could never hope to forget. The memories that would forever continue to make his heart dance, cuddle and then silence it with never ending pain.

3

December 22, 1991

The streets around the Srirangam temple were all flooded with people. Vaikunta Ekadesi was the biggest festival of the city and people thronged the temple from all over the state to get a glimpse of their Lord Ranganatha during his majestic procession in the streets of the town. People waited for hours for the 'Sorghavaasal thirappu' to enter the premises of the lord which they believed would get them a place in heaven. Most of them weren't there for that though. Mohanasundaram and his family were among the privileged few who were waiting near the starting point of the queue. Their prayers were for far more materialistic and none of them wanted a place in heaven anytime now. Waiting with them was their family friend and neighbour Srinivasan and his daughter, Priya.

"It's almost time. They'll open in a few minutes." A voice was pacifying the crowd. Hundreds of voices were chanting pasurams and Vishnu Sahasranamam, oblivious to the hot, humid air and the sweat drenching their whole body. As the clock ticked four AM, the door was thrown open and the devotees were ushered into the premises. The chantings grew louder with fervent shouts of "Govinda Govinda!!" filling the air. Amidst that overwhelming crowd Arun prayed silently.

"God! Amma's health must pick up. Please make her strong and healthy."

Standing close to him, with eyes closed in devotion, was his mother with her simple prayers which were always about him or their family.

A few metres away, Priya prayed with her eyes wide open, taking in every bit of the magnificent display of devotion everyone else seemed to be displaying. Personally, she would prefer to go to temples when they weren't crowded. That was when she would feel comfortable discussing her problems with god. This mad crowd irritated her. But still she prayed:

"I must do my tenth exams really well!"

She desperately tried to close her eyes. The thick smoke from the camphor was making her eyes burn. Her eyes watered whenever she batted her eyelids. Anyone looking at her then would have thought she was experiencing some religious ecstasy. The two strands of hair falling over her forehead stuck to her skin due to the sweat and didn't dance the way they usually did when she walked. She folded her hands and the clinking sound her glass bangles made a few people towards her. The band aid on her left forearm looked totally out of place.

Priya's mother died when she was three. Her father was everything to her. It would be safe to say that she was excessively pampered by her father and Priya grew up to be the most effervescent girl in the agraharam. She proved to be the naughtiest and loudest too. The band-aid was the result of her latest 'hanging out in the rain' she did a couple of days back. She had slipped and fallen on a rock near the canal. Her friends had been stunned and had run to her only to find her lying on the muddy ground with a bruised left forearm. To their astonishment she had been laughing. When asked, she had said " I was thinking what would have happened if Deepa had fallen instead of me."

Deepa was the fattest girl in their group. Everyone except Deepa rolled with laughter. Laughter was Priya's special charm. She never smiled, it was always a loud laugh.

As the crowd kept pushing her from behind, Priya could think of only two things about the Ranganatha temple she loved. One was the majestic urchavar statue draped in diamonds and rich silk. Another was the hot puliogare the town was famous for. She collected the prasadam and left for home.

About an hour later, Priya and Srinivasan were sipping their coffee, seated in archaic wooden chairs in Mohanasundaram's home. The light seeping through the skylight added luster to the otherwise ordinary hall. It was one of the hundred year old houses which filled the streets of the agraharam.

"Maami, I want another cup of coffee." Priya ordered affectionately.

"Priya! Why are you troubling Meena maami?" her father frowned.

"Oh! It's ok. This is no trouble at all." Meena retorted, smiling at Priya.

"There you are, Maami. Bring it a bit fast." Priya settled herself on the swing by the radio.

Priya spent more time in this house than in hers. She would use any excuse to come here. 'Meenu maami' as she called Meenakshi was one of her closest friends.

Watching Priya from his room window was Arun. The partial sunlight made Priya look like a golden statue perched on the sylvan wooden swing. Arun's heart beat faster whenever he looked at her face. He didn't know if it was right to feel this way but that was how he felt for the past few months. As she turned her eyes in his direction, Arun dropped his eyes to the physics book lying open on his table. One of the reasons for Arun's good scores in recent exams was that he turned to his books whenever he needed an escape from thoughts. In the past few days, the study time had shot up tremendously. Whenever a thought about her sprang up, he punished himself with half-hour of studying.

