On women safety and train delays

Mobile phone rings.

It’s seven in the morning. It’s an absolute crime for someone to call at this time. And an even bigger one to call on a Saturday. It better be important, the person or their reason to pick the phone.

I reached for my phone and it was mom.
“Your sister’s not come still. We’re worried.”
“Wa……(yawning till my eyes well up)What happened?”

My body was yet to fully wake up to the panic, my mind had woken up to.

“Her train from Hyderabad was to scheduled to reach Chennai at 5.45 and it had arrived on schedule. It’s 7.30 now and she’s still not come.”
“Ok. Probably a delay. Did you call her.”
“Ya. Several times. It’s either not reachable or goes to the voice mail which speaks Telugu. We’re worried.”

God. Suddenly the distant empathy I’ve hitherto felt for those breaking news stories were starting to become personal. The possibilities it was impregnated with, this news was breaking me from within. The several instances of misogyny, violation and sexual assault that’d taken place in my backyard and left me disturbed for a while— before I could vent out in the form of an angry tweet or a post or launch into a diatribe about women safety with some acquaintances —were sprinting across my head from ear to ear. I was sweating like a virgin murderer on a cold Bangalore morning. I was terrified of the possibilities.There’s no way I could let out my feelings. Not now. I had to put on my brave face, if not for my sake, for my parents to not cave. The gravitas of the situation was sitting on my chest like a giant toad. 
She’s my baby sister. We’re good people. All’s well. All will be.

“Don’t worry ma. She’s not the brightest of bulbs. Her phone’s either died or on silent and she’s probably asleep. It’ll be fine. Let me try calling.”

My head was running without a harness in directions I didn’t want it to. The “what ifs” were freaking me out as I kept getting her voice mail with every attempt to reach. I then reached out to the railway police to be safe than sorry. I needed all the ammunition I could get and needed them fast. Meanwhile I told my parents to go the railway station and launch a formal complaint. Every minute was precious. And we couldn’t let her be off the grid for any longer, not in a place that’s teeming with ten deviants per every plot hole on the road.

I was looking for the next flight leaving to Chennai, when mom called me again.

“Your sister called. We were looking at the wrong train. She was asleep.”

“Fuc….Anyways. Thank god. Let me try and get back to the sleep I was having before this.”

“Ok da.”

And like that, the storm we were preparing for, turned into an unpungent fart. But those long thirty minutes weren’t merely painful. They were unsettling. None of our heads went to the possibility of a wrong train like it should’ve. Instead, it went to the news about a group of pedophiles who violated a eleven year old from a week ago. Or to the possibility of a long delay or of her being asleep like it should’ve. But to the possibility of a looming threat of another lurking deviant who stepped from the shadow. It was just a very brief period to let the mind come up with such morbid iterations. But trust me, it was the most helpless we’ve felt as a family in a really long time. The fact that we live in a time, we can’t suppose the safety of our women on the collective decency of the society is a worrisome-irrefutable truth. We (think we)know the men in our lives by the masks they choose to sport- of a decent looking guy, well-natured uncle, father’s friend, pious old man, nerdy accountant, carpenter, preoccupied bookworm, introverted socially awkward guy. We just can’t be sure anymore, that they will be the same men when their mask comes down in a moment of weakness. Hope this nation that’s often personified as a mother, feels safe for her daughters some day soon enough.

Ghosts of mobile phones past

It was a dingy place that found its odor in a spot between molten iron and plastic lava. The ground was punctuated by systematic crevices, each leading to an endless abyss beneath. This had everything that went on to make the perfect hell, no wonder it was in fact one.  Well almost. It was the lobby, from where the deceased got demarcated, before being taken to hell ahead or heaven above.
Amidst the chaos, there walked in this guy to bulge the sea of heads by one person. He seemed wet, from head to toe like someone had gargled him out. The small, but prominent marking on his rear end caught the attention of another individual— with a sharp cut that ran across his entire body —who bore a similar marking. Glances were exchanged amongst them, before he gesticulated to the new guy- “Skip the queue, come here.”

If the hell’s lobby was a morbid cake, this motley bunch of broken individuals was the icing on top. They displayed between them every anatomical casualty fathomable- some were headless; some deaf; some had deep cracks running across their solarplexis and the recent addition seemed to be stewed in dampness. Different from each other, they were unique works of art in carnage. But these two, though born to different parents,  were there because of a single destructive individual, who’s initials got them together- AT.

“I was his first…err…first this month. He seemed pretty nice in the beginning. And just when I was starting to feel special, his butter fingers took over.”
“Yeah, the butter fingers!“, the wet guy coughed in unison.
“He constantly keeps dropping us, like a bad habit. And should his homicidal streak continue at this rate, soon there will be a colony here, named after him.”

