Cockroaches:

Eeeekkks!!!!!!!!!

A scream woke me up from my slumber; I got up lazily put on a T-shirt and walked slowly towards the kitchen from where my wife was ceaselessly wailing and brawling. I know what you guys are thinking, why wear the T-shirt when someone could easily have been raping my wife and she needed my help? The answer is pretty simple, having married her for more than seven years now, I knew my wife. She would have preferred being battered by the rapist than be shattered on a stranger looking at my hairless bare body. I still have the mental scar of that warm February morning when I was frolicking in my towel and the maid had walked in. I had just wished her morning and had continued to ramble around in the hall. That was enough for my wife to banish me from my own bedroom and I had to stay on half rations and sleep with my son on the bunk bed with my legs dangling dangerously from above for an absolutely long time. That was four years ago and till today my body has no longer seen the sun and may be will never. Am sure she would buy an embroidered spotlessly white chikan kurta straight from the Manish Malhotra boutique to wrap me around when am laid in the pyre. Anyways, I walked to the kitchen half sleepy, to find me wife screaming silently in one corner at the cockroaches which had taken over my kitchen. Some of them were huge and some even smaller than houseflies; some old enough to be grannies with no strength even to move their whiskers and some born just the other day in the corner of the old pressure cooker; and all of them were rambling around like they were in some street Marathon waiting for some African to win the race while they were gleefully frolicking around complaining of roads and taxes. I took my slipper and started smacking these randomly without malice, without any preferences. I don’t even know how many I killed; I just rounded the dead after the massacre with my wife watching from a distance and then picked all of them together by their whiskers and threw them in the dustbin.

I walked back to my wife who had made some tea and we sipped the hot tea while I read the morning papers and she complaining about everything under the sun, particularly everything dealing with me, the way I had thrown my shirts on the chair in my bedroom, “Chairs are for the visitors who come to the bedroom, they cannot sit on the bed”. I hadn’t argued back, I had my inhibitions to visitors in my bedroom while we were on the bed, but then I had thought better and had kept all my doubts and queries to my heart. She had continued taking me to task about the way I had brushed and had dirtied the wash basin, the way Mrs. Singh looked at her when she found the toilet seat up, What she was doing with Madame Singh in the bathroom, I didn’t dare to ask. To speak frankly, it had stopped bothering me for long, I, after a pretty long training on surviving my wife, had become immune to everything about her. I snore and she raises a commotion even after her plunging a pillow in my mouth; she snores and I plunge the pillow on my ears. I said “yes” when she wanted anything, “very nice” when she ever wanted my opinions on something I cared or didn’t care about and “Amazing” to all queries on her looks, her professional life and her family, which obviously excluded me. But I think the last words were redundant, at least for all married men, they all know by rot that a family consists of the Wife, Her children, Her parents, Her siblings, Her in-laws in strictly that order followed by friends, colleagues, relatives and then maybe You standing very, very far away in terms of affection and love. I while nodding to my wife’s banter couldn’t help noticing a cockroach with huge whiskers sneaking around near the kettle without the slightest concern of me, the terminator, sitting nearby. It maybe had forgotten the bloodbath that had happened just minutes before, maybe had forgotten all the kith and kin, maybe family, maybe husband or wife or children dead in that tragedy, if that was a tragedy for it. People will laugh if I raise questions about a cockroach’s feelings, it has none they will scream and shut me up. Maybe they are stating facts, I personally have never seen a cockroach lighting candles at places where another cockroach had been killed, never seen it depressed and avoid food on another’s ill timed death. I had no choice but concur with the million others that cockroaches, unlike humans have no heart, they don’t care if their wife is dead, they don’t have a wife for that matter, they have sexual partners. They have children but they don’t rue the fact that the children are not doing well at school, or are boisterous and spoilt or have already abandoned them altogether. Their parents dead and rotting in some garbage dump and they care least about it. I smiled, I was human, I had feelings, and I cared for my family and the society. I cared if someone spoke ill of me, I fight back if I am hurt or so is my family. I love my wife and will have a tear even if she had a cough. I looked at her with the loving cum goofy smile still pasted on my face. She looked at me and asked me to cut off that smile, which she decided, was only there to irritate her and I was punished with the task of cleaning up the utensils. That moment washing those damned utensils how I wished to be a cockroach, carefree with least care and responsibility. A small cockroach winked from behind the dirty utensil, stroking its trimmed whiskers. A smack and the winking cockroach lay with eyes shut.

I had to get ready for my work or else my manager would have a field day pointing out my inefficiencies to whoever had ears. The clothes were neatly placed on the bed, no not mine, my wife’s; mine were still rumpled and I had to iron them which I did and ironed some undergarments that my wife had asked me to do with a smile and a kiss blown randomly. I had become good at ironing my wife’s cholis, seven years! I needed to have something to be a master at. I washed myself in the guest room, my wife occupied the main bathroom and she needed more time; obvious since she had to look good at work. No one cared of my looks, whoever noticed a man; that too married anyways. I don’t even know if my manager knew my name, it was always a “hey man!!” he greeted me with. Either it was because he wanted my gender being reaffirmed every time he saw me or he had forgotten my name. I, for obvious reasons, preferred the later to be true. My son had woken up and was doing his homework without being supervised; I went to him and gave him a sandwich, which my wife had prepared for breakfast. Yes, she does that, she thinks I am messy in the kitchen and am a horrible cook. I wish her views to remain that way for long.