As Priya started her second cup of coffee, the discussion turned to Meenakshi's health. Her blood pressure had shot up off late and she had fainted a couple of times last week. Priya was concerned about Meenu maami's health, but when the talk turned into medical jargon about 'count', she couldn't concentrate. She turned towards Arun's room and caught him looking at her. He quickly shifted his gaze. Priya smiled to herself. She immensely enjoyed watching Arun react whenever she caught him like this. He never talked to her much when his mother wasn't around. Priya wouldn't keep her mouth shut no matter whether Meenu mami was around or not. She would endlessly tease him about the way he wore his spects, the way he combed his hair, even the way he walked. She would laugh at her own jokes which were mostly too boring to make Arun even smile. She didn't know exactly when her incessant urge for annoying him blossomed into affection. She was too afraid to use any another word for that, even in her mind. By the time Priya completed her cup, the conversation among the elders changed from blood pressure to hospitals to cities to offices and Srinivasan realized he was getting really late for his office. As Priya left the house, she couldn't suppress an urge to have a glance at Arun's window. He was staring at her as she had expected. But this time he didn't turn away. He only smiled shyly. Priya had never really felt self-conscious and shy in her life. But at that instant, when their eyes met, she was filled with a new wave of emotions she had never experienced before. Her face erupted into one of her rare smiles and she left the place hastily.

4

As the clocked ticked 12 AM, the alarm in Priya's bedroom started screaming out aloud breaking the peace of the night. As she switched it off, she went back to sleep when she suddenly remembered why she had set the alarm. She looked at the calendar hanging precariously from the plastic hook on the wall. Even in the light coming from the 15 watt night lamp, two things noticeable about the sheet were the awesome Ravi Varma picture at the top part of the calendar and the date 23 which was circled twice with a red sketch pen. Priya knew for sure that she would not forget Arun's birthday, but she didn't want to take chances.

She switched on the light and took out her school bag. She removed the gift packet she had personally wrapped the present in. Decoration was certainly not her forte but she thought it would be nice to wrap the gift herself. It had cost her three months' pocket money to buy the HMT watch. It was one of the least expensive models available. But she thought Arun would understand. She had gone to the shop with her closest friend Tara to choose the watch. Perhaps her father would have happily accepted for presenting Arun a watch. She could have saved her pocket money. But she felt a strange sense of satisfaction from the fact that she had sacrificed something for Arun. Moreover, she wanted the gift to be a surprise. She quickly dressed into the first salwar she could grab from her wardrobe and left for Arun's house. She reached Arun's window in less than five minutes.

"Arun! Arun!" She shouted in what she thought was a whisper. Arun didn't even notice and was sound asleep on his cot on the other side of the room. Priya lifted a piece of gravel from the ground and threw it at Arun softly or so she thought. She was bang on target and the stone hit Arun on his forehead.

"Amma!!!!" Arun woke up with a start. He couldn't believe what he was seeing. There, on the other side of his window, stood the girl of his dreams in the mid of the night. The moonlight mingled with the sodium street lamp's light and again the golden statue thought crossed his mind. It was almost a minute before he spoke.

"What are you doing here?"

"Happy birthday and many more happy returns of the day!"

He had expected her to remember his birthday but hadn't imagined that she would sneak out at midnight to wish him.

"Oh Thanks…"

Before he could think of something nice to say, she placed the gift packet on his hands through the window. For a second, her fingers touched his. The warmth of her hand and her whole being seemed to flow through the mehndi of her fingers to his hands. As he stood there, transfixed, Priya left the place with one of her rare smiles. He kept staring out of the window for a long time after she left. After a full ten minutes, he remembered the gift and started unwrapping the gift packet. As the pink wrapper came off, he could see a metallic grey watch inside a humble watch case and a piece of paper on top of it. Instinctively he took the piece of folded paper. He could see the neat curves of Priya's handwriting even before he unfolded the paper. As he started reading, his heart began to miss beats.