“Anyways, where was I?”
“Butter fingers.”
“Haa…butter fingers. I’d unlike many other misfortunate brothers of mine managed to come unscathed through every onslaught, till his trouser zip screwed with me.”
“Trouser zip?!”
“Yup. you’ve seen freak deaths doled out in final destination movies right, mine was like that, just a tad miniscular in scale and vision.”
“We were at work, a few minutes from his presentation when he decided to take a leak. All was hunky dory, till then. I was already starting to feel like the last survivor in those serial killer movies, when he took me in his mouth, like a dog holding a bone, while he continued emptying his bladder. In a fatal flip of a second, he zipped along his “little guy” with his trouser and ouch…his teeth pierced through my upper body. And like that I was rendered lifeless, thanks to a fucking zip!”
“Ouch. that explains the torn solar plexus. Caught between the lip and the zip.”
“Very funny. Now tell me how you ended up like a wet sock?”

“Hmmm..”, the damp guy’s excitement left him like a silent fart.
“I was cherry picked. And I guess it was the guilt from his previous kills or probably simple prudence, but he actually took very good care of me. He was always around and to be honest, despite his reputation, I kind of started to feel secure around him. And then..”

“Yeah there’s the “then”.

“The butter fingers phase began. All the paternal warmth from the previous days of nurturing had paved way for coldness of anxiety. And one fine night, he had to take a leak.”

“Wow. Same pinch. Same place.“, the broken guy was giggling till the cracks on him contracted in tandem.

“Yup.Same place.Same guy.Different modus operandi. He seemed excited, he was talking to someone that made his face pink. Probably his girlfriend, when he accidentally dropped me into the commode. And I suffocated to my last breath.“, a tear rolled down.

“Brother. I don’t understand how he doesn’t fall often.”
“And all that love for animals, my ass!”
“This place can’t be hell, if it keep us far away from his reach.”
“Yup, god bless his new victim.”
“Redmi 4, right?!”
“Yup.”
************

“Ashwath get up, it’s nine in the morning.“, mom screamed.
I accidentally pushed down my new phone, with an outstretched hand in an endeavor to wake up.
Thud, it fell.
“Dey…it’s your third phone in two months. If they have a mouth, they’ll cry.”
“I think my Motorola and ASUS were in fact rating in my dream, before you woke me ma.”

“Butter fingered. And now delusional.God save my son.And these phones from him.”

 

Death by Ice cream

We were waiting for the check to come. The dinner was fabulous, like it always is at Ranjith. Don’t let the middle aged South Indian man’s name come in the middle of your judgement. It’s an oxymoron, in the sense that it continues to remain a relatively unexplored uptown restaurant in the heart of the city, despite creating such food.Victorian set up, cosy yellow lights, jazz music that trickles in the backdrop, tuxedo clad waiters with friendly candour- it’s almost right out of a Woody Allen movie. So, the evening was well spent till that point with tête-à-tête over some great food. Well, almost. My friend started making endearing facial gestures that resembled spasms, the meaning behind which I dreaded from the bottom of my heart. And you cant’t blame me for being disturbed, for he’s got a smile that resembles a hungry crocodile. It was that part of his weekend ritual where he starts to emotionally blackmail to accompany him to this dessert place, to achieve climax to the evening’s dinner.

Before going further, a little character sketch about him would help. He’s this kind of a person who likes to explore new places rather proudly. Good thing, right? Yeah, only till he starts becoming all Colombus about it. Then with the same self assigned authority goes on to sign off on the place’s authenticity. Next he starts recommending it to acquaintances as means to their salvation; not before condescending their existing tastes and preferences. When they check out these places, little do these poor souls realise that they’ve signed on to become unwilling guinea pigs to his social experimentation. At the end of which he would sign off on their tastes, based on their opinions about his. This dessert parlour called Amadora is one such pet laboratory of his. I’ve seen him judge people as unambitious and discourteous based on the fact that they didn’t quite take up to the chocolate mint ice cream, the way he would’ve liked them to.

In a nutshell, he judges more than he winks and opines more than he breathes.

So we both walk into this property located in a pristine locality; he with a pride of booking a Tesla and me with a reluctance reserved for a bad date. The guy at the counter recognises him excitedly, like a separated dog  and they go about ice creams on display like one acclaimed filmmaker to another for several minutes, before my friend starts to sample almost everything on the display than the fly on the glass.  How they do this with new found enthusiasm, week after week, with the flavours remaining constant is beyond my comprehension. And it’s not even like they’re in love.