I was already late to office; the man-eater would be on his prowl. I climbed down into commotion, some one had died and there were fifty people discussing the saintliness of the man who had just departed. The dead man was a great guy who always had a smile and kind word for everyone, or so I heard Mr. Gupta say. Mr. Shrivastava seemed to agree violently giving instances of his kindness towards the dogs that used to nestle at the gate and bark all through the night. Both my neighbors concurred on the winning qualities of the dead person till the point I asked his name, Gupta thought it was the old man on the 4th floor while Shrivastava thought it was the watchman’s father. Anyways, the name was immaterial; the person who was dead had been a very kind man and that was established. Both of them mourned and I joined them. I actually least cared who had died; all I cared was the cadaver to be removed for my car to pass through. I called up my manager and informed of the situation. My manager seemed happy for some incomprehensible reasons, he condoled the loss without even asking, who it was who had died, persons dead were just dead anyways. He spoke some kind words of the unknown dead and signed off.

I had time to spare and I called my relatives spread all over India, I had to call them, it was a month and I hadn’t exchanged pleasantries. Their responses were typical and my reactions were straight from the book. Those residing in cities were either “fine” or were “great”; the people residing in towns were “surviving because of my blessings” and those in the villages were “just living” with “life going on”. The questions for me were on similar lines either querying about my wife’s health or my son’s new mischief. I couldn’t dare to say she was becoming fat or senile with growing age, which were both true to the core, for the fear of further repercussions. Her health had to be duly reported as good, the expected answer and then a dead end on that front. So as always, it was my son to the rescue and I giving wind to my fancies invented a few mischief s that I had attempted before, to keep the folks all over the country happy and excited. It was getting late and the neighbors, having buried the dead and their own feelings for him, had already receded to the background of their own personal desolate world called life and I drove to mine.

If you ask about the roads and the colors of the houses marking the roads, I may have to bluff. The roads and the passing fancies of the outside world had long ceased to interest me. I now shut myself in the air-conditioned car for the fear of dust and heat, the same way as my house is locked with burglarproof gadgets or my room in office with double locks. These personal spaces that I so create are spaces that are away from the inhospitable world although being part of it and these spaces are locked with care in the same way as the past fancies locked in some corner with the keys to it buried somewhere deep. As a child I had wished to be a train driver, the driver is still lurking somewhere, maybe with the guy who wanted to marry Juhi Chawla or the one who wanted to buy an island or escape to the mountains. I honked the horn, furiously gesticulating at the dreamy cyclist cutting my path and my space.

My office was in a corner of the city, some half an hour from my home, if I can call it so. The office was drab with people giving a smile that stunk of indifference and ill will. I gave a few similar smiles and hurried to my workplace to check some mails and plan some nuisance for those reporting to me. Today was like any other with my eyes glued to the monitor looking busy while I was preparing some reports about efficiency and performance. The hours passed as they had to and I with tea breaks, cigarette breaks, lunch, coffee and meetings whiled away my time. I had a few “one on ones” in which I tried convincing my teammates why they were worthless and had to put on more hours than the ten per day that they were already putting in. The clock ticked and I was on my way out of the place back into my car and to my house. My wife was already back and so had my son. My son smiled, my wife didn’t and I without a word went to my home and changed.

The TV was switched on with the same channels that we watched every other day. The news channels were reporting random deaths and equally random awards given to some nameless people. Some terrorist shot dead while some other politician found with crores of money. The news was no different from the one I had seen yesterday or maybe the day before or maybe the day before, but yes the names had changed. I crouched on the sofa eating whatever my wife had placed in front of me with my eyes still glued to the TV. It was no longer the drab news but some saas-bahu serial, which was in the same point that it, was some many years ago. My wife was softly sobbing and stopped for a second to rebuke me, “Eat slowly and chew the food properly” she said adding, “You are becoming a kid by the day”. Déjà vu, She had done the same thing two days back with a similar angry look as she did today while my son was playing on the carpeted bright floor with the train his uncle had brought him.

I was becoming nauseated with some strange sensations in my stomach. I gave a look of pain and help at my wife who did look concerned maybe partly because of the love for me and partly because of that tragedy in the serial, which had happened some years back. I burped loudly and a cockroach jumped from the inside of my mouth. It turned back, twitched its whiskers and ran away. I gave another loud burp and millions of cockroaches kept flying from my mouth, as I lay crouched on the sofa, with my wife, looking with disgust at me, shrunk far away in the opposite corner of the sofa and my son gleefully smacking away the cockroaches that piled in from myself.

My son, at the least, gave me hope.

Crime and Punishment:

Disclaimer:
This is one blog which I cannot call my own.. though the story is mine.. it is inspired by a short story, which I had read before.. 'The meek one' by Dostoevsky and various others by Maupassant. The title is obviously stolen from Dostoevsky's famous novel. Dont know when they slept and I wokeup to dream their dream.. or is it that they never slept???

Crime:
My wife was hanging from the ceiling. Her face was distorted with the neck broken, eyes wide open with the sad, resigned look she always had.Her hands were clutched shut with the remains of the mangalsutra dangling dangerously from it.The saree was pulled a bit up and I rushed and tried to iron it a little and cover those beautiful, revealed thighs before the police came and saw her in that position, What a shame it would have been for my family if her thighs were so displayed it to the public.She was always like that, thoughtless, never caring for anything I liked.. yesterday the eggs she had prepared had pepper in it, having told her thousand times about me not liking pepper, she had put it just to irritate me, was sure of it.But she was beautiful... May be I had married her because of her gray eyes and auburn hair, or was it because of the sweet fruity smell of her hair or the jasmine scent of her body.

I dont know why I married her.... but now I was no longer married.Her corpse was in my bedroom... Her alta clad feet was still in front of my face. The feet were heavenly... so shapely.. She had the red circle at the centre of her feet, to ward of evil, and some more small dots sorrounding it, and her toenails.. those were also painted with the alta red. She may have done these for prolonging my life, yesterday had been savitri amavasya(Orissa's Karwa chauth) and she had fasted the whole day. I just clinged to those and had cried "on" her feet... Why not I loved her so much... I had told you so.. right? I was in love with her.. maybe thats why I married her. But why did she die, I was a good husband.. Wasnt I? I loved her.. I worshipped the ground she treaded on.. I never looked at another woman.. never said no to what ever she wanted.. then where did I fail her.. Did she not love me?