"Arun,

Happy birthday! I have been waiting for this day for a long time to tell you something. I think you already feel I am a foolish girl. Perhaps this will prove you right! But I have to tell you that I have started liking you. Whenever I am with you, I forget time and I forget the world. I don't know what this is called or what this will lead to. I don't know if this is right. I don't want to think about all that. I have a gut feeling you too feel this way about me. If not, please don't tell me. I can't take it. Hope this watch reminds you of me every time you look at it. I pray to God all your wishes come true, and mine too…

With Love

Priya"

When he finished reading it for the fourth time, he still couldn't believe a word of what she had written. He was not ready to accept the letter.

'What if this was just one of her pranks?' Even the thought was horrifying. His worst fear was her laughing over something he would say.

He laid down on the bed staring at the ceiling for a long time. He slept off, clutching the letter close to his chest.

5

Arun clutched at the steering wheel and turned it to his left with all the force he could muster. He was stamping the brakes with his right leg and pressing the horn with his hands. The car came to a halt with a loud screech. The front bumper of the car was less than an inch away from the qualis that had stopped without any signal. Arun continued to honk even after the vehicle had stopped and lowered his window glass, ready to use the foulest language he could think of.

"Sorry, sir. Had to put a sudden brake to avoid the pit." The driver of the qualis said from his window with a silly smile.

Arun shrugged and muttered a "Get Lost!" under his breath.

The sky was getting darker by the minute. Arun switched off the ac and rolled down the window. The sandal perfume had turned too thick and he was starting to have a head ache. After another half hour of driving, it became unbearable. He stopped at the next motel for a coffee.

Arun took out his cigarette case and lit one. he silently watched the Rings of smoke from the cigarette rise up and mix with the rain drops that had just started falling.

January 5,1992.

Arun felt intoxicated by the thick smoke from the agarbathis which were filling the air in Srinivasan's house.

Srinivasan was deeply into the morning prayers and just nodded at Arun when he came there.

Arun had thought about it a hundred times before coming now. He could no longer take her silence. After that night Priya had never shown up at his house. Even when they accidently met at the temple, she hadn't spoken a word. He had called her aloud and she had hurriedly left the place. Arun was terribly confused about what was happening. He couldn't understand whether it was guilt or shyness that was making her avoid him. He silently prayed it should just be shyness. He had lost all sleep. He couldn't remove her from his thoughts even for a moment. Each word that she uttered, each of her laughs and those rare smiles kept haunting his mind.

After what seemed ages, Priya came out of her room draped in a dark green churidar. For a moment Arun forgot why he had come there and kept looking at her face. She couldn't bring herself to look into his eyes and talk. She just managed a feeble "Hi.."

Her voice woke him up from the daze and reminded him of the night of his birthday. The lump in his throat returned and wasn't allowing him to speak. After a long time he managed to mutter

"I need to talk to you…"

"Ok…"

She muttered and started walking. He followed her and, as she slipped into her high heels sandals, shouted.

"I am going out, pa. Will be back soon…"

"Ok" Srinivasan shouted back from the Pooja room.

Both of them started walking aimlessly. Till they reached the end of the agraharam, neither of them spoke a word. The silence was making the lump in his throat bitter and heavy. He felt an alien urge to cry out loud. It was she who broke the silence.

"I am sorry, Arun…"

He could've as well been run over by a lorry. Even that wouldn't have shocked him and hurt him so much. His heart was racing and he could almost hear its beats.

'So she feels sorry for telling you all that. So she doesn't really love you!' a voice said in his mind. he found that hard to digest. He felt himself drowning in some invisible sea. He could hardly breathe.

"Why are you sorry?" he couldn't recognize his own voice. It sounded distant and strange. He didn't want to know the reason. He had this instinctive feeling that his fears were true. She didn't really mean what she wrote in that letter or must've felt guilty and must've stopped thinking like that. Arun was rescued from a flood of such thoughts by Priya. She said in an unususally calm voice.

"I am sorry that I gave you that letter and have been avoiding you ever since. But I was shy and I still am. I am not used to being shy. To tell you the truth, I don't want you to tell me that all this is wrong if that is what you intend to say."

