The Dinner

Image from here

Karwachauth was on. They have never celebrated it in their ten years of togetherness. It was never important. But suddenly, it was something worth celebrating this year. Abhimanyu gave in finally. 

What could he do to make the night special? He was in no mood to stay hungry for the whole day. Both of them worked and had busy diaries that day filled with meetings. That was another reason he was against it.

“How will you manage to speak all day in meetings without even drinking water?”

“I will somehow. Let me at least try it. Let me see how much I can endure.”

“But why?”

“Because I want to. Ok?”

And that was the end of it. He finally decided to come home an hour earlier and make dinner and throw a surprise. That was the least he could do. 

Abhimanyu left the office at 5 pm and reached home earlier. He wanted to make something traditional and then decided upon Rajma Rice, Paneer Masala, naan and some wine. He took a shower and started the preparations. The Rajma went into the cooker and he got himself busy into making the masala. As he stirred the chopped onions, his eyes fell upon the pictures hanging on the dining room wall. He smiled as he scanned all of them. The last ten years have been blissful. There was a family resistance initially that manifested itself in all its ugliness. They were boycotted from both the families, thrown out of their homes. No one tried to kill them. Their families were not that savage. Abhimanyu got an onsite opportunity soon after and both of them moved to London. There was no contact from anyone for five years except for a stray call from their mothers. It was in their fourth year of togetherness that they decided to get married. There was another wave of resistance from their families as soon as they broke the news to their mothers. Until now, there was some hope but a marriage will seal their relationship. Abhimanyu’s father had a heart attack. 

Both of them got married in a court in London. 

Abhimanyu stirred the golden brown onions and added tomatoes and all the masalas as the past flashed by. The marriage did not change anything between them except that their love grew with each passing day. They sent pictures of their wedding to their families. There was no reply. The onsite opportunity kept extending and finally they were able to apply for permanent residency. There was no point in going back. Both of them loved their families but they could not be a sacrificial lamb. 

The dinner was ready by 7 pm. Abhimanyu looked at the sky. The moon would not be out before 8. He then looked at his watch. The doorbell rang. 

“Hey! How was your day?,” he said opening the door. 

“I am almost dead. There is cactus in my throat.” Both of them hugged and kissed. 

“Oh God! We can eat now. You don’t have to wait.”

“No. I want to do this. It’s just a matter of another hour. I’ll go and shower and change.”

Abhimanyu started setting up the dinner table. The plates, cutlery, napkins, wine, bowls were all placed in their respective positions for the surprise. A few minutes later, he looked out of the window again and saw the moon staring at him. 

“It’s out!” he screamed.

“Is it? So soon?” Kabir said as he came out of the bedroom. His eyes fell on the dinner table. He then looked at Abhimanyu with surprise. 

“I thought I should do something too,” Abhimanyu said as he smiled and scratched his head.

Kabir moved towards him and hugged him. “Thank you, my love.”

Both of them went to the balcony and Kabir looked at Abhimanyu through the sieve. Abhimanyu then gave him a glass of water to drink.

“Oh this is so good,” Kabir said and gulped down the water and then ran towards the jug of water on the dinner table.

“Don’t fill your empty stomach with water,” Abhimanyu said trying to take the jug away from him.

“Quiet! The jug is mine and mine alone. My precious,” Kabir said stroking the jug gently. Abhimanyu laughed.  

Both of them then sat at the dinner table and started eating. 

“I have a better idea,” Kabir said. He got up and switched off the light. The room was bathed in moonlight from the window. Then he sat down and raised his wine glass. 

“To love,” Kabir said.

“To love.”

Boiling Water – III

image from here

Read part 1 and 2 of the story here –

Boiling water – I

Boiling Water – II

                                                *           *           *

I stood in the balcony for a while. It was dark and the city felt dead. I wondered what will happen if the Sun does not rise tomorrow. Everyone will gape at the sky for a while and realize how minuscule their blip of an existence is. Then the world will mould itself around its absence. We are good at forgetting. There is so much misery in the world that it would be foolish to think otherwise.

Her chair was propped at a corner of the balcony. She always observed the world sitting on it, with a cup of tea in her hand and a storm of thoughts in her mind. She travelled sitting on it. It was her time machine. I smiled as I looked at the empty chair. After a while I got tired of standing and I lowered myself on it. It was 4.30 am and I knew that sleep will not come near me now. Like me, she too was scared of my dreams.  

Sleep was having a good time with the woman inside. Thank God for that. 

                                                *           *           * 

When Shyamli saw my one bedroom house in Chandni Chowk for the first time, she broke down. I still remember the look on her face. She had been waiting for this for so long. All I can remember of her first day in that house is her arms encircled around me while she cried like a broken dam. My shirt was completely drenched from one side by the time she stopped and went to sleep. I took off my shirt and looked at it. I touched the wetness of our past one last time and threw the shirt away.

Shyamli finally completed her school. She was the oldest student in her class. She then went to college and finished her Bachelors. I too did well at my job and was promoted many times in the next few years. We moved in a bigger house. A few months after we moved, Shyamli got a job of a school teacher in a nearby school. The day she got her first salary, she bought me a shirt. It was same as the one I threw away on her first day in the city, the one soaked in her sorrows. 

“You should get married,” she said once.

“I won’t. I have to take care of you,” I said.

“Don’t do this. I will not be able to carry this burden.”

“We left all our burdens in the village.”

It never came to me getting married. I somehow couldn’t bring myself to do it. I was scared for Shyamli. I was scared that a slight hint of aloofness would push her over the edge. It was bound to happen if I brought another relationship in the equation. I talked to her about a second marriage but she recoiled at the idea. Maybe it was the rape. Maybe it was the fear of leaving me behind. In the end, both of us found solace in each other’s company. People often mistook us for husband and wife. We laughed them off. Sometimes they looked upon us as a strange pair – a brother and sister living together. Sometimes there were hints of suspicion, hints of our relationship going beyond the limits set by the society. But over the years, we made more friends than enemies. It was a good, fulfilling life. We didn’t have any regrets. 