My friend picks a pale white ice cream as an outcome of the quarter hour exchange with the shopkeeper. Then comes the worst part. He starts to remind me of the sucker I’m for chocolate with an anticipatory look, I’ve become familiar with by now; a cue for me to get something as well. I play the “miss my late grandma” card after playing the “I feel guilty about malnutrition in Somalia in these kind of places” card to little effect, but he just wouldn’t budge.

So I cave in.

I sample at least four different variants of chocolate before rejecting five. When almost on the verge of renouncing ice creams, my eyes fixate on an empty trey with a board that reads,”Nutella”. This can’t go wrong.
I ask for a sample of it and what I get in return instead from the over enthusiastic owner is a lecture on the unit economics behind the particular flavour, till I gently remind him about not intending to hold any stake in his gourmet boutique.
Offended by my curtness, my prodigal friend nudges me into picking a flavour compulsorily. With very little choice I pick what seemed to be the lesser devil among all, a Chocolate Sorbet that seemed bitter enough to be an imposition in school. Like this, between the two of us, we had ordered two scoops of underwhelming ice creams that only costed us a little less than our kidneys would’ve in an organ racket.

We perch on tall wooden stools that belonged in tacky bars, from where I resort to condescending patrons around the counter over death by sorbet. After all,  laughing at our misery was the best way to go about according to this thirteenth century Tamil poet with a knee long beard.It was fascinating to notice pretentious people discussing and deconstructing ice creams with a verve reserved to Michelangelo’s work; guessing the epiphanies which would’ve lead into creating these melting art forms. All this, while my friend was enjoying his five bean vanilla ice cream that tasted like cold horlicks- closed eyed like in a Beatles concert -from the other end of the table.

As I dared to venture a helping from my cup, I began to realise that these gelatin grenades were in fact the most military ones out there, for they almost never melted. What bends before their resilience is the spoon with which we try to excavate, as they remain intact on the tongue forever.

Finally, as we made our way out, my friend couldn’t stop drawing superlative parallels to the frozen malt beverage he had had, notwithstanding my face buried in the phone’s display. Noticing my lukewarm response to his desserted orgasm, the ritual of him condescending my gourmet preference ensued. I smiled to myself at the sight of a light at the end of the road, which was from a ice cream joint I quite liked. After all, like all good things, bad things come to an end as well.

Everyday Heroes

He was weaving through the Monday morning traffic callously, with a grace of a stumbling block. He was late yet again. Lattice had become an unwilling second shadow to him over the years. His clock off late felt like a flabby twenty six hour one till the eleventh hour came. After which his lackadaisical life would attain the kinetic energy of an ejected missile.

He had an interview at ten; twenty minutes from where he was. Not a stiff ask, if it weren’t for the constipated movement of the traffic. So he had already started manufacturing sheepish reasons to give his interviewer from a dead body procession to an unicorn sighting.

The morning sun wasn’t far behind in adding fuel to the…rather , fire to the fuel. It scorched open the sweat glands on his nape to set free rapid beads of perspiration to trickle down the spine to blunt the crisp crease of his baby pink shirt.

Yeah,baby pink instead of monochromatic blue for an interview! He was that kind of a person who felt that only a rare breed of men could pull off pink with virility and grace. He counted himself among the elusive herd, if the times he had worn the colour on first dates was an indicator. But the mood of a grumpy camp with men waiting to pry over professional competence wasn’t the same as pretty young things waiting to make small talks over overpriced caffeine.

The signals to wait to the place were growing fewer in number as the sun was blunting its sting with new found fondness. It was at this point that he saw a dog itching to scurry to the other end of the road, from his signal. The incoming traffic from the right before was making the big guy panicky. Kind faced,brown with white patches, he was quite the four legged charmer. He was kept on tenterhooks from the aisle of the platform, clueless about the multitude of vehicles approaching him with fierceness, reserved to the first few seconds succeeding the cry of a war bugle.

This guy had been a dog lover, ever since his “D for dogs” days. Unlike many others, the sight of a mangled dog carcass on a highway was something that wouldn’t go off his system as a sight, common place. He knew the wonderful friends they could be, all his life and the possibility of one being run over before him, didn’t seem like something he could turn a blind eye to. He immediately moved to the side of the signal and pulled over.
Next he scurried to the mutt. He got down to his knees; established eye contact while running his fingers on his furry head. And just like that, trust and warmth was made between the two, in a matter of few seconds. In a quick reflex, he picked up the dog as he crossed to the other end of the road with him cradled in his hands. Not generally used to being lifted, all the more in this fashion; the big guy’s face blushed with bafflement as his tail’s wagging grew incessant, commensurate to his head rush.