Arun could feel the blood rushing into his face and the lump in his throat magically disappeared.

"No. That is not what I want to say…" he said and continued to walk.

They reached the bank of the river. Cauvery was flowing with her usual fervour and the morning sun was setting the water in flames. They sat down beneath the banyan tree which was the hang out for the agraharam boys. Since it was a Sunday most of them would've been playing cricket in the streets and no one was around. Arun looked up and saw that the sun was reaching its peak. Both their faces were covered with sweat. He didn't know if it was the heat or the excitement. He assumed it must be both.

"So, tell me what you wanted to tell…"

Their eyes met for the first time that day.

"Priya…" They were gazing directly into each other's eyes.

"I love you very much and all my thoughts are filled with you and only you…"

She lowered her eyes and smiled. He could see her cheeks go red.

"I know…" she muttered without lifting her eyes .

"What? Then why were you afraid?"

"I don't know… Why do you keep asking questions?" Her smile widened and filled her face.

But to Arun's surprise, he found her eyes were moist.

He lifted her chin and looked into her eyes again.

"Hey! What happened?"

"…I am afraid now. I don't know what will happen if this doesn't work out…"

He took her hands in his and the mehndi seemed to emanate the same warmth.

"I promise…" he paused and then continued.

"I promise that I will always love you and whatever happens, will not even think of someone else."

"Will not even think of someone else? What does that mean?"

"Idiot! You know what I meant." Arun said with a mock anger.

"Same to you…" Priya muttered.

"What?"

"The promise thing…"

"How dumb! Cant you even repeat that?" Arun asked with a smile and she started laughing. His hands were still wrapped around hers. Their legs were immersed into the water and fishes were tickling their feet. For a few moments, they forgot time and forgot the world.

"I have to go…" Priya whispered.

A gentle breeze from the stream caressed her face and made the two curls across her forehead dance.

"No. you don't. "

"Yes...I have to.." she withdrew her hands and left the place hurriedly with a smile.

"Hey! Wait"

"Bye, Arun." He saw her disappear into the agraharam. He continued to sit there and replay in his mind all that had happened that day. He didn't know that day that he would be replaying it a thousand times in the future.

Present day

The rain had become fierce and the wiper was working furiously across the windshield. Arun kept wiping the windshield from the inside to prevent it from getting misted over. He had rolled up the windows and there was a silence as of the grave. He felt uncomfortable and switched on the CD player. Soon a A R Rahman instrumental filled the air. The drumming of the rain against the windows combined with Rahman's tunes and created a strange music.

February 14, 1992.

Fridays were exceptionally boring for Priya. In the afternoon she had to endure two continuous hours of History. She wasn't least bit interested to know who killed who for which territory. She could never really understand the use of learning so much of what happened so long back. And her mind was filled too much with thoughts right then to concentrate on what Mr.Ganesan was trying to tell. Arun had asked her to wait near the Arun ice cream parlour after school. It stuck her as strange because they always met only on Sundays when she didn't have any tutions. And their favourite spot was near the river, away from all the crowd. She couldn't refuse him as he seemed to get more angry nowadays with her for smallest of reasons. As she was dreaming of what Arun was going to say, she heard her name being called out. It was only after her benchmate nudged her did she realize that Mr.Ganesan was asking her a question.

"Priya, what country did Hitler occupy first?"

In his face was triumph as he had surely caught her dreaming. He got some satisfaction in making fun of her in front of the whole class.

"Sir…It is…" Priya tried in vain to recall what he had said a little while back. She assured herself that she had heard a 'land' and gave her answer with full confidence.

"It is England."

The whole class burst out laughing and her bench mate was muttering "Poland! Its Poland" Priya rolled her eyes and endured another five minutes of Mr.Ganesan's thoughts about her future. After that, she sat down and waited for the bell to ring with all patience she could muster.

When it eventually did, She ran out of school like a six year old towards the ice cream parlour, touching her face with her handkerchief to remove the sweat.