                                                *           *           *

I went to sleep sitting on the chair. Seconds later, a gentle touch of a hand woke me up. I opened my eyes and Shyamli was standing over me with a smile on her face.

“Shubh, it’s seven o’clock. Come I will make you some tea,” she said.

“It’s seven? I don’t remember the last time I had such a sound sleep.”

“When did you wake up?”

“It was around four.”

“There is a function at my school today. They have invited all the retired teachers.”

“I know. You told me a week back.”

“Did I? I am invited too. Would you like to come?”

“No, you go ahead and enjoy yourself. I will go over to Srini’s for a game of chess.” 

I did not go anywhere. As Shyamli left for her school, I switched on the television and watched some news and eventually dozed off. The last thought before my eyes closed was that I would tell Dr. Kapoor that I slept soundly for two and a half hours after the dream. This has never happened before. 

                                                *           *           * 

I wasn’t supposed to be there. If I had any idea that the incident would haunt me for the rest of the life, I would have jumped in the pond and hid myself in layers of water. But of course I had no idea. I was a curious three years old.

Somewhere in the nearby hut, the women were wailing, Ma one amongst them. I had no idea why. All I knew was that Ma had a swollen tummy till yesterday and she told me that a baby brother would come out of that. When I asked her why not a baby sister, she hushed me up.

There was a small gap between two of the bricks in one of the walls where all the men were huddled. I saw the nightmare unfold through the gap. Baba lowered the crying newborn into a vessel in which water boiled furiously. My eyes widened as her head went inside. She thrashed for a while as chocking sounds filled the room. I stared from the hole as Baba pulled out his dead daughter from the water. He then took the dead body outside and threw it in the hole that has been dug for her.

That night the dream haunted me for the first time. I won’t call it a dream now. It was as if life decided to play a part of my past again and again to me. It was like a number burnt on the skin of an animal. I had to live with it.

Ma was again pregnant next year. She told me that I was going to have a baby brother this time. The women went into our hut for the delivery and soon a wail rose from there. The man standing outside the adjoining hut started digging a hole. A fire was lightened to boil the water. The crying girl was brought into the hut where all the men were grouped.  

I was shivering. Sweat ran down my face mixed with tears as Baba lowered the girl towards the vessel. I got up and ran towards the door of the hut.

“Baba! Please! I want to play with her!” I shouted as I reached the door.

He stopped and looked curiously at me.

“Daughters are a burden on the family. We are poor, son,” he said still holding the crying chid over the steam.

“I will take care of her. I promise,” I said. Baba laughed and took his daughter in his arms. A few men sitting in the hut laughed.

“Don’t forget your promise Shubh,” one of them said.

“I won’t!” I said looking straight in his eyes.

Baba gave the little girl in my arms. She had stopped crying.

“What will you call her Shubh?” he asked.

“Shyamli,” I said. I kissed her and held her tight.

The women were still wailing. A man was still digging the hole. But it did not matter anymore. I had made a promise. I was going to take care of her. 

~The End~

I was completely disturbed when my father told me the story of Shyamli. Murdering a female child is not uncommon in India. We have already killed 10 million girls and haven’t stopped yet. Shyamli somehow got lucky.

The ending of the story is completely true but I have fictionalized the rest of the story a bit. I have changed the decades in which it happened. Also, in reality, Shyamli did get married again. In fact, that is the reason why I am able to share her story with you. She was my great-grandmother. 

Boiling Water – II

image from here

Read part 1 here – Boiling Water – I

I wasn’t late. As I waited for my turn, I looked at the people around me. They were petrified. They carried a façade but I was a fellow traveller. I knew what they craved from inside – to sleep with a grin on their face. No one was as old as I was. At least they realized early in their life that they needed help.

“How are we today, Shubh?” Dr. Kapoor, the kind psychiatrist asked as I settled in his cabin.

“Same old same old,” I said.

“How are the dreams?”

“They still visit me every day without fail.”

The doctor sighed. I was a complicated case. No amount of medication has helped me in the past year. He was the most reputed doctor in Delhi but I had an ever-growing inkling that he was as helpless as I was.

“Tell me about the dream,” he said finally after a few seconds of scribbling on his pad.

“It was different this time but related. There was a huge vessel of water kept on a cooking oven made of bricks in a corner of a hut. A lot of firewood was burning.”

“Go on.”

“The water was boiling. Bubbles were breaking the surface, making a hissing sound. There was a lot of steam coming out.”

“That’s it?”

“Yes.”

“And you woke up?”

“And I woke up.”

“This might be an improvement.”

“It isn’t. I have had this particular dream before. It is not very frequent.”

“You have never told me about it.”

“I thought it was not important.”

“What terrifies you about this dream?”

“Doctor, the dream is the same. Only she is not in it. I am still terrified of what I was terrified earlier.”

“All right, Shubh. I think it is an improvement but we will wait for a few days and see. And, it is not just the sound of boiling water that terrifies you and you know it.” 

I reached home at six. She was watching television.

“How did it go?” she asked.

“Medicines and no conclusion,” I said.

“Have faith,” she said with a sad smile. 

                                                *           *           * 

Shyamli was bright. She was the only girl in her class. A few boys teased her for being foolish enough to study and I had a fight with them. One of them ended up with a bloodied forehead. No one dared to tease her again. Both of us walked the 3 kilometres to school every morning. If we were lucky, we would get a ride on a bullock cart while coming back. Sometimes we took a dip in the village pond while returning. Sometimes we would ride buffaloes on the way.

            Shyamli went to school with me for three years before her studies were abruptly stopped. Baba was worried that he would not be able to find a suitable match for her if she studied too much. He was of the view that I too should start working on the farm instead of going to the school. I objected and stopped eating food. Ma took pity on me and talked to father who reluctantly agreed to continue my studies. I asked her to talk about Shyamli too.