He bent down and deposited the animal on the other side of the road, safe and sound. After wagging its tail a few hundred times in gratitude, the big guy made his way into the adjoining street. A relieved man, he scuttled back to the bike as he continued to the interview, he was comfortably late by now. He was neither a movie star, a politician nor an overrated cricketing sensation.Yet somehow, his gesture left an impact on the minds of people on the road that morning , if their collective slowing down was anything to by. While most wouldn’t go on to replicate him, their brakes would at least come on with new found empathy at the sight of a dog trying to cross the road next time. Thus without much fuss, a selfless few minutes of a man pushed the moral compass of a bunch of men around him.
.

Life comes to us in oxygen patches made in trees, it’s in times like this when we step out of our comfort zones for someone outside of us, that we go on to elevate life from the realm of existence to living. In the process, becoming heroes unto ourselves to look up to.

Down the memory lane

It was a damp night, mind you damp and not wet. Chennai’s weather of late has been blowing hot and cold; with almost hot afternoons packed in humid sweat and reluctant drizzles well shy of being holistic downpours in the nights. So it was one of those nights and I was coming from a night show, to find my bike seat gently kissed by several raindrops, that had deceived the sky’s vigil. One of the primary cons of riding a bike during such times is, you can’t wear your lighter trousers. One, the raindrops leave an impression, not a good one- a wet smudge on the sitting area. And two, even if you vigilantly wipe your way off the previous possibility to preserve tushy dignity, there’s no way you can go unscathed, as the several puddles and inconsiderate vehicles on the way would somehow come together to leave a graffiti on the trousers.
Anyways I was wearing a pair of black trousers that night and it held very little consequence to the other happening of the night, primarily about which this piece is .This one’s about the route I took on my way back and the the trip it took me down the memory lane.

While coming back from the theatre, there are two routes to my place. One that goes through a residential  area and the other one that comes a little ahead, connecting me to the main road.  Over the last few years I’ve consciously and later subconsciously been ignoring the former stretch to take the latter. Initially, it felt like a can filled with worms, waiting to be opened up. Worms waiting to feed on my peace of mind. Then with efflux of time, I had grown oblivious and numb to this stretch’s magnetic negativity. It had come to only be a detour and the route that led to the main road had become an obvious choice.
But today was different, I was itching to take the former route. Not to confront the can of worms, but to take stock of my quality of peace. Curiosity had the better of me and there I was in the stretch I had forbidden as a sort of reality check. This trip was straddling between literal and figurative, for so much in my life had transpired in this L shaped stretch, the gravitas of which was getting to me as I was rumbling through it, metre by metre.

A few hundred metres into this road- painted in shadows of the trees behind -came this compound wall on the left. There was nothing fancy about it, just another neglected-marshy structure raised to mark the periphery of the house. But to me, it marked a new beginning. Back then it was always enveloped from the road by a fleet of school vans parked in front of it. It was our second date, I had just kissed her for the first time inside a deserted Mcrennett a little ahead on the corner of the road. She was pink with amusement and I was a cat, who had had a taste of meat for the first time. We soon left hand-in-hand to take a stroll, incidentally my first walk with someone from the fairer sex. She was a bundle of nerves, obviously given that her folks stayed not far away from there and she was walking with a person who had just earmarked her left cheek with his saliva. Fairly educated on each other’s favourites, we had run out of topics and were in a mood for something non-verbal. The secluded compound wall on the right, stood there with in anticipation and we got the cue. I lifted and perched her on it facing me, as I placed my hands on either side of her on the wall. Before we realised, I was kissing all over her face like a caveman, rocking back and forth like a push up in a near state of trance. Together we had debased base one here.

As I drove ahead, came the Mcrennett I had mentioned a little earlier on the corner of the road. Apart from being the unwilling witness and stage to our first sacrilege, it had seen a lot of us. It used to be a favourite spot for it didn’t pinch on my wallet hard and it served the best cheese puff known to humanity. We’ve spoken about movies, debated about choice of careers, stolen kisses when no one’s around and have even gone for each other’s necks when arguments turned futile.

We were sparrows constructing nests on unnoticed loft corners of houses with little information to its owners, raising our own little monuments in common places of others surreptitiously.

As I turned right came this place, a newly fitted majestic metal gate fitted in front precluding my vision beyond. Back then, there used be no gate. It was just a long driveway that winded in a nursery school at the dead end. We fondly called it “nursery”. Only both of us knew what nursery meant, when among a group of friends. So why were two grown-ups frequenting a nursery? This underlit place became uninhabited in the evening and the unregulated driveway that preceded the nursery, with tall trees on either side, became a tantalising prospect for long walks and the accoutrements that ensued.
Here, we became night creatures that made merry after sunset. Unlike the owls, we couldn’t see too well, but we didn’t complain. We could feel and listen to each other like  in no other place with heightened awareness- finding rhythm in our heartbeats, warmth in our touches, wetness in our lips and dexterity in the fingers to render clothes vestigial. This is where we caught up everytime before being away for a while and this is where we came together after being away. This was our ersatz room, before we got a real one.