From the time Ram had told him about what Valentine's day was, Arun had raked his mind hard to decide on a gift to give Priya. He had fished the Florence shop which was the only decent gift shop in the locality for nearly an hour without any success. The gifts that were good were invariably too expensive for his pocket. But he wouldn't buy the cheap ones since they looked dull. He had still been thinking of what to buy her when his eyes fell on it which was on display on the platform opposite the shop. Even before he came out of the shop, he had decided it would be his gift for her.

His thoughts jolted back to the present as soon as he could see Priya's silhouette against the evening sunlight. They didn't look at each other until they were really close as if the whole world was watching what they were doing. Priya muttered "Lets go" and walked two paces ahead of him. Arun placed a hand over hers and stopped her.

"Wait a minute. lets get some ice cream."

She froze on his touch. That was what happened to her whenever they touched even if it was an accidental brush of their hands.

"I don't want ice cream…" She started to protest when she recovered from the trance.

"But I do… So we will have it."

"What if people see us here or in the shop? You are not at all worried!" She kept murmuring as they entered the shop with him. Even in the dim lighting of the shop, he could see that she was smiling the restrained smile that she reserved for times whenever she pretended to be dissatisfied.

"What?"

"Nothing…"

"What?"

"Nothing!"

She was forcing herself not to smile openly.

But Arun could detect it even before it reached her lips. He could see the smile in her eyes moments before it blossomed in her face. It was one of the numerous skills he had developed in the recent past.

They bought two vanilla ice creams. He knew it was her favourite flavour. He had observed her buying the flavour whenever the ice cream wagon passed their street. As they walked a few paces away from the crowded alley, their hands touched lightly and by the time they turned the corner to walk towards the river bank, they were holding hands.

"So what were you smiling for, pree?"

"Nothing… Hey what is in that bag?" she asked pointing to the green, plastic bag he was carrying.

"I wont tell till you tell why you smiled."

"Aiyo! I was smiling thinking about how the nerdy pazham in you has gone and how bold you have become to be roaming around streets holding my hand. You used to be afraid of looking at me in the eye."

"That was different. Then and all seeing you itself used to make me so happy."

"And what do you mean by 'then and all'. huh?"

Arun just smiled.

"So you have grown tired of me? Is that it?"

"You know I didn't mean that."

Priya released his hand and the mock angry, restrained smile returned. They reached their favourite spot and sat down beneath the tree. The sudden downpour of the previous week had been totally unexpected and it had nourished Kaveri and the river flowed like a beautiful princess dancing across the country. Even now the sky had blackened and the radio had predicted heavy rains. They could see the swarm of fishes swimming beneath the clear water. Arun fetched the 'gift' from the bag and placed it in her hands. She uncovered the wrapper as fast as she could to reveal the miniature painting. The frame was wooden without much decoration. It was the picture of a beautiful girl. Her hair was blown away as if she was playing on a swing. A peacock feather was tickling her face. Her eyes were closed as if cherishing the moment and a blushful smile adorned her lips. Priya gave a smile which Arun thought was better than the girl's.

"The feather is real!" Priya whispered.

"Yeah, I saw that. So, how is it?" he asked though he knew how she felt from her eyes.

"I never thought you'll gift me for Valentine's day! It's wonderful!"

Arun was little disappointed to know that Priya indeed knew about Valentine's day. He wouldn't tell her that he had no idea such a thing existed till a couple of days back. He also wouldn't tell her that gift was not the first one he had chosen for her and all the other ones he wanted to buy before this were too expensive for him. Arun realized that all that didn't matter then. The first drops of rain had started falling. Arun noticed that tears were welling up in Priya's eyes.

"Hey what happened, dear?"

He touched her hand. Her gaze was fixed at some point on the other bank. The droplets from her eyes rolled down her cheeks.

"What pa?" Arun asked, concern clouding his vision as tears clouded hers.

"I have never been this happy, Arun. Never in my whole life!"

Arun smiled and continued looking at her.

"I am so happy that I cant help fear something would put an end to all this happiness."

"Don't be silly."

"No. You wont understand. I have not been lucky in life. I lost my mom early…I have heard people talk about how it was my bad luck which got her…. " she couldn't complete the sentence.

"I love you Arun. I really do." She said, without shifting her gaze.