“No Shubh! She has studied enough. Now it is time for her to put her mind to household work. She is already eight. She will be married in a few years,” Ma said.

“You were not sending her to school because it was the right thing to do?” I asked her. Ma looked at me for some time.

“No son. We sent her because of you. It is time to end the games and be serious about life. We have to marry her off and these books are doing her no good,” Ma said.

I started going to school alone. In the afternoon, I would come back and teach Shyamli as much as I could. I became her teacher. Sometimes she cried and I told her that she will complete her studies. I promised.

Shyamli was thirteen when Ma and Baba decided that it was time for her to get married. There was a sixteen years old boy called Raghu in the village whose father had a lot of land. They married her to Raghu who raped her on the first night of their marriage. I was not aware of this or I would have strangled him. She told me about it years later.

I was seventeen the year Shyamli was married to Raghu in 1967. My parents had started hunting for a bride for me while I was packing my bags to go to college which meant leaving the village and going to the nearby town to study. Baba was aghast. Ma was petrified as if I was going to fight in a war. No one in our family had ever left the village. In the end both of them gave in after a lot of shouting and cursing. I told them that I did not want to end up like them. I told them about the dream that was killing me from the last fourteen years.

“How many times have you committed the crime? How many?” I screamed.

Baba slapped me hard. I told them what I thought about them. That put a lock on their mouths.

                                    *           *           * 

I washed the dinner plates. She cleaned them with a towel. We then watched television for sometime. She stopped talking after a while. I looked at her. She was sleeping on the sofa with her mouth open. I smiled and woke her up.

“Go to bed,” I told her.

“Aren’t you coming?”

“I will try to avoid it as long as I can.”

“Don’t stretch yourself Shubh. We are not young anymore. Your body needs rest.”

He was holding her upside down by her right foot. She was naked and her crying filled the room. Her body was smeared with blood, the blood of her mother. There were other men in the room, watching the act. Two of them were chewing tobacco, another one was yawning. It was a way of life for them. This was not the first time they were witnessing the act. Another man was digging the ground outside the hut. Someone was wailing nearby.

            He took her to the corner of the hut where water was boiling frivolously over a brick oven. Water, that was unaware of the crime of which it was going to be a part soon. He lowered her towards the water. Steam was rushing up to condense on her face. Her tears mixed with water and dripped in the bubbles breaking the surface. Her shrieks were reaching a crescendo. Her face was close to the hissing water. Oh! So close.

I woke up with a start and with horror in my eyes. I gulped air. My hands were trembling. After a few minutes as my breathing came back to normal, I looked at the clock. It was 4 am. I sighed and got up from the sofa. I needed fresh air.

The same dream. The same dream ever since I could remember. 

*           *           *

I lived in a hostel. Every evening, I would take tuitions to pay for my college fee and other expenses. I was a good teacher. I would go to the village on the weekends to meet my family. I went to Raghu’s house to meet Shyamli. I wasn’t welcomed there. They were unsuccessfully trying to have a baby. Shyamli always beamed on seeing me. I was the only happiness in her life.  She never reminded me of the promise I had made a few years back but I remembered. She would complete her studies. She lived with Raghu and his family for four years. They sent her back home because she could not bear a child. A year later Raghu married someone else.

“I knew it was a mistake to save her,” Baba said.

My parents were grieved by her presence in the house. She was a burden now. They treated her like a servant, beating and cursing her for minuscule reasons. 

I completed my college and gave entrance exams for clerical posts in government organizations. I got through one and was posted in Delhi. I took a small one room house on rent in Chandni Chowk and shifted there. I went back to the village on the weekend and asked Shyamli to pack her belongings.

“What are you doing Shubh?” she asked with fear in her eyes.

“I made two promises that I intend to keep,” I said.

Baba stood in my way and slapped me. I was a bad son in his eyes. He then held Shyamli’s hand and tried to push her away. He pulled her hair. I slapped him. He held a hand to his cheek and stared at me with disbelief. I slapped him again and again and again till he crumpled on the ground. Ma stood in a corner gawking at me. She did not recognize me anymore. Now she knew how I felt all those years. I took Shyamli’s hand and both of us walked out of the house, never to return. 

to be concluded…

Boiling water – I

Image from here

(Based on a true story) 

“I had the dream again.”

She walked and sat next to me, taking my hand in hers, caressing the folds of my skin.

“You have to forget her. You saved me,” she said.

“I can’t,” I whispered.

“It has been sixty years.”

“Yes. Sixty years. And her sound still wakes me up.”

“I know.”

Tears ran down my crumpled face. It wasn’t the first time. It wasn’t going to be the last. She had wiped my tears infinite times before. She was going to wipe them now. She moved her hand. I held it tight.

“Don’t,” I said.

“It wasn’t your fault.”

We sat silently for a while. Then I sighed.

“The sound that woke me up today was different.”

“What did you hear?”

“Boiling water,” I said. 

                                                *           *           * 

I don’t know what it means to be completely happy. Can anyone be completely happy? Don’t we always have something running in the back of our mind – a tragedy, a horror story, a sorrow, a nightmare? Over the years, I have realised that even though I might be giddy with my so called achievements, despondency runs through me like blood.  I can never get rid of it. It is like the fingers on my hand – a part of me that cannot be cut away without pain.

            It is not as if I cannot pretend to be happy. I can. I retired from my job two years back in 2011. If you go and ask the people I worked with, they will tell you what a clown I was. I had a wand of laughter. It was my way of making my staff comfortable. I would sit with them and tell them funny stories. They respected me. They cried on my farewell. They gave me flowers and gifts. But then they did not see me sitting alone in my cabin, staring at the wall, tossing the paperweight. They did not see me gulping those medicines so that I could sleep peacefully. They did not see me getting up in the middle of the night reaching for air like a drowning man, drenched in my sweat, my hands on my ears. That is what I mean when I say that you can never be completely happy because when you are happy, you sleep with a grin on your face. When you are happy, someone wakes you up in the morning and you smile and put your head beneath the pillow so that you could sleep for five more minutes.