I decided she didnt love me then. All these fasting were just to fool the world and herself of her true feelings, I decided. I was sitting at the bed and her feet was touching my cheeks.. I gave it an angry push and tried imagining with whome was she cheating me with. I couldnt make up my mind,may be it was Ahmed or was it Santosh... I couldnot decide who it could be.. It could have been anyone in the world, she was sweet to everyone.. to me too. She had that winning smile that she sprinkled on everyone who ever had the fortune of being on her path. She could smile at that 80 year old man, in the dirty rags and unclean yellow teeth, the rabid dog which had an arm aputated and cooed at the neigbour's kid which could have won the ugliest kid contest if he had even enrolled. She was sweet and was the perfect hostess with all my friends(and also enemies) won over by her altruism. I would have been jealous with a vengence, save for one fact which I knew.. She loved me... I had told you so.. right?

She did love me.. Dont ask me how I came to know of it... I can feel it in my bones.. Maybe it was the way she smiled at me when I was hogging the food, the way when she kept looking at me when I was looking at the TV, maybe the way she held me tight before just going of to sleep, maybe the way she kissed me goodnight, kissed me good Morning, kissed me good day... kissed me every hour, every minute every second. We were so much in love but still she was dead.. instead of lying on the bed she was hanging from the ceiling, you may laugh at my desperation but what could I do it was 3 Am in the morning.. and i have been sitting with my dead wife's feet all over my face for an hour or so. Her feet was cold and I was missing her warmth, her smell, her.

I had to know why she died before I called the police.. I clambered around the closet looking for some clue to atleast let me know why? I scrambled across the room empteying every drawer, reading across her diaries.. her papers but found nothing. Then I found at that letter, where I least expected to find, on the table in the living room with the TV's remote acting as the paper weight. The letter was short...
A,
Dont make it tough for me.. I have to do this. I cant go on with you.. nor without you. Sometimes I wished you had a mistress.. sometimes I wished you u came home drunk and bruised me.. sometimes i wished u didnt love me the way u do... sometimes i wished I didnt love u the way I do.. sometimes I wish...
We have loved each other while ignoring each other.I wanted us to be a couple and not each other's habit.
But today when am expectiong, instead of being happy i feel sorry for the baby yet unborn, our unborn baby.
Will we be just a potemkin family, seemingly in love? while unknown to the world, the truth would be different.
I dread myself.
The food is in the fridge please heat it up and eat it.
Sorry for I killed your baby and your wife
Love
W

I looked around.. the feet was still alta clad, the feet was still cold, and I had tears in my eyes. I kissed her feet, my tears wetting those pale feet. The red circle, that was supposed to wade the devil was distorted now with the devil's tears. I picked up the telephone and called the police.

Punishment:
The pundit was chattering something in sanskrit, and was demanding my utmost attention. How could I give my attention to the bald pundit when my love was sprawled across the floor and my heart still not distangled from her. My umblical chord still tied me to my wife and all the pundits hogwash just reminded me of the vaccum my wife's death had created. My sacred thread had changed their directions... from a householder, i had become a sanyasi and then a pariah whose wife was dead. She was clad in a new red saree, my relatives were admiring her beauty.. some old uncle contemplating of times when she had shown her face to him the first time, a moon clad in a veil, he reminisced. The moon was at my feet now.

They asked me to pour water in her mouth. I poured water in those lips, zombie like... Wanted to kiss those half shut pale lips.. but just poured the water.. Ganges.. some said. I didnt care, nor did she. She had some half smile smacked on her face.. may have heard my old granny thinking of getting me married to the village balle. Another victim, she may have thought and thus the smile. We were carrying her now.. four of my friends... i was given a lamp to carry and show the path to the dead.. to the dead or to the alive? I walked in the front leading the way... I walked fast trying to do away with the rituals..

The graveyard was in the corner of the city.. near some god forsaken railway line.. the line to maybe nowhere. They put her in the pyre so lovingly prepared by her husband and the pundit. We had arranged for sandalwood.. the pundit had looked shocked when i had asked if we can burn her along with the jasmine flowers. She smelled of jasmine not sandlewood, I reasoned. I was a hero there... the world reasoning that my love for my wife was just next to shahjahan... She was lying on the top of the pyre.. her auburn, fruity smelling hair shining in the sun. I was asked to stand up and a pot full of water was placed on my left shoulders and was asked to make an anticlockwise circle of the pyre, the pundit made a small hole in the pot while I started walking, the water wetting my back.. The receeding water were filling my heart with all the unspoken wails, unshed tears. I was all welled up but i couldnt create a scene.. my family name would be ruined. I was given a torch smelling of kerosene, and without looking back I lit the sandlewood pyre.

My wife, the one who smelled of jasmine, was burning in front of me. I had killed my wife with my indifference and then I had burnt her with my so called sense of duty.

The world had sympathised and empathised and had proclaimed they understood what I was going through. I smiled.. the smile of a senile man.. The world left, leaving me with my wife who was still burning. The smell of the burning flesh was repulsing.. but for me it was still the smell of jasmine. She, with her sweet temperament was not actually the burning type, so she burnt with a little help from me. I kept on poking at the fire, the passing breeze helped. It was actually romantic, me alone with my wife, in a dilapidated graveyard with a old rail line passing near by, the pleasant breeze and the cool sun, only my burning wife took the romance away.