He gently turned her face with his hand towards him. Two drops of the rain fell on her cheeks and mixed with her tears and rolled down to her chin. He could feel the wetness on his lips as he pressed them softly on her cheeks. The pad of his thumb was wiping her eyes. He reached very close to her ears and whispered soflty.

"I love you too."

It had started raining real hard. But both of them had their eyes closed and were oblivious to the surrounding. The sound of the rain against the water muffled the shocked voice that was calling out a name.

"Arun!"

Arun opened his eyes with a jolt and even before he got up and turned, he knew what he was going to see. He stood up and turned within a second.

It was the only time in his life when he wasn't happy to see his father. The tall frame of his father against the rain looked like an imperfection in an otherwise wonderful scene in a drama.

"Come home!" Mohanasundaram muttered through clenched teeth and started walking towards his house.

Arun shot back a quick look at Priya's face. She just sat there, with a devastated look in her face.

"Bye.." he muttered under his breath. He knew she too, like him, had become deaf out of shock. He looked at her for a moment. he would've looked on for longer had he known it would be years before he saw her again.

It was all a blur. He could hardly remember what happened between the time when his father saw him on the river bank and the time when he was standing in front of his father. He was too shocked to think about what to tell his father. He was preparing himself mentally to confront his father's anger. But he was least prepared for what eventually he faced. His father spoke in a broken voice and for the first time in his life, he saw tears roll down his father's face. His father had told him plenty of times in the past that, come what may, men should not cry. He started speaking after a long pause, an emptiness Arun couldn't take.

"I have always been proud of you, Arun. When my friends complained about things their kids did, I would thank god silently for keeping you good. .." He paused again.

"I have not achieved great heights in life…" he turned away from Arun whose eyes never left the floor.

"I wanted to study well, land up in a good job and have a rich, affluent life. When I was your age, I used to believe all that was possible. But I failed in all that."

He paused again like a man who had loads to tell but couldn't find the right words.

"I turned out to be mediocre in everything I did… I got an ordinary 9 to five job and slowly got used to being ordinary. But the day you were born… Holding you in my arms, I decided, in being a father, I couldn't afford to be ordinary. I wanted to be the best father, someone you would grow to love and respect. I always thought it was one of the few things in life I succeeded at…"

Arun's eyes had started watering. He could hear those hundred voices of his friends complaining about how their parents were strict and scolded them for every little thing they did.. Be it coming home late, or waking up late or not getting good marks. His father had not spoken one harsh word to him as far as he could remember. A bitter lump was forming in his throat making it difficult for him to breathe.

"I used to swell with pride whenever people complimented about how disciplined and obedient you were. I forgot all the mediocrity I reeked in. I was proud that I had brought you up as a respectable person. I can see how wrong I was."

The tears had frozen in his father's eyes. There was an emptiness much worse than the tears. A feeling of guilt for hurting his father was thawing his heart.

His father cleared his throat. His composure seemed to have returned and his eyes shone with some decision.

"Promise me, Arun…"

Arun looked up from the floor for the first time. He could see his father's vision penetrating his.

"Promise me you wont see her again. You wont talk to her… She is a motherless child!"

His eyes were welling with a sense of deep disappointment. He hesitated a little before he added.

"A child- that is what she is.. You must have been mature… OK… let bygones be bygones… Trust me… what I am asking you to do is in your best interests only. So promise me."

Arun could no longer control his tears and found some relief in letting them flow un checked.

"But… But I really love her, father… I know how silly that sounds coming from a seventeen year old. But I do love her. I wouldn't do a single thing which would bring you any shame. I respect my family and hers too much to do anything that we would repent later. But I do love her."

His father seemed to flinch on hearing the word 'love'. The two of them kept staring at each other for what seemed eternity. Reluctantly, Mohanasundaram broke the silence and said in a clear voice. It sounded more like a judgement read out in a court.

"Then promise me you wont see her or talk to her now. Till… you study well and settle in life. You will have time for everything else later…. Trust me…"

Arun kept looking at his father.

"Arun!"

"Yes, Father… I… I promise.." His father's gaze loosened and Arun realized the lump in his throat was gone-Replaced by a burning sensation.