                                                *           *           * 

“But you never heard just boiling water before,” she said.

“I did a few weeks ago. It keeps coming back.”

“Did you hear her as well?” she asked reluctantly.

“No. Not this time. I prefer water as long as I don’t hear her.”

She patted my hand. I looked into her eyes.

“Can I?” she asked.

I nodded. She wiped the tears off my face.

“You have an appointment today,” she said after my tears were on her hands.

“I know.”

I saw pain on her face when she got up from the chair. Her joints were troubling her again. She stood holding the sofa for a few seconds before moving to the kitchen.

“I will make tea,” she said.

My appointment was at 4 o’clock. I have been going there since the last one year hoping for a miracle. 

                                                *           *           * 

It was difficult to get out of the village. Baba always wanted me to be a farmer like him. I knew I had to find ways, run towards any door that could take me away from this life. I asked Ma to send me to school. She laughed. Boys in the village hated going to school and here I was, coaxing my mother. She talked to Baba.

“He won’t like it there and drop out in a few months. What is the harm?” she told him. He grudgingly agreed to it.

The school was not in my village. There was a single school for 5 villages in the district.  It was 3 kilometres away. I walked. I did not feel tired. It wasn’t a choice to attend school. It was a resolve.

I was seven. I did not drop out like the rest of the boys of the village. After one year, Baba tried to get me out of the school but I was adamant. Ma helped calm him. She saw that I was interested in studying. Had she known that I was growing wings to desert her one day, she would have turned into someone I could have never recognised. I barely recognized Baba for what I had seen him doing four years back. Of course, now I know that Ma was an equal partner in the crime. 

The year was 1959. I had been studying for two years now when I asked Ma if my younger sister could attend school with me. Mother was milking the cows. She laughed again but this time she did not talk to Baba.

“Girls don’t study. They learn household work,” she said running her hand in my hair. Droplets of milk stuck in my hair.

“Ma, how were you saved?” I asked.

She stopped milking the cow, the fingers of her right hand curled on one of the teats. She could not understand my question. Then I saw realization dawn in her eyes. She turned around and looked harshly at me.

“Go, help your Baba,” she said. She stared at me as I walked away, suddenly scared.   

I requested my school teacher to talk to my parents so that they send my sister to school. She was a kind lady who came to my house and successfully drilled some sense in my parents. Shyamli, my sister, started going to school with me on a promise that she will still do all the household chores assigned to her. Sending her to school made my parents the laughing stock of the village. Baba was very angry but Ma asked him to be calm and let her handle it.

“No one will marry her!” he said. 

“What are you teaching your daughter for? Will she become a doctor?” the village women would laugh at Ma when she went to fetch water at the village well.

“I don’t want her to use her thumb as a signature,” Ma would reply.

“You will pay for your madness one day,” the women would retort. 

To be continued

Chronicles of Dearth – Three Gods Two mistakes

…there lived three Gods named Amar, Akbar and Anthony.

Now this happened much before Dearth was filled with Insanes, when it was called Buxom. The three Gods were great friends and had a blast attending cloud-room dance parties thrown by Gods in the neighbouring star systems. In one such party, The Goddess of 100 hands boasted about the creatures she had created in one of the planets in her star system. Soon, other Gods joined in with similar claims. The whole conversation left Amar, Akbar and Anthony deeply embarrassed. They were like nomads wandering through galaxies and dating young goddesses. They realised that they had a status to maintain if they had to remain in the circle.

The three Gods
(Image from here)

The three of them visited the Market of Planetary System where old Gods who were too old to look after planets sold their share. They met God Dharmendra who was half dead and could hardly lift his finger. God Dharmendra was a legend, one of the most handsome gods ever. But like in all families of Gods, the second son of his first wife – God Bobby, was a notorious black sheep. Anyways, so the story goes that they bought the Klatoon System (similar to our Solar System) from him and then chose a green planet on it called Buxom to populate it with their personal creations. The three Gods decided that each of them would create life without sharing it with the other two.

“It will be like a surprise,” God Amar said.

They had realised that their casanova days were behind them and it was time to settle down and what better way than to create a planet as an ode to their friendship. Well, it was their first mistake. If they would have chosen separate planets things would have been different. They did not realise that the fact that they have been together since childhood affected their creative powers. So God Amar created Manu and Shatrupa, God Akbar created Aadam and Hawwa and God Anthony created Adam and Eve. Even though they had no idea what the other was creating, they created replicas and placed them on different parts of Buxom. The pairs were left to discover sex and reproduction on their own as it was not appropriate for Gods to indulge them.

When God Amar, Akbar and Anthony finally met and exchanged notes, they were shocked to see the similarities between their creations. At first they thought of putting them immediately on different planets but the other 27 planets of the Klatoon System were inhabitable and the Gods were not rich enough to buy more planetary systems.

“Why do we need to separate them? Let them stay on the same planet,” God Amar suggested.

“Yes. They will eventually discover each other and live like brothers,” God Akbar squealed with delight.

“Just like us!” chirruped God Anthony.

Well, that was their big fucking second mistake.

The three pairs eventually undearthed the formula to reproduce and went out of control. Soon Buxom was teeming with their children and grandchildren. It was like a chain reaction. The Gods watched Buxom from the clouds while munching Moon chips and Meteor popcorns. They never interfered but yes, they fondly gave a combined name to all their creations – Insanes (pronounced Insaan). The males were called Hinsanes while the females were named Shinsanes.

Soon, the three kinds learnt to make fire, created wheels and ships and traveled beyond their lands and came across each other. But nothing went as per planned. Each of the race believed in the supremacy of their Gods and thus began the blackest era in the history of Buxom. Insanes killed and tortured each other in the name of their Gods. They wanted to win Buxom over. They wanted only their God to be called bestest. They devised strategies to convert each other, they sent missionaries to pull people to their side, they tried to cleanse the planet by obliterating each other. This went on for hundreds of years. None of them were successful but never understood the futility of it. They created spaceships, nanobots, submarines, supersonic jets, skyscrapers, bullet trains, artificial hearts, robots but never gave up the fight to wipe out each other. The three kinds branched into a few hundred more. Things got murkier and confusing. POLs (Piece of Lands) were created (similar to countries on Earth). Eventually Buxom was renamed Dearth after all its resources were squeezed out.