She was all ashes now. I kept collecting her unburnt bones. I filled the silver urn with bones, with ashes, stones and burnt wood. The ash didnt smell of jasmine as I had expected.. I took the urn and went back home. I placed it on the TV stand and sat on the sofa. The TV was blaring but I kept looking at my wife's ashes, actually the urn. I wanted to be near my wife. I took the urn and held it as I saw the news. I was missing my wife's touch. I remembered when we used to watch movies, with ourselves entwined. She was right, she was my habit, but didnt she understand that i didnt look at her but I wanted her to be near me, so that I could hear her breath, feel her sighs on my trembling hairs, bathe in her smell, now when her urn didnt provide that warmth and all I could do was cling to her memories.

The police found my body, two days after, hung from the ceiling, all covered with my wife's ashes.
Their report said, I smelled of jasmine.

That familiar face:

I hoped it was her. It looked like her.. How could I be even sure... It was long time to the day that I had seen her for the last time. Actually didnt even saw her then ... just saw someone who pretended to be her but it wasnt her.It could not have been her... the lady I was saying goodbye to, wasnt smiling, she just looked like a dark shadow of the lady I knew and maybe, at sometime, liked. Coming back, some 20 years from the past, to the same city where I had met her last, Bhubanswar, hadnt changed at all but I think I had and maybe, so had she.

I kept on staring at her from a distance... a eye on her and an eye on the date of mfg of some biscuits which I had no intention of buying. She was buying some grocery items... butter,flour and cereals, oil, which by the way was Dhara ... i smiled ... it had to be her. I still had not thought if I should go ahead.. and talk to her.. I didnt know what I would say, what could I say?? Things that had needed to be spoken had remained silent... it was loud for all to hear but it had remain silent. I still carried those moments with me... the puchkaas(paanipuri) near RDWomen's college, the walk along the desolate roads in Saheed nagar... the ride on the pedalboat in Nicco park, where only I had pedalled and she had enjoyed sitting like some rani and not helping at all. The memories made me smile... I still could see both of us fighting over the last piece of pastry that we had ordered and had shared, and the grimace that she displayed when i dived in and ate the puchkas that had kept piling on the plate when she was struggling to put even one in her mouth. Those half eaten puchkas were falling, the masala water was dripping from her mouth, the lips were looking so enchanting with the "dhaniya leaf" still struck to it. She was trying to wade her disheveled hair with the unused left hand, but they were still falling on her face, a few streaks of those hair were covering her pretty eyes from me. I couldnot but sigh then and think how wonderful she looked. Her eyes were watering with all the chillies that we had put in the puchkas and her nose was moist but she still had looked so beautiful... so very vulnerable... but still so very beautiful.

The lady I had been following had moved to the next section, buying some soaps cosmetics and all... I continued to stare from the magazine section... She seemed alone.. she seemed unhappy and I was so sadistically happy... I remembered when I was playing with her ear rings that day... they were bright and seemed to hang from her small ears, they jingled when she shook her head for something... her smile was so fascinating, so full of innocence. I remembered staring from a distance when she was blabbering and chattering like a monkey along her thousands "double chotied" friends near the school canteen, she looked so enchanting, with so many people around, with the distance between us, she was so very close to my heart. Today when she was so near, she looked so distant, so far away. My heart ached again, the familar feeling was rising again... the burning sensation and a pain that was so difficult to even tolerate, even then, even now.

I was still following her... same like I used to 20 years before... but then we used to walk separately but still togather but today we were standing so near yet we were so far away. I could relive those momemnts as if they had happended just yesterday... but I was always silent about it...Whome do I say... What do I say???? Even if I try how can I even imagine talking of that smile which had so luminated my life... about those eyes which so used to pierce my heart...about those silences which so used to fill me with fantasies... about those soft hands which are no longer in mine. It may not matter to anyone but me.. the difference of "Lucy's death" is only to me.

She stood there in the queue waiting for the counter boy to give her the bill, I still stared ahead unashamedly... She was wearing a pink salwaar today... a color which she had liked and me hated..I still remember when we had met in the park.. another place I always hated to meet her... and ironically had to meet her there for the first and last time. Then too she was clad in pink... had applied god knows what makeup but she was looking so pretty, she told me of the impending marriage and how she had agreed to it.. I have to marry someone, she said... and looked at me , I had no answer... I kept on talking crap about how we should follow our heart but I said nothing that she wanted to hear and may be nothing that I wanted to say. I just kept on going and she kept on listening and we parted with her saying, "I dont atleast dislike him ... maybe I will just grow to fall in love with him... ". I had no answer to the double negatives. I kept silent... I was shattered but still remained silent... I was so afraid of myself... I was so afraid of everything...I am so like Naim in Manto's Barren... I am just incapable of love... I am in love with love itself, but so incapable of falling in love, maybe just incapable of accepting being in love. I could again feel the burning pain shooting in my heart but I just stood silent.

She was going away... walking towards the parked car... She must have settled in bhubaneswar then, but hadnt she told me that she was to marry someone from Mumbai. I looked ahead... she walked towards the black Corolla, a small kid jumped on her... a smile flashed across her face. A bald man coaxed her from the drivers seat to make it quick... she gave a weak smile at him... put the things in the back seat,kept on hugging her son... climbed the front seat and drove away...I still stood standing at the supermarket. I looked ahead.. The man at the counter was asking me if I needed some help... I shook my heads and walked away from that place.

Dreams:

(The above still is from Passion of christ, Mary magadalane, Mother Mary and John waiting for the resurrection)

Salim was dead, there was no denying the fact. The fact though had still not sinked in. It was not even a day to the evening in which, he, just liked that died. No premonitions, no instinctive denials... just a morning of shopping, a late vegeterian lunch, a few hours of sleep, the customary hugs while leaving, the wistful thinking that we should all stay in Mysore, and barely the bike had been out of Mysore, he was gone... Just like that. A crash, few clatters, the piercing silence, someone's cry for help, the din of the sudden crowd which had erupted and then silence again... and .. and he was gone... Just like that.