A few second later came this stretch inundated by tall walls that belonged in fortresses, baring faces of the neighbourhood politician and not so subtle slogans in fluorescent font. I could see a younger me targeting the wall, as I discharged my bladder’s content in a blissful fountain. She was seated on the bike behind, embarrassed about my unconventional way of answering the nature’s call. As I got on the bike, proud and relieved, my comeuppance would come as she twisted my ear till I twirled with it in tandem.

I pulled over my bike to take a leak. I was all alone by myself, with no one waiting behind to play mother as I sat to ride.

The L of the stretch was coming to an end as the subway in the end was becoming visible. She used to come out of this from the other side of the road, as I restlessly waited near it. I would check myself on the bike’s mirror a hundred times and would strike the best pose, as she would pop out onto my bike in a hurry. After dropping her back late in the evening, this is where I would wait till she surfaced from the other end of the subway in one piece.Our days were in short, bookended by this subway.

Over a decision, things that were very life itself had turned into distant memories I could only live vicariously. I  could revisit them, without craving to recreate. This stretch was like a black box that survived a crash. The drive was like going back to the place of accident after recovering- as a healed person – grateful about the second chance, stronger and peaceful. If I’ve learnt one thing over the years, it’s that there’s no such thing as good or bad in life as everything culminates systematically in a memory. Good and bad are transitional, a mere reflection of the state of the mind from the time of impact.

It felt like a place I was leaving place from, not one I was coming into.As I turned left to climb the flyover, I felt like Superman  emerging out of Krypton stronger than before. Life was one fear short.

 

 

Something like true love

Who am I to describe love? A better question would be from where do I describe it?As an originator of my own stories or from the standpoint of a recipient or just as an undeserving person who’s hair was tousled by its zephyr. For so much has been told by so many, so many times in so many different ways. Like stories about encounters with God, there are a million first person accounts of how it felt to be hit by it, but very few have actually come eye to eye. Yet so many talk about having fallen under its endless wings, to put a halo around their togetherness. Every myth solidifies in stature to become a thing of faith with anecdotes and accounts woven . Love is no different.It finds its eternity in such fascinating stories. One such story came to my mind, that inspired me to yearn for this enigmatic emotion.

Twenty years earlier…

So she was a little short of twenty when her solicitous dad got her married off. Twenty wasn’t the only thing she was short of. She was yet to experience the feelings that came along with travel, relationships and work pressure; yet here she was, already staring at the threshold of matrimony on fast forward mode, thanks to a swift push of a button by her father.
Fair skinned, pleasant faced and well endowed- she was a single point leakage to the collective efficiency of her neighborhood men. Her husband was an average looking man; brown skinned with not a single striking feature. He was one of those generic people who could easily be lost in a crowded street.
As a very young kid, I didn’t make much of the marriage than the food that was served on the wedding night or the lopsidedness of their pairing.

Sixteen years earlier…

They begot a daughter, who was as respectable as adorable.A rare quality for a child of an impressionable age in our family, given the carefree(less) parenting style that usually prevailed. She no more looked like a pencil wrapped in a saree, maternity had made her a tad cherubic, but she was quite the looker still. By now, I was old enough to understand gentleman beyond their faces, her husband was one such person. He was no more the generic person from the wedding altar, he was a friendly man who I had grown up to become fond of.

Twelve years earlier…

They had moved into a new place when I saw them next. Their house felt like home; held together by something beyond brick and mortar in one congenial bond. Their daughter was old enough to understand stuff beyond arithmetics and alphabets. They now had a son who was yet to step out of from the clutches of gravity or gibberish. They were warm hosts, wonderful parents and a great couple. They couldn’t take their eyes of each other and I couldn’t off them. My relationship benchmark was forged back then, with their molds.

Five years earlier…

The next time when I visited them, she greeted me- her eyes incongruent to mine. Didn’t know till then that diabetes was capable of causing blindness . She used to write accounts for a handful of clients back then,she still does just like her dad. The vulnerability of blindness barely sunk into her, for he became her ersatz eyes and hands during that time. They worked together like one person, with him reading out from the bills and she reciting the accounting entries. The children had grown up into responsible adults, who took care of themselves and their parents with little fuss. Together they resembled a well oiled machine, with each of them dovetailing their needs to the larger cause of their family.