The Gods sat in the clouds and watched. At first they were terrified at the turn of events but then a feeling of amusement took over. They mulled interfering but then where was the fun in that?

“I think we must study them so that we make something better later on,” God Amar said once. God Akbar and Anthony agreed.

“I do not understand why Insanes have this concept of divine intervention? That is bloody crazy. Why will the three of us try to control a billion insanes? That’s insane!” God Akbar remarked.

“Oh come on! I think they are wired that way,” God Anthony said.

So, the Gods watched. Centuries passed. Sometimes, there was hope which was then mercilessly squashed by a concentration camp or an atom bomb or a burning train or a plane flying into a building. The thought of destroying Dearth never passed the minds of the Gods. After all, it was the planetary system of God Dharmendra. Also, the mistake of creating Insanes and the events that followed had given them immense popularity amongst other Gods. Never in the history of the Universe had anyone seen something as remotely exciting as this planet. They started inviting other Gods to watch the show. They threw expensive parties in the clouds and had hundreds of Goddesses running after them. From three nondescript, nomadic Gods, they had turned into eternal celebrities. Soon they started war betting between various POLs on Dearth and won more planetary systems.

And so Dearth went around Klatoon year after year, being nothing more that a rich source of entertainment.

This was a brief history of the creation of Dearth and how it reached its current state. To know more read the following chapter – Chronicles of Dearth : The case of missing Yaun-doms

God Dharmendra with God Bobby, God Sunny and God Chewbecca (Image from here)

Chronicles of Dearth : The case of missing Yaun-doms

….there was a planet called Dearth. The dominant specie on the planet was called Insane (pronounced In-saan*). The name of the planet had seen better days but Insanes had squeezed out all of the planet’s resources and thus a resolution was passed to change the name of the planet to commemorate the achievement.

An interesting episode happened on POL011 on planet Dearth in the klear 5690*. POL or Piece Of Land is very similar to how we define countries on Earth.

POL011 was the second most populated POL on Dearth and this was a major concern for the King. Now the king did not have any real power other than to be a poster boy or pardoning convicts he found sexy. The real power sat with his Prime Minister who was a part of a governing body. Sadly, the Prime Minister was as helpless as the King. He was deaf and dumb and was puppeted by the governing body run by Madaam Pasta.

Population explosion was such an immense problem on POL011 that the King, PM and Madaam Pasta decided that insanes have to be educated about not producing babies every time a power cut happened. Educating the insanes of POL011 was as difficult as asking the PM to speak two words, so the governing body finally passed a bill to put 11000 yaun-dom* machines throughout the POL. Yaun-dom were special devices very similar to our condoms but with a special chip embedded in them which made them reusable.  They were almost like mini- robots that could lid the desirable places.

One fine Klatoony day (Klatoon was the name of their Sun), a minister came running as Madaam Pasta was pouring  cere-lack in baba’s mouth. Baba was her 40 Klat-years old son.

“Madaam!! They are all gone!” the minister said as he kissed her ring.

“Elaborato,” Madaam said with exasperation.

“Madaam, all the Strawberry flavoured yaun-doms are missing from the machines!” the minister said.

Madaam raised one of her eye brows and looked at baba.

“What? Noooo! Of course not! And that is not even my favourite flavour! Why don’t you ask Zeezaazee?” Baba said throwing his hands in the air.

” Your Zeezaazee is a poor farmer. I don’t think he uses local brands,” Madaam said thoughtfully.  

A few minutes later, an SOS message was sent to the ministers to immediately teleport themselves in the King’s War room. After everyone had arrived, the Prime Minister was the first to speak. He talked in sign language which was interpreted and voiced by a T608BOSS robot standing behind him.

“Did we check with Ass-aram? We might have to raid his ass-rum,” the robot said.

“I don’t think he uses yaun-doms,” the King said trying to hold a giggle which earned a stearn look from Madaam.

“What about Imraan Kissme?” a minister asked.

“Checked. He is clean.”

“No one in this fuc*ing POL uses a yaun-dom. That was the fuc*ing point of installing the machines. Do you even realize what will happen if the media gets a whiff of this?” Madaam Pasta screamed, Unable to hold herself anymore.

The robot coughed.

“Get the MIB on it,” Madaam said.

The MIB (Madaam Investigation Bureou) was a coveted organization that was given only those tasks that were supposed to linger on for hundreds of Dearth years. So this decision emancipated nothing but a collective gasp from the ministers and a quick sign from the PM which made the robot gasp an electronic gasp.

The MIB started its investigation but things were about to get worse. Soon, the chocolate flavoured yaun-doms went missing from the machines. And then the news was leaked to the media. And then the banana flavoured ones went missing too.

The media houses did everything from organising panels to discuss the order in which flavours went missing to showing closeups of yaun-dom vending machines for hours as hinsanes (male insanes) cried bitterly holding the machines in their arms. As the king pondered over a proposal of installing hi-tech fly shaped, almost invisible 6755SONAM cameras on all the machines, media houses conducted audience polls to know the favourite flavous of the citizens.  Unsurprisingly, the result came in exactly the order in which the yaun-doms went missing.

[Others including lichi, pomegranate, butter scotch, vanilla etc]

Even after the cameras were installed and MIB worked full time on the case, flavours after flavours vanished from the machines. There was anger in the inhabitants of POL011 as they loved getting things for free and the King seemed simply incapable of providing them the simplest of such free pleasures. There were marches on the street where insanes dressed up as huge yaun-doms and burnt outdated robots dresses up as the King, PM and Madaam. The Po-lice was deployed who stunned the protestors (especially shinsanes (female insanes)) by touching them with their tasers at inappropriate places. The situation went quickly out of hand.