Another day had just begun to end perhaps... the seconds were ticking... perhaps waiting for something to happen. The TV remained silent as everyone was grappling with their very own personal dreams, fighting with their personal thoughts .. A fight which they maybe were going to loose. Tomorrow was the day they all dreaded, some of them were burying their son, some their friend and some their brother. They chanted along.. "A lily of a day was fairer far in may" but what about the bird whose oak has fallen in his prime and not "bald and seer". A 7 foot long pit for a 6 ft guy... a 3 ft wide grave for a thin chap and there he will lie to grow like an oak.... A tomb will say what may be he never even wanted to say and a place where maybe the birds will chirp and the dogs rest. Not able to take it any longer... they all slept...atleast tried to....and they dreamt on.

A mother's dream:
Mama.... get up... u still sleeping, have to go to office... a voice echoed from somewhere. The mother woke up in her dream jumped to cling to her son never may be to let him go away.The tears which had dried near her eyes had formed a white layer which her son so lovingly wiped. She pleaded with him never to leave her even a second on which he so agreeingly nodded. She wondered why her son was so thin... he had to eat better now ...She just looked at his face and clinged to her more strongly than ever. Now that she was convinced that all the phones that had come the other day were rumors, all the wailing that she had heard was just a bad dream, she looked at the watch which showed 3 AM in the morning. Surprised, she looked back at her son but he was no longer there... he maybe was lost in her cling. She went back to her bed, truth had atlast dawned on her. The next day, after getting up from feigning sleep, she went to the front door. The plant that till yesterday was barren had bloomed and a while lily smiled at her. She smiled. Her son was back.

A friend dreams on:
It was no use lying on the bed... sleep was difficult to come by. Anshu got up to have some water and then went back to the gory bed. He thought of thoughts, memories flodding by, some sweet, some sour but memories which were difficult to let go. He drifted along to reach a zone where he was not sleeping nor was he keeping awake. He was just floating along. He realized he had reached some god forsaken graveyard... the dark graves were covered with wild grass... some pink flowers were blooming in the hedges... there were tombs all over, some markings etched all over. He stopped to look at the epitaphs.... some had died young, some were babies and some in their prime. A lady was lying with her 2 young sons and a dutiful? wife with her loyal husband. He saw a grave with his friend's name on it. He stopped and then started pounding on the grave with all might.The grave caved in... and he found his friend at the end of the tunnel, the same huge nose, ugly face and the small eyes which sinked in when smiling... eating some mangoes in the white "You can legally marry a goat" tshirt. Anshu got angry... when the world was in mourning, this guy was eating mangoes. He tried dragging him from the pit but couldnt, his friend was being sucked more into the tunnel. He started despairing, he kept wailing and calling for help but all he saw was the dark tunnel and darkness that was crowding on him. He woke up in a start and found his friends gathered around him asking him to be ready for the burial. He got up and went to the balcony. He looked ahead at a small kid playing in the mud who had put some of it in his mouth too. He looked on at the small kid, the kid caught his eyes and smiled.

A lady weeps:
Ahana replaced the phone and straight went to the kitchen, her refuge where she could be alone, where no one would disturb her. She remembered college, where they used to meet secretly escaping those prying friends. The touch of his hands when it brushed across her side, the carefree smiles and the talks, how can she forget the talks. Now all that she had of him was the memories, he was no more, so the informant had told.Ahana couldnt believe for a second, she was far away in taxas where as he in bangalore, but still, they had shared moments.. once.. long ago. How could she forget. She remembered how he didnt come for her marriage, he couldnt he said and she understood... pretended to be angry but understood. It was getting late, she had to wake up early for the doctor's appointment and for that she had to sleep, if she could. Her husband was on the other side sleeping like a log, the telephone rings never seemed to bother him.Ahana tried sleeping... her half open eyes were looking at her husband, she saw instead of her husband it was salim,smiling at her.It was the same face, the same cringed eyes, the ugly nose and the dimpled smile, and they were sharing kisses. She didnt know if she was enjoying it, she didnt even try to think... the face was still changing... there were now sweats on his face... it was red... instead of sweat it was now blood which was flowing from his face... his face was cut... his tooth broken... there were dark spots all through and his eyes betrayed hurt.She woke up with a sudden pain. She sat on her haunches and patted her belly... her 7 months old baby had kicked.

They were all dreaming... living with the dead... burying him, exhuming him... and then burying him again...Mud prints everywhere... all dreams bloodied...Someone was dead and the living were dying with him. Those alive were living but they were dying again and again and again.

The day Rajiv Gandhi died:

The americans say that everyone in the country remembers the moment when they heard that JFK was assasinated. True I thought, We Indians have the same feeing about the day Mahatma gandhi died or the moment we heard of the brutal murder of Rajiv. Love him or hate him, the brutal murder evoked sympathy for the soul lost.

It happend some 15 years ago, and I was not even 10 but the day is etched in my memory. I was standing on the rooftop playing cricket with my friends when some friend told me that rajiv gandhi was dead and was killed by a bomb blast. I just looked at him and we started playing again. After a few hours I went home and told my mom about the brutal murder. She looked distressed and with moist eyes said, "oh Rajiv gandhi died, What a handsome man he was". I just looked on, I didnt realize what was more distressing, the ex prime minister's death or the handsome man's face blodied.

I still am not able to forget that day.

One moment more :

The pain of death's farewell grows dim,
The pain of life's farewell stays new.
Since you were exiled to jiangnan
- plague land - i've had no news of you.

Proving how much you're in my thoughts,
Old friend, you've come into my dreams,
I thought you still were in the law's
Tight net - but you've grown wings, it seems.
-Vikram seth,Three Chinese poets

Movies are my panacea I think or may be it's mania is the diesease that I suffer from. Watching some movie or the other and thinking about it is the only activity that I enjoy, I think. A few days before, at arnd 1 in the Night I started watching Mili, not that I hadnt seen it before , but I enjoy watching it. Its a movie which instills hope(Something I dont belive in), a movie which though in the same lines as of Anand is so brilliantly different with its adaptation. Amitabh with his controlled potrayal of the debauched and hurt son and Jaya with her ebulliant self were both brilliant. I simply adored the movie when I saw it for the first time and still adore it everytime I watch it.