7

The car had entered the city's outskirts. The city had changed loads from his last trip. Like the rest of the country, the streets were flooded with ads for cellular phone services or some aerated drink. The rain had stopped and the city's notorious sun was at its peak. Before long, the temple's gigantic tower became visible. Arun touched both his cheeks one after the other in a quick reflex…

As he drove the car along the road by the bank of the river, his eyes fell on the river. It was no longer the dancing princess. It looked more of a carcass of an old lady who was once beautiful. Small kids were playing cricket on the river bed which had dried up enough to make a good pitch. A thin stream of water was flowing in the middle of the vast expanse of sand.

Arun eyes kept searching the road for the arch where he would have to take a right. As the car kept crawling slowly, he could recognize most of the houses he was passing by. And as he turned the car to the right and entered the arch, he shot a glance to his left. The banyan tree stood there unchanged, oblivious to all the turns the lives of the two people who once used to frequent its shelter had taken. Arun couldn't bring himself to look at it for more than a brief instant. He stopped the car when he saw the blue building that shone with a brand new layer of paint.

Before the door opened, he could hear voices welcoming him in unison.

"Hi! Arun! How long it has been!"

"Hi…" he gave one of his bogus smiles.

His eyes were searching frantically for Vijay.

"Where is Vijay?"

"He has gone out. Should be back in an hour." His aunt Suseela replied. "You can keep your things in that room and take a shower. You must be tired from the travel." She said p
inting to a large, cosy room. The smell of the fresh paint was all over the house. The room he had been allocated had been painted in pink. The place looked too clean and orderly.

After a shower in the boiling water, he was at their large dining table, devouring the dishes that had been prepared especially for him. It always amused Arun how his aunt could exactly remember every little thing from his favourite dishes to his childhood antics after so many years. For years he had missed all this warmth and genuine affection of his home town people. Many of his relatives had, like Arun's family, moved off to other cities, some even to other countries. But whenever they met, they would always relish talking about their town. He could never feel the same closeness with any other of his recent relatives. Veena came from an upper middle class family and Arun never felt comfortable with all her people. There was always this diplomacy whenever they were around and he could never really be himself. He would desperately pray for them to leave soon whenever they visited him which they often did since most of her relatives seemed to have settled in US.

When he hinted at his discomfort to Veena, she had boiled over and had spent hours explaining him how unsociable a person he was.

After he had eaten the heaviest meal in years forgetting the diet restrictions he had started following to reduce his ever-growing tummy, he was about to retire for a small nap, when he heard Vijay's voice he rushed to him.

"Hey pudhu maapilla, how are you?"

"Hi!! Oh God! You have become a fat pig!" Vijay greeted with his usual smile. His eyes always shone and his face hadn't changed much from what he could remember. Arun found it hard to believe he was just seven months younger than himself. The soft, child-like features was still intact. But for the dark mustache he was sporting, he might've passed for a teen.

"Shall we go for a walk?"

They walked towards the river, the same path Arun had taken long back, holding Priya's hand.

"So, how is your job?"

Vijay was a chartered accountant and worked for one of the major firms in Trichy.

"It's good. The thing I talked to you about over phone." Vijay said and hesitated a little.

"Yes, tell me. I have lost all sleep since the day you called. What are you hiding from me?"

"As I told you, I have found her. In fact, she now lives in Trichy only. Her father passed away a year back."

"You told me that already."

"Yeah, and as I told you... She is ill... and has no one to take care of her."

"Don do this to me, Vijay! Just tell what the problem is."

Vijay looked away from him towards the river bed. The afternoon sun was momentarily hidden behind a cloud cover. Arun's heart was beating faster than ever. He could feel it in his throat. He knew the answer to his question before Vijay mouthed the words. And for a moment, Arun hated to be there. He wanted to run away- away from the bitter truth. He wanted that blissful ignorance he had been living with. He had fooled himself into believing that she too, like him would be having a normal, if not happy life. Arun couldn't let go of that falsehood he had snuggled in. Arun looked at Vijay, the hapless look of a lamb about to be butchered. As Vijay told him the truth in graphic detail, Arun could feel himself go numb. The remains of his conscience started hurting him with each word he heard and he knew it was not going to stop at all. He realized life would never be the same again.