The PM finally addressed the POL. The robot stood behind him and passed on his message as the PM gestured.

Finally, the yaun-dom machines went empty and MIB searched fervently for an excuse for its incompetency. The MIB chief got a personalized slap from Madaam Pasta. The King launched a new scheme called YYHH (yaun-dom yaun-dom Hota Hai) where the citizens were given door to door service of their favourite flavours. A huge amount of currency was transferred from the SOD (Save Our Dearth) fund for this activity.

The flaw in the scheme was stark the very next year when the sale of balloons declined during the festival of la-colourina*. The king realised with horror that the insanes of POL011 wanted to collect free yaun-doms for an entirely different reason but it was too late to make any amendments. To recover the losses, Madaam Pasta gave a brilliant idea to increase the breathing tax.

*  *  *

Meanwhile, in the neighbouring POL92, the notorious gangster The-wood was laughing hysterically in the company of the King of POL92 and his ministers. POL92 was enemies with POL011 over a disputed area called POL011-0191.

“This was a brilliant idea. Who needs killing drones and bombs?” the King said.

“The-wood is a brilliant mastermind. Who would have thought of this,” one of the ministers said.

“Yes, they are already on the brink of a collapse, teaming like nanodrakes*. All we had to do was to give then a nudge. And no one believes in using yaun-doms in that POL. The idiots believe in the more the merrier,” The-wood said.

Later at his home, The-wood went to the store room and took almost half an hour to select a flavour to use that night, chuckling at his idea of using a teleporter on a robotic fly to steal the yaun-doms.

*Insaan – means human in Arabic. It is a commonly used word in Hindi

*yaun – Copulation

*nanodrakes – very similar to ants. They can copulate from both ends and hence indulge in chain-mating.

*la-colourina – A festival similar to Holi but played only with  balloons. In recent years, price of balloons have gone up in POL011, just like the price of petrol in India.

*klear 5690 – Similar to Earth years. On Dearth, a klear consists of 225 days. Each day is 12 hours long. Insanes work only for 3 hours a day.

The news that inspired this post – 10,000 condom machines missing, CAG finds

Message in a Pen – II

Read Part 1 of the story here – Message in a Pen – I

The gang of ten was now two concentric circles – eight of us as a surreptitious circumference around Saahil and Neelam.  We savoured their melting. We were elated when their meetings multiplied, when their eyes oozed their enviable blissful future. I kept raising doubts at intervals in various octaves, sometimes guilty of vehemence because I was scared for them. Neelam and Saahil would then sit with me and pacify me. They were devastatingly optimistic. It almost broke my heart but I always smiled in the end. Sometimes the gang agreed with me that the gap between their communities was too wide to be filled up in our lifetime. Honour killing was still a rampant reality. But Saahil and Neelam were sanguine, with a thick veil of love settled on their existence. 

“If the need arise, will you contemplate running away?” I asked both of them once over a cup of coffee in the canteen. It was just the three of us.

“We haven’t thought about it but we might,” Neelam said.

“You haven’t thought about it or you are scared to think about it? Do you realize what will happen to Saahil’s family after both of you elope?” I asked. Both of them looked at each other.

Saahil had discussed the relationship with his family and his parents had no problems with the match but they made it very clear that their family getting insulted will never be a part and parcel of the deal. If Saahil had to elope or marry secretly, then he was on his own. 

The couple persisted. The courtship was now about to complete a year. It was the first time that I had seen a woman blush a beetroot red at the sight of a man. The smile won’t leave their faces as their fingers found each other’s hands. Their eyes gleamed with dreams of their future together.  

                                                *           *           * 

The lunch was eventful. The five of us talked about various lecturers and professors who taught us during the one and a half years we studied together. There were too many people we had mimicked and made fun of during that time. We lived it again, choking on our food as we laughed. Arnav clapped his hands while Kirti moved her head from one side to another and smiled. Our past danced around the dining table but the girls were not in it. It was a tacit decision to erase them. I had no idea how much Kirti knew and so I went with the flow.

I loosened up a bit by the time we finished eating. We clicked a few pictures. One of them had Rajat and Saahil sitting in front while I, Gaurav and Sumit stood behind them. It was exactly like a photograph clicked during our college farewell. The faces were not the same. Mouldings were seeping into our pictures with time.

“Arnav needs to sleep. I am going in the bedroom for a while,” Kirti said to Saahil and went inside.

“Come,” Saahil said as he held my hand and asked me to get up.

“Where are you guys going?” Rajat asked in alarm.

“We are taking a stroll in the park. The three of you can take a nap,” Saahil said.

I got up and went out of the house with Saahil as Rajat, Sumit and Gaurav gave difficult-to-comprehend expressions. 

                                                *           *           *

We had a preparatory break twenty days before our final examinations. Most of us stayed in the hostel because they were our last few days together. Neelam went home as Saahil would not let her study. She talked to him in the evening after reaching home and that was the last time any of us got a phone call from her.  

No one had any idea what had happened for almost four days when a call came on Saahil’s phone one evening. The five of us were in his room discussing what to do next when the phone rang. It was Neelam’s father on the other side. He was shouting so piercingly that all of us could plainly hear his words. Saahil tried to reason with him but his reasons were not working against death threats. Fifteen minutes and an avalanche of swearwords later, the phone was abruptly disconnected. We sat in stunned silence. It was a perfect I-told-you-so moment but I kept my mouth shut. Saahil was blinking away tears.

“I have to go home and talk to my parents,” he said as he suddenly got up and started packing.

“Tomorrow,” Gaurav said.

“No, I have to go now.”

“I said tomorrow Saahil! You are in no position to ride a bike on the highway,” Gaurav said.

Saahil threw his bag violently on the floor. The clothes tumbled out of the bag. I got up to pick them up and kept them back in the bag.