Most parts of the movie moved me, but I keep on thinking about one thing as in Why did Amitabh have to propose and marry Jaya when he knew that she was terminally ill. What did that union procure, a month or two togather, the slow but painful acceptance that you are slowly loosing the person you love to death, some more memories to struggle with. I kept on thinking about why do people try to continue with a relationship when there is no future to it, when all that can come out of it is hurt, pain and nothing but memories which may keep on haunting one for like ever.

I was talking to a friend when he started talking about death and how we all wish to prolong the moment of the final passing. So true I thought, A person is not dead till he is dead and if he is not dead, he is alive, so it is not stupid when one keeps on wishing for the dead person to hold onto his life. What about a relationship then, isnt a relation also like life, then why not try to hold on to the relation just a moment more before letting go, just trying to hold on to the person before the relation lies broken never to be mended.

Some say it is better for the parting to be blunt, a moment and everything gone but I cannot but disagree. Death or Separation, sudden or lingering cannot bring anything but some morose despair, a terrible shock and another life defunct. The difference being, only in separation, the body breathes. If it is lingering atleast you can prepare for the destined, atleast you can have some more moments togather, atleast you have some more experiences, some more life,some more joy, some more memories. As days pass, the inevitable may happen, some candles may be stubbed out, some ships just hanging around may leave for their destination, I may remain standing alone but atleast I would have a moment more.

One more moment and all that it is.

The cat and its prey

(The following was written long back when I had to write the competitive exams like the IITs, The time is ripe now to reproduce it as a blog)

The scene was a lush green jungle with wilderness so deep that the animals had troubles moving around. Among those thick greenery there was a clearing with an old tree at the center and hundreds of animals just lying around in the shade. There was a bird up in the tree so happy with itself that it was singing in glee and doing a tap dance of sort. The animals lazing around didn’t know where the bird came from and why it was gallivanting around. A cat, which was sleeping under the daffodils half opened the eyes and looked up at the colorful bird doing its rain dance.

The cat now was awake from his slumber and he kept on looking up thinking of ways to make a dinner out of the bird, the sweet little voice, the enchanting cabaret the graceful poise didn’t matter all that it mattered was the bird and the dinner it would make. The bird was oblivious of all that was going on, very much like the diva who remain ignorant abt the millions who lust for her. She was just doing what her heart wanted to, sing for the much awaited rains, sing for the much welcomed spring or maybe sing just for some other bird to make notice. Our cat though was now looking at the bird in deep appreciation.

He looked around and saw now many of his fellow animals had half awakened from their slumber. They too had started looking up and were looking at the bird with hungry eyes. He could see the same thought going around in every animals mind, he could feel the twitch across their lips, see those whiskered lips salivating in hungry anticipation. He again looked up at the bird, the bird was still doing her rain dance and he became motivated to go for her, come what may.

His sleepy eyes half asleep could now see everyone geared up for the fight for the goal. In his minds eye he could see the battle happen before it happened. He could see the cats fighting with each other, the claws open, the nails out as if to strike anyone out cold who comes near their vicinity. He could see the cats over each other tearing each other apart, some had lost an eye some had blood all over the face, the tranquil eyes had been replaced by an angry grimace. He shuddered on seeing the battle, he cried at the unthinking war. The bloody skin with the torn eyes, the massacre of his friends and the like was a sight he couldn’t behold.

He leapt back; saw all the other cats still eyeing the illusive dancing bird. But our cat had the vision. He walked away slowly from the crowd with a knowing smile smacked across his lips. The bird was still dancing looking lovely, but our cat now knew the truth. He had the vision from the hill and the Promised Land was no longer enchanting, not at the price it came.

A dog's day out

It was july 3rd, considered to be the hottest day in the northen Hemisphere, a day marked by the ascendant of sirius in the sky, a day called by most as dog's day and a day which incidentally is day of my birth too.

I was sipping cold cofee that day in the first floor table of the cafe, the coffee was bitter and the musings of the person in front of me was no better. I was looking in her eyes but my mind was shouting mercy, I tried to look intrested but dont know if i managed it right. I was looking around for more interesting faces when I looked at a dirty old dog on the streets. The dog was not even worth a glance and i just looked through it and returned back to hear the uninspiring talks. The lady in front of me was blabbering around and all I was thinking, was a means to escape. God must have heard me for the lady execused herself and I had a moment respite. I looked back at the road and there was the dog still standing where it was with a puzzled look as it looked ahead at the tar road.

The dog's look was interesting. If I can quantize emotions then possibly I will give it as 30% irritation,20% puzzled, 30% anger, 10% hurt and 10% resignation. Just kidding, In a single word the dog was absolutely world-wearied. It tried to move forward when suddenly a motor cylcle with a macho guy and coy girl zipped through. Poor dog didnt know that they had more important work and they were getting late, the dog was just happy may be that he was not run over. He was back at the same place. Now he looked to his left from where the motor cycle had crossed, (he may have thought of it as the dog remover, but sadly I dont understand a dog's language), he found that it was empty. He gave a winning smile, with the dirty gums visible and I responded with a burp. Now he steadily moved forward.

In the middle of the road he realized that now there was a big car coming from the right, he may have been dead but for the heavy honking and he just froze where he was. The car stopped with a creeking break and the driver gave a mean look and a loud curse cursing the dog, its dead mother, her father and also the father's sister.This done the car left and our dog was hurt but still looking ahead.