A few months earlier…

One afternoon, we got a call from her mom. She had met with a cardiac attack. Some thing cryptic about the way life operates; giving us more than we deserve, to only take more than it gave.
She had come out of her temporary blindness to resiliently firm up her family’s financial status, something that had eluded her father forever. She had made her children independent individuals who could take care of themselves, emotionally and financially. All of this, amidst the chaos from the periphery, provided by her folks and her pungent in-laws and her own dwindling health condition.

As I walked into her ward I saw him seated beside her. He was holding a magazine upside down, musing on her, as she lay asleep, pale and weak. Unperturbed by the raucous of the general ward or the gravitas of the circumstance, his face was the picture of calm in a storm.Over the years, She had lost her good looks, her youth, her father recently and yet he never left her side, through the thick and thin of life. I stood there embarrassed about claiming to have been in love a few times in my life. I still didn’t know what love was. But it definitely was a lot more deeper than a space created to decorate egos, held together by impressions made from first sight, coffee shop camaraderie and finding body warmth together under the fallacy of “making love”. Maybe it was about the inconvenient things that often go un-merchandised, like being unconditional, understanding and accomodative of each other like the two of them were.

It is surprising that the stories of eternal love,sacrifice and hope that we so often seek from the chapters of bestsellers,movies and history to stitch our torn souls, lie scattered around our own lives, waiting to be acknowledged.This is one such story from mine.

Seed of Love

Since the time she came on earth, her life had been characterized by one recurring motif –neglect.
She had a cojoined sibling who was everything she was not. She was attractive and became ripened in the sweeping wave of acceptance that was earmarked to her.
Even during their formative period where they both were confined together, she could clearly sense the unanimous popularity that was beckoning her sister. She was not only an eye-candy, but was unmistakably sweet; unlike her own self whose virtues took time to grow on people.

So it was not long before her alpha sister found an enamored taker and the abyss of abandonment opened up to engulf her. It was always this eventuality that she vicariously feared in her head. A time when her not-so-fond sibling would drift apart, dropping her like a bad habit.
It was at this acerbic point from where the future looked bleak and the present didn’t look any pretty that she met him, the love of her life.

Like hers his life too wasn’t an account of being an apple of everyone’s eye. If her surroundings bore hostility, his bore indifference to his very existence. What he touched came alive. He was a blessed soul. He was seen as a very useful person and little did he know that it would go on to be his problem itself. That everyone would just use him.

He was the one wielding the wand, yet found himself at the feet of every person he wielded in favor of.

Their initial conversations were like that of two urchins stuck in a holocaust camp breaking bread, having an one-upmanship contest over whose life was more miserable .

They initially felt sympathetic towards each other’s predicaments. Then in a matter of time sympathy paved way to empathy. Empathy led to the warmth of comfort. One thing lead to another and in a matter of time, they found solace in each other’s existence and became each other’s existence.

Providence replaced hostility from their ecosystems with love. Love went a little ahead and made them each other’s ecosystem itself.
They were a beautiful couple in the wonderful ways they completed and complimented each other. Elevating their codependency to an intertwining work of art. Things which seemed like flaws not long ago, seemed to have grown into relevant traits which contributed to their combined synergy.

Every time they made love, Mother Nature would overwhelm with a downpour; for she knew that not only was it a passionate process, but a purposeful one. They aspired together to bring to life a progeny who would not only be their love child, but a torchbearer to the legacy they aspired to leave behind.

A legacy which wasn’t built by burnt fingers spitefully to prosper in isolation to prove a point to the world, but by truly altruistic minds who wanted to give back to the world what they never had received from it.
She became pregnant with their child. The one who would go on to make their existence count. He was a doting man, who would go to any extent to pamper the love of his life.  But he couldn’t afford a more forthcoming place, cordial to her maternity. They were expendable entities, whose existence or in-existence didn’t really make much dent in the larger of things.
So the only thing they could do to alter the hostility of their environment was plain hoping. Notwithstanding his vulnerability, he wouldn’t leave her side for a moment till she gave birth. He was a timid person, who let her never fear.
There were happenings beyond his control that were pulling them down with more fervor than before. Gravity of things he couldn’t fathom, but could only hope to have mercy. And the universe did respond with mercy and the things beyond them didn’t endanger their child who came out kicking.

This child grew up to dizzying heights beyond the dreams of his humble parents to be a magnificent citadel, which not only provided endlessly, but protected and preserved. Had his mother who’s looks he had inherited not died in his birth, she would’ve been a proud soul.
His bereaved father was a proud witness to his progeny’s astronomical growth, who continued being a grounded person. He went on to nurture a nursery of children to help them leave behind a legacy of their own.
It is a miraculous world out there, with a million possibilities. For who knew a thrown mango seed and wet soil would go on to leave behind an edifice of their relation someday-their Tree of love.