He went home the next day to convince his parents to talk to Neelam’s family. They were very clear that Neelam’s family has to spit out the anger and talk to them in a civilized manner. Saahil called up Neelam’s father to convince him for a meeting. He was told that the next time he calls, his family will not find a single piece of his body.

“Please tell me if she is alive,” he pleaded. The line went dead.

I kept calling Saahil that day but he did not pick up his mobile. Optimism was now an unrecognizable corpse buried deep within the soil of practicalities; the practicalities of staying alive. I had never thought that I would wait for Saahil in our hostel room with my heart ramming into my ribcage with a deafening ferocity. I imagined reporting him missing to the police and then identifying his body. I imagined Neelam hanging from a ceiling fan, her battered body swinging slowly. Love had turned into a blinding pain from being blind.

Saahil came to hostel the next day. His face was different now. He had woken up from the dream. 

                                                *           *           * 

We sat on a bench in the park. The weather was agreeable.

“Neelam is in America with her husband. They went to Egypt on a holiday. She loved the Pyramids,” Saahil said. I stared at his face for a while.

“Are you in..”

“No. Rajat told me. He got an e-mail from her one day. Now she writes to him sometimes to let us know that she is happy.”

“What about you?”

“What do you think?”

I silently stared at the swings moving slowly with the winds.

“You really don’t get it, do you? You saw what I went through, what Neelam went through. You saw her when she came to write her exams. After going through all that turmoil when I had no intentions of staying alive, here I am sitting with you. I am married and I have a kid. Would I be able to lead my life like this if I still loved Neelam?”

“But how can you fall out of love with a person like this Saahil? You were crazy about each other.”

“I am in love with Kirti and Arnav. Right now that is all that matters. Our life is not as one dimensional as it seems. The seasons change for a reason my friend. The pendulum swings without rest. The first few months were difficult, when she was forcefully married but there was nothing I could do. Her house had turned into a fort. I tried reaching her. You had left for Chennai. Rajat, Sumit and Gaurav were there but I knew that I had to come out of it or I would have gone crazy. Even then, when Kirti was refereed for an arranged match, I said no initially.”

“I know.”

“I told her about Neelam the first time we met. She was very understanding. She told me that she liked me but I cannot enter her life with the burden I was carrying. We started talking and said yes a month later. Neelam was already in America by then.”

“And now?”

“I am madly in love with Kirti. Don’t you see? She healed me. I was never so much in peace with my life as I am now. When I see Arnav’s face, I don’t remember any sadness that existed in my life. It was always about Kirti and me. This is where the path was destined to lead me.”

“I am happy for you,” I said as I caressed a piece of paper in my pocket. 

to be continued…

[image from here]

The Windowpane

Pinky sat inside a huge concrete pipe lying aimlessly at the side of a road. She was looking at the water which was collecting near her foot, disturbed constantly by the raindrops falling harshly from the sky. Last year when it started raining, she made paper boats and sent them on voyages. This year was poles apart. She was alone and petrified. 

She could see the chawl where she lived on the other side of the road – covered with blue plastic sheets on which rain made a rumbling noise as if trying to rouse a monster. Everyone she knew was huddled inside, placing uneven bowls at places where the huts dripped, scrapping water out as it seeped in from the doors. She then looked at the streetlamps – flickering like a dying man, mustering courage to light up the road below and failing miserably. She rested her back on the curve of the pipe and abruptly tears raced down her face, taking the dirt with them and carving two clean straight lines. My eyes are clouds, she thought. She doubted her own monsoon will ever end.

Pinky was joyful a month ago. Her mother had finally enrolled her in a nearby school run by an NGO. The sweet lady at the NGO persuaded Pinky’s mother for almost five months before she reluctantly gave in. It meant less money coming in the house and more burdens on her mother. She went to the school for five days and then that dreadful day happened, when her world turned black, just like the sky covered by dark clouds.

                                                          *

Amrita sat in the drawing room of her posh second floor apartment, staring vacantly at the raindrops as they slid down the large windowpane facing the balcony. The city beyond the window looked blurred and uncertain of its existence, but it went on. Yes, it went on irrespective of the fact that a small cog in it has stopped working. Then she looked at the raindrops as they splattered near the top of the window and lazily moved towards the bottom – sometimes meeting each other as they went down, sometimes dividing into two. She marvelled if the windowpane was a portrait of life – people met like those droplets, shared a part of their journey with each other, sometimes got separated and then walked alone. But the truth remained that there was just one eventual destination – the bottom of the window, where all the drops met, only to reach the clouds again so that the cycle could continue. She sighed and closed her eyes. She knew what kind of a raindrop she was now – the walking alone kind.

Aaryan was in high spirits when they bought this apartment. Surrounded by gardens and fountains amidst the hustle-bustle of the city, this was a dream they were waiting to come true ever since they were married three years back. When they moved in six months ago, Aaryan took her in his arms as soon as the movers and packers were out of the house. They held each other and smiled, looking around the empty space they were going to fill with their life.

“I love the balcony.” Aaryan said as they walked out greeted by a soothing wind.

As time passed, they filled the house with things they picked up after numerous deliberations, colour matching sessions and various rounds to the markets. Amrita loved to shop for small things like the wind chimes which hung in the balcony, or the Rajasthan puppets hanging from a wall in the dining area or the painting which she got for the drawing room or the rug which went under the centre table. She was creating what she always wanted to live in and there was an intoxicating satisfaction in it. Their life was perfect and Aaryan was the colour that made it more beautiful.

Amrita opened her eyes. The rain was still falling – colourless drops falling from a dark sky. There was a picture of her and Aaryan on the wall opposite to where she sat – Amrita was looking up and laughing, Aaryan was smiling and looking at the ground, his hand on her shoulder. She sat there for an eternity staring at the photo and in the end decided to come out of her misery. She could think of just one way out.

                                               *

Amrita opened the door of her apartment and let Pinky in. It took some time for Pinky to realise that this was someone’s house. For her a house was a confined space where you could hardly move. She looked at Amrita with apprehension.