Freud should have been there to analyze the dog's determination but on 2nd thoughts he would have also commented on my being interested in the dog crossing the road. The lady had still not come but the waiter had and he was asking if I needed something else I just gave him an order for something which was the cheapest and continued with my dog watch. The dog hadnt made any more progress but its look had changed. It was no more disgusted, no more hurt it was just plain determined. I kept on looking at him pining for him to cross the road and there it was looking forward to run his last lap.

The road had become pretty empty with sporadic movements of the odd cycle and rare bikes. The dog gave a look towards the left, turned its head towards the right , made a computation of the time it needed to cross and then dashed ahead. It kept on running as if there was no tommorow and crossed the road in less than 3 seconds. It must have been a record of sorts but there was no one to take notice save me. It was now at the other side, I was smiling and so was the dog. It looked back and saw the mighty road, the great obstacle that he had tackled. He was just enjoying his moment standing below the unfinished building which some say is another shopping complex in making.

The dog just stood there with the content smile and the twinkling eyes. He was in a world of his won enjoying his victory, the world passing along his wide eyes. The gum was still visible, the eyes had a drop of tear or two. he didnt hear the continued traffic, he didnt hear the people shouting, he didnt hear the rock falling. There was no sound, none at all, just the thud of the rock, the silent whimper of the dog and the swish of the life passing around. The workers were angry because now they had a dead dog on the stone. They lifted the stone removed the dog and threw the body in the dustbin on the other side of the road. The dog was back to the place where he had started from, but it was unaware. He remained blissfully unaware that his dash had been a failure. He remained on the top of the garbage pile waiting for the corporation workers' garbage trolly.

Meanwhile, my lady had come back, the idle chatter had resumed and I stayed pretending to listen.

Going gaga over DDLJ

Shahukh "The King" Khan took his dulhaniya from the clutches of the strict and heartless patriarch and proved to the world that love can win over any obstacle in the world. That was 10 years ago, and still i hear millions crooning about the same shahrukh hamming "Simran meri hai" with thousands of young girls sighing, clutching their hearts and waiting for the right guy to show them the dream land. I may sound awestruck by the phenomenon that was DDLJ, but truthfully speaking I am not. I accept, it was a beutifully made movie which had everything to cater to indian taste, Rib tickling comedy, romance in a distant land(far away from the watchful parents), typical punjabi wedding with all pretentious paraphernalia attached, traditions that were upheld, lots of "India being the greatest" stuff, huge amount of rona dhona to appeal to the ladies of the house and lastly the "happy ending", which some one told me is the sole criteria of judging a story or movie.

So now I am facing a basic question, why do we watch movies? What is the one thing that people come to watch movies for? The answer I think, which atleast holds good for 90% Indians is that they want to escape reality. I dont blame them, if for 3 hours, one can be free from the hassles that life burdens us with, then it is worth the 100 bucks we fork out for it. But this escapism comes with a price, the price being the alienation from reality, the price being the dreaming about a ideal present which is non existant, the price being trying to the see the world in black and white when it is always colored with shades of gray.

I am not a humanity hater, always trying to look at the world with black glasses, I am just a one eyed man in the country of the blind and like Nunez, in H.G.Well's story,I am not able to convince the world to look at the misery half the humanity lies in. I know it is pessimistic in just looking at the night and not hoping for the sun to come up, but when you are in scandanavia, isn't it better to prepare for the night than in wating for the sun to shine.

Coming back to movies, I get repelled by those which have nothing to offer but plain senseless chattering and emotions thrown around here and there. I cringe when i hear the king khan croon for Anjali in K2H2 for wasnt he the same guy who was madly in love with his wife a few sceens back.I dont understand the thousands eyes simmering with tears when shahrukh keeps on yapping about how we should we love and respect our parents and i cringe yet again.Why do we like such melodramatic scenes, why do we have to reassure ourselves, our next door neighbours and the whole city and the country to that matter that we are good traditional guys who may drink beer but will never molest any "desi chori in a videshi land", why do we have to keep on shouting that it is all about loving your loved ones, why , why??? No answer.

Now let us compare with movies like hazaron khwaishien aisi, now that movie had a heart, it was about dreams dreamt but not realised, it was about a nation's anguish for the dream that got sour, it is about those thousands hopes that got struck down, it was about one man's rise with his fall and another man's fall with his rise.Movies like this i know paint a picture which is so bleak that u keep on asking is there a way out, it is so dreadfully true that u shiver to think of the same happening to you, but isnt it better to know the ghost of death than always keep dreading the unknown .At this point i may mention matrubhumi which described female infanticide and the inhuman potryal to girls so accurately that i had goosebumps and nightmare. I remember serials like bhanwar which were so closer to the truth that u shiver with the very thought of those kind of people even existing.

But personally i prefer to be scared by the truth than be waiting for the unknown. I dont want to stay in the false hopes that everyone stays happy, only should be careful of the staircase and the villianous aunty(who can no doubt be silenced by mamaji's thaapad). I dont want to wait in the hopes that the father of the girl I love will allow her to elope with me because I am "Saccha in the heart", I dont want to wait in the false hopes that even if Rani dies i can always get kajol my best buddy because my mother, my daughter and allah all three want that.I wanted to tell my friend that life doesnt always have an happy ending, it is not always that kajol marries a widower, it is not always that a father will allow her daughter to elope, it is not always that tuffy gets the bhagwaan's bardaan of delivering letters to the wrong person. How I wish life was like all these feel good movies , how I wish karan johar, Aditya chopra and sooraj barjatya were gods who wrote the script of desyiny, so that the world would have been a big rich family with mighty baarats and tuffy as cupids. How I wish??