Forbidden Love.

A hot headed guy; he was this fruit of a marriage between commerce and addiction. She was this carefully crafted red herring; whose luscious appearance made hordes of men take the bait in a heartbeat, without the slightest sniff of consequence.

“Opposites Attract” goes the popular maxim, but this was a little more than mere magnetism from two poles that were apart. For this wasn’t just another tale of contradictions and accruing fondness between acquaintances feigned out of Mars and Venus. Right from their founding fabric to the interests they pursued and the interests they were pursued as; they were dissimilar at every level that their bonding seemed as unlikely as a camaraderie between a toad and a serpent. Yet they would go on to passionately fall in love with each other, even if it was going to be ephemeral and morbid.

Detrimental to each other, they were pawns in the hands of destiny;their unison was an anomaly designed to add flourish to the myth of love. She savoured every occasion they came in contact, she caressed him with her elusive tenderness that other men meditated upon fervently.

He for his part, with constant fire in his belly and admonishment for a way of life; found absolute approval in her unadulterated love; the only person he loved to suck his soul; a soulmate who saw solace amidst the fire and stench.

This was a tumultuous relation with fleeting for its middle name, everything from when to how long was not in their hands; leaving how they were tmalone to their combined discretion. The most they made out of their sporadic togetherness, a decade out of every moment that turned buffer during separation.

There was this blessed phase which would eventually lead to their impending separation.  They spent too much time together in each other’s company to only realise their sparkling compatibility to actually be incompatible.They made fervent love like barn animals that they could have birthed an entire township if not for the unfruitful nature.

Turns out that too much of something that resembled nectar was poisonous after all,f their overzealous streak had taken a toll on her. She was deteriorating into a pale shadow of her gorgeous self. Yet she couldn’t keep herself off him, even if her very being was collateral. He on his part, was concerned about her dwindling health,oblivious to the fact that he in fact was the cause.

The love of a serpent doesn’t wither away the sting of its venom, his infallible devotion to her well being was not blunting the detrimental effect he had on her.

Shaken by their unflinching resolve who would rather die an overwhelming death than rot in separation; the universe had to conspire as their collective conscience to end them for greater good.

She was forced into a relation with another of his kind; similar to him, yet so different in so many ways. Like in every potent tragedy worth recounting, the estranged couple tried every which way to get back; but had to make do vicariously.

As she kept dying within, her health improved drastically with every passing day without him and soon enough her allure was back. Nuanced by endless yearning her beautiful face looked a tad different, underscored by those dream devoid dove eyes she was a magnificent epitome of separation. He had found his audience in another person in the meantime; a rebound of sorts and soon moved on for good. She broke up with the doppelganger of her estranged lover and soon lost interest in his kind itself.

With them ended another love story in this world. In a place which stands witness to far more consequential tragedies with every passing moment; an end to a fleeting affair between a pair of lips and a cigarette would not mean much, would it?

 

Valentine’s predicament

“What’s special about today?”, he casually put across.

“When’s the  Kamal Hasan movie releasing?”, she concernedly asked.

“Phat came the reply-April 2nd!”

Little did he know that he had just inaugurated a freshly dug grave for him.

“When did ginger(his cat) come home?”, she continued

“May 18th. See we could do this chronological rhetoric all day long.”

“Is he so naive about today’s sanctity? Where does the child like awareness of men evaporate when no one’s home!”, she wondered loudly in her mind

“Ok leave it. Got to go”

By now she was hyperventilating already. She could easily deposit a few of her flower vases on his face if he were around.

“Babe, unless your birthday is coming for the second time this year, I don’t see a hallow around today.”, he sarcastically fumbled.

“Valentine’s Day duffer.It is omnipresent across social media upto an extent that porn sites have Valentine’s promotional offer.”

“Since when did you start watching porn?”, he defensively cracked up a bad joke in damage control mode.

“The only place you think from is between your legs. Is that the only thing you’ve grasped from whatever I said Pervert?”

“Atleast I think from some where,unlike some who function like festivity reminder app!”, he mumbled

“Did I just hear something?”

“Yes. Happy Valentine’s Day doll”

“Had to excavate it out of you “, she quipped in her head

“Yup,like a long lost relic!”

“Fuck! How did you do that?”

“That sweetheart is called an educated guess.My cat doesn’t ask me for food,but I just know when it’s hungry.”

“Are you likening me to your cat?”

“No.The only thing you both share in common is the gender.” He sheepishly managed. “Unlike you, my cat understands mating calls without prompting and is more sensitive to the opposite sex.”,he thought to himself.