8

They never met after that day. Arun's father did not talk about the incident after that day. Arun got busy with his studies and he assumed or rather wished she too would concentrate in her studies.

Meenakshi innocently commented on how busy Priya had become and how she had stopped visiting them. Arun's mind was a cauldron boiling with images of the moments he spent with her, the things they had said, the beautiful silence when they met and exhausted all topics of conversation, her innocent face, his father's frame against the rain towering over them. But time made the images less hurting and after a few weeks, he found he could live for hours without having a single thought about the entire thing.

April ended and so did his exams. There was a lull in his house as of the mid sea. It proved to be the calm before the storm for soon the thunder fell. His father had got a transfer to Chennai.

Meenakshi hinted that she and Arun continue living in Srirangam while Mohanasundaram worked in Chennai. But he would not hear any of it. And so in the month of May, while Arun was still waiting for his eleventh results, they shifted to Chennai.

He completed twelfth in the only school that had agreed to admit him direct in twelfth. He spent all the sleepless nights buried in his books. For his mind, his books were the only diversion from the barrage of thoughts which at times paralyzed him with unspeakable loneliness. But despite himself, he couldn't help wetting his pillows with tears at times, as he struggled to make sense of all that his life was shaping into.

His marks in the final examination proved to be much beyond his family's expectation. He hinted to his father that he wanted to do engineering. but His father wouldn't listen. He wanted Arun to do B.Com and then C.A. It had been his dream years back.

And so Arun did B.Com in one of the oldest colleges in the city. College too couldn't change much about Arun, for he found solace only in the dim lit libraries and his work. Amidst the aimless, faltering people in his college, he soon emerged the topper and painted himself with the dark nerdish image. None of his college friends would have even believed if he had told them he once fell in love and was hoping to catch her hand someday in future. For all of them, he was a nerd machine, devoid of any interest in life.

With time his resolve grew, that he would fulfill his end of the promise and ask his father to ask for Priya's hand. The only fear he had was Priya's father marrying her off before Arun could settle. He wished dearly that Priya had been much younger than himself.

But an insane voice told him he would win. He never doubted for one moment the voice's conviction and convinced himself that Priya wouldn't let him go.

In those long nights when he had no work and his mind kept flashing images of the past into an invisible screen in front of him, he would seek refuge in staring at his watch. It always puzzled him why he started using it only after coming to Chennai. As the seconds hand ticked against the dead silence of the night, he could almost feel Priya's heart beat out to him from somewhere hundreds of miles away. He would sleep off pressing the watch tight against his ears.

And he eventually completed B.Com. No one was surprised when he ended up getting the gold medal.

Towards the end of the course, his father sat down next to him one fine day and started instructing him on how he should start preparing for the CA prelims. That was when he disagreed with his dad for the first time. He told his father politely that he wanted to do a MBA.

"But MBAs nowadays have no value! It's worth it only if you do it in some big university. all that is very difficult. See C.A. is the proper thing to do after B.Com".

Arun applied for MBA and silenced his father when he eventually got a seat in one of the top notch colleges in the country. He grew up from the nerd teen to a smart, astute young man like the hundreds his own college was filled with. All his friends who had pitied him for joining B.Com when they had entered professional courses like engineering and medicine looked at him in awe when at the end of two years he landed in one of the biggest firms in the country. He kept switching jobs for better ones till he landed up in a lofty posts in a MNC based mainly in US.

The two years of the MBA course taught him more of life than the preceding twenty one years. the place was filled with different people from different parts of the country. He adapted himself well to the changing circumstances. he realised that it was one of his innate virtues: to adapt easily. Maybe that was his weakness too. He found whole new friends and and used the new environment to re-invent himself. But he kept his sweet, little secret of his Priya to himself and was more confident now that he was only a step away from keeping his end of his promise to his father. His intial doubt came the day he blabbered about Priya to Siddharth, his best pal. It was a Saturday night and they were both high on spirits. the topic of conversation was girls.

Siddharth was listing all the girlfriends he had had since his his high school days in Mumbai