Color Me Saffron

Life is so pleasantly strange, it surprises you every moment, it makes u fall in love with it by giving the boring life so many twists and tangles that untangling yourself is fun and mystery enough.I dont know whats wrong with me that i get so much affected by movies and make me reflect and interospect on these. But I think am any director's dream audiance, who sees the movie once in a theater and then thousand times in his head and then picks up either the pen or the computer to type in what he thinks. Today was another of this rare days and to give a understatement, am affected by what I saw in "Rang de Basanti", a tale of ubiquitos confused youth finally responding to the call of their heart.

The movie made me reflect, how close we are to the characters so ably potrayed, like DJ we dread to face the world and go along following the crowd just living our mundane existance.How much we are like karan, always trying to escape the difficulties, cribbing about everything but not taking any actions to fix it right.How similar are we to aslam, questioning the various ties that are binding us, ties like religion, caste and language.How similar are we to the character atul kulkarni plays, going along with the system, but with ideals and the zeal to make the country a better place. May be we are not simply similar to them may be we are just a amalgation of all these characters.Maybe we are all of them togather, a man with five faces, a man with five people hidden within him, may be it is not Sue who is in search of her revolutionaries, it is us who are searching for ourself. Maybe the movie is all about one persons search for his existance, one person trying to find out what he stands for, maybe it is about one person discovering himself again and again and again.

I cannot point at a portion of the movie which i can identify as things I like. Maybe I liked the movie because I could identify with the cahracters of the movie. I remember the thousand midnight discussions we had in the hostel about what we can do for the country, why we cannot chane the system to make the India that we all can be proud of, why cannot we make a India that our founders had dreamt of, why cannot we make a India that people like azad, Bhagat singh, bismil, ahfaquallah khan and rajguru died for. The thought of a corrupt India make me cringe with shame, it seems sometimes that we are bathing with the tears of these individuals who shed their blood dreaming of eden, an oasis of life but what got created a dark deasert with lizards and venomous snakes with cactii all round which oozed blood when cut upon.

Now i come to a point where I keep on asking, will our life course take the path of the movie too. Will we too come out of our slumber when we are raised from our stupor by something drastic may be a death which needs us to sit back and then try to fix things right. The movie is so correct, we may keep on talking about a revlution but unless we stand up, the words will never be on the canvas. I think it is high time we stand up, take on the establisment and the first step would be to stop being corrupt ourself. Maybe the first thing an individual can do is take a pledge to be honest and not corrupt, maybe a single honest person can turn up the world a better place to live in. Big words, but again I am an Indian, and as vivekananda had once said we Indians as a race belive in talking and not in doing.

The movie is real in some sense when u see instances of your life played on the screen. I was surprised when I saw tears in aamir khan's eyes with the question, Why Ajay?, he never did a bad thing in life, he did everything that a dutiful son, a good friend and a loyal patriot would do, then why him, why did it have to happen to sonia, I have seen this happen, I have had tears in my eyes with similar questions on my lips and i have heard the wilderness whisper, It is to serve a purpose. May be the sole purpose of the flight commanders life was to awaken the five youths. As Sue pointed out, Dj may be physically sleeping but he had just awaken.

Personally, I am still asleep waiting to wake up with a jolt from my deep stupor. There is no escaping the fact, I will have to wake up, or is it that I am already awake but am closing my eyes, feigning sleep to avoid the world and escape the world, but like I said before, u never know when life surprises you.But after I wake up, and figting my battle go back to sleep, I just wish to meet my end, not screaming, not in silence but with smile on my lips, hope in my heart and laughter all around . Amen

The Wilted Jasmine

I was reading the newspaper when i came across the review for the new movie Kalyug. To give a brief writeup on it it is about a young couple who are caught on video in a hotel making love, the most personal and intimate act a person can do. To continue with the story, these get recorded and is flooded across as soft pornographic material.As obvious the couple get devastated and what happens next is the story the movie is made of but my story is not about the movie but abt the jasmine which blossomed , fragranted the world with the sweet smell and then after some time was torn down by the bitter wind of human callousnes and perverted minds, this story is about the Mysore Mallige.

I dont know anything about the actual story and i dont care about it too. To my mind it was an act of betrayal, an act of extreme devotion on one's part and extreme callousness on the other. My story is about the innocent girl from coorg who got sucked up in this because of extreme un-reciprocted trust on her part and greed and lust on the boy's . I dont know how the CD they made got leaked, i dont know whether to agree to the boys story that it was for personal viewing which got leaked to the public, but what i am fascinated by is the story of that girl, and how was she able to meet the world, if she did.

It is very difficult for anyone who is not an Indian to even comprehend what "Duties" mean for an individual, what "Personal-Image" means for them and what value "Respect" holds for them.I know these are very superficial qualities but this what the pretensious indian mentality is made up of. The girl was in her prime, very pretty, intelligent and bubbly, but one act of foolishness destroyed her whole life. What happens when u are so publicly humilated, what happens when your whole character is ripped in public with thousands roving eyes trying to judge you, what happens when million perverts who watched you get tricked by some rich kids, call u bitch, what happens when those billion so called gentlemen, who have watched u have sex and recreate those scenes everyday in their mind say "Hussies desrve it" .What happens then???

I have no answer, but i have million question again spring up in my mind? Why do these cds get created in the first place, who buys it? Why is human being so beastly that he succumbs to these instincts so much? Why is self control such a matter to smirk at, Why is gandhi's experiment called the doomed project, Why?? If controlling insticts is wrong then what is it that separates us from animals. The question is on the table and answers I have none.

But on a personal note , what right do I have to say something about it, wasn't I one of those 30 guys cramped in front of a 15 inch monitor, seeing each action relishing every moment. Why do I react when i was one of the pervert who paid 10 bucks to see it. I ask myself this question but find no answer from the deep. My eyes are shut again, the heart has stopped pounding as if silent to escape from itself, the body stiff as dead and the mind bellowing with prayers for forgiveness but the jasmine remain wilted, the fragnance has been long lost, the flower has been long trampled on, and the mysore mallige remain asleep to the world. For her own good???