“Even my parents wished me today.”

“That’s one weird family you’ve got.”

“Only time his romance seems to be on auto pilot is when he’s got a boner.”, she observed to herself.

“What can I do to make up for my screw up?”

“I’ll let you know in a while.For the time being,just dress up and send a selfie. Btw,have a bath.”, she laughed.

“Phew!That was barely romantic. Men and women used to be more romantic than that when they were clad in leaves and incest was prevalent. What has WhatsApp and Archies done to them. If she was going for his wallet, he was going for her pants on  a day widely pimped as epitomizing romance.No wonder my master health check-up results aren’t flattering off-late!”,  lamented the cupid overlooking them.

***********

A few days later he was having a banter about the predictability of romance with me after blogging about a hypothetical conversation between him and his girlfriend, when he got a call.

His pink cheeks turned pale white, ridicule making way for grimace.His explanations starting and stopping at a monosyllabic level,not growing beyond the stutters.The call got cut after a few minutes.

“All okay?“, I asked

“No,she read the blog.Much worse, I forgot my date“,he quivered.

“Hahaha.Men these days.“,I said to myself, when my phone rang with her name.

The tree of love

 

Since the time she came on earth, her life had been characterized by one recurring motif –neglect.
She had a cojoined sibling who was everything she was not. She was attractive and became ripened in the sweeping wave of acceptance that was earmarked to her.
Even during their formative period where they both were confined together, she could clearly sense the unanimous popularity that was beckoning her sister. She was not only an eye-candy, but was unmistakably sweet; unlike her own self whose virtues took time to grow on people.

So it was not long before her alpha sister found an enamored taker and the abyss of abandonment opened up to engulf her. It was always this eventuality that she vicariously feared in her head. A time when her not-so-fond sibling would drift apart, dropping her like a bad habit.
It was at this acerbic point from where the future looked bleak and the present didn’t look any pretty that she met him, the love of her life.

Like hers his life too wasn’t an account of being an apple of everyone’s eye. If her surroundings bore hostility, his bore indifference to his very existence. What he touched came alive. He was a blessed soul. He was seen as a very useful person and little did he know that it would go on to be his problem itself. That everyone would just use him.

He was the one wielding the wand, yet found himself at the feet of every person he wielded in favor of.

Their initial conversations were like that of two urchins stuck in a holocaust camp breaking bread, having an one-upmanship contest over whose life was more miserable .

They initially felt sympathetic towards each other’s predicaments. Then in a matter of time sympathy paved way to empathy. Empathy led to the warmth of comfort. One thing lead to another and in a matter of time, they found solace in each other’s existence and became each other’s existence.

Providence replaced hostility from their ecosystems with love. Love went a little ahead and made them each other’s ecosystem itself.
They were a beautiful couple in the wonderful ways they completed and complimented each other. Elevating their codependency to an intertwining work of art. Things which seemed like flaws not long ago, seemed to have grown into relevant traits which contributed to their combined synergy.

Every time they made love, Mother Nature would overwhelm with a downpour; for she knew that not only was it a passionate process, but a purposeful one. They aspired together to bring to life a progeny who would not only be their love child, but a torchbearer to the legacy they aspired to leave behind.

A legacy which wasn’t built by burnt fingers spitefully to prosper in isolation to prove a point to the world, but by truly altruistic minds who wanted to give back to the world what they never had received from it.
She became pregnant with their child. The one who would go on to make their existence count. He was a doting man, who would go to any extent to pamper the love of his life.  But he couldn’t afford a more forthcoming place, cordial to her maternity. They were expendable entities, whose existence or in-existence didn’t really make much dent in the larger of things.
So the only thing they could do to alter the hostility of their environment was plain hoping. Notwithstanding his vulnerability, he wouldn’t leave her side for a moment till she gave birth. He was a timid person, who let her never fear.
There were happenings beyond his control that were pulling them down with more fervor than before. Gravity of things he couldn’t fathom, but could only hope to have mercy. And the universe did respond with mercy and the things beyond them didn’t endanger their child who came out kicking.

This child grew up to dizzying heights beyond the dreams of his humble parents to be a magnificent citadel, which not only provided endlessly, but protected and preserved. Had his mother who’s looks he had inherited not died in his birth, she would’ve been a proud soul.
His bereaved father was a proud witness to his progeny’s astronomical growth, who continued being a grounded person. He went on to nurture a nursery of children to help them leave behind a legacy of their own.
It is a miraculous world out there, with a million possibilities. For who knew a thrown mango seed and wet soil would go on to leave behind an edifice of their relation someday-their Tree of love.