“Come on.” Amrita said and held Pinky’s hand and led her in, smiling at her dust stained face. She could clearly make out the lines of tears on her face.

“This is your house?” Pinky asked.

“Yes and from today it’s yours too.” Amrita said.

Pinky looked at her with surprise.

“You will live here with me, go to school, then to college, you will make good friends, and you will get a very good job, fall in love, get married and live a very happy life.” Amrita said as she took Pinky’s face in her hands and smiled at her. Tears were welling in her eyes.

Pinky looked at her incredulously. She had seen this happen to people in movies and to people living in big houses but this was not the future of her life. She was supposed to live in a chawl wondering whether she will earn enough money for the next meal and sometimes go to sleep without eating one.

“Are you my new mother?”

“I can try.” Amrita said as she kissed Pinky’s forehead.

The wind-chimes started making ringing sounds as the wind picked up.

“It is going to rain again”. Pinky said.

“Yes, yes it will. It’s Monsoon.”

They sat there in silence as the clouds welled up, lights flashed in the sky and the downpour started.

“Can I go in the balcony?” Pinky asked suddenly.

“Yes, go ahead.” Amrita said.

She looked at Pinky as she walked into the balcony. She first touched the raindrops cautiously and then stood near the door watching them fall. She was not old enough to know the truth, Amrita thought. She had decided to wait for a few more years to tell Pinky that the car accident which killed her mother also killed Aaryan; that while trying to save her mother, Aaryan drove the car over a divider after hitting her; that he was dead before he reached the hospital. Amrita was with him in the car that day. They were laughing at a joke Aaryan was telling her. The accident left Amrita with a few scratches on her right arm and head but she was unconscious for the better part of the day.

She knew there was a little girl with the woman who died. It was raining heavily that day but she knew there were two people crossing the road when she screamed at Aaryan to stop the car. It wasn’t difficult to find Pinky. She started searching her from the chawl near the accident site and a few days later she found her, sitting inside a concrete pipe, staring at the rain.

She walked towards Pinky who was standing near the door, lost in thoughts as the rain picked up momentum and dropped in a rhythm. The raindrops have seen it all, Amrita thought. They saw the accident and they are seeing us now. The rhythm was comforting. You are not alone – the raindrops seem to be saying. She turned around and looked at the windowpane. Amidst a number of drops moving towards the bottom, she saw two drops joining together and moving down.

“I love the balcony.” Pinky said.

[[This short story won the first prize in a story writing competition and was published in the office magazine of the organization that employs me. The theme of the competition was – Monsoon. Permission has been taken from the company HR to publish the story on my blog ]]

And then the old Tiger died

The tiger was getting old. He was a fierce killer when he was young, clawing and tearing animals in the jungle, roaming around like a king with his extended clan. He had made a pact with the other carnivores in the jungle. An army of hyenas was raised and was let loose on the hapless rabbits, deer, buffaloes, zebras and giraffes. Hyenas were usually mindless; they followed order for the pieces of flesh thrown at them at the end of the day. Soon the vultures too entered the pact. They protected the tiger and his clan by gouging out the eyes of deer and buffaloes in case they tried to save themselves and their young ones from the jaws of the tiger clan. There were other carnivores like the snakes and eagles that were always appreciative of the deeds of the clan in a bid to be in the gang’s good books.

The tiger had marked out his jungle and did not appreciate it when animals from the adjoining jungles entered his territory. The hyenas patrolled the jungle and made sure that animals from the nearby areas do not enter the domain of the great Tiger. They would wound any deer that would enter the territory for food. They would chase a heard of giraffes from a nearby jungle who had come to eat leaves from their favorite trees.

“But you don’t even eat leaves!” The giraffes would protest. The hyenas would bite them and tear off their flesh making the giraffes run for their lives.

The animals living in the jungle were terrified. They hailed the tiger when his procession passed through the jungle and when he gave speeches confessing his love for all the animals living in his jungle. He would mark anyone who opposed him as a traitor. He would let loose the hyenas on all his enemies and make the vultures protect his army. Over time, animals gave in to subjugation and went with the flow. No one raised their voices. Even the elephants stopped protesting after a while.

As the tiger grew old, two of his cubs who have now grown into ferocious carnivores ruled in his stead. They were equally ruthless and carried the legacy of their father. The jungle was restless, terrified and clutched helplessly in the paws of the clan and their followers.

And then the old Tiger died.

The whole jungle was closed. The hyenas spread out and did not allow anyone in the fields to eat grass. The birds were shooed away by the vultures into their nests. The rabbits ran to their burrows. The giraffes kept their necks low.

As the burial progression of the old Tiger passed through the jungle, a rabbit whispered her dissent on the way the whole jungle was stopped from functioning because of the death of the Tiger. Another rabbit nodded. All hell broke loose.

The vultures were upon both of them. They picked the shivering rabbits in their claws and took them to their nest atop the hill and shoved them in a small cave. The terrified rabbits were left there the whole night. The hyenas attacked the family of one of the rabbits and destroyed their burrow. Both the rabbits were made to apologize in front of the whole jungle by the vultures and hyenas to appease their masters.

But then something happened which neither the Tiger clan nor their followers had anticipated. As the rabbits finished their apology speech, one of the zebra trotted towards them and quietly stood next to them. Then a deer did the same. Before the vultures and hyenas could realize what was happening, a wave of animals started walking towards the two rabbits raising dust with their hooves and stood next to them. As the cloud of dust settled, the Tiger clan and their followers stood alone, gawking at the whole jungle standing on the other side. They bared their teeth, hurled abuses, stomped their feet but the animals stood their ground. The rabbits heaved a sigh of relief and shed a tear of gratitude.

It did not end there. The Tiger clan, hyenas and the vultures did their best to make the life of the animals miserable for standing against them but deep in their heart, they knew that they were fighting a losing battle. The old Tiger was dead and the animals were angry. Very angry.

[images from 1,2,3]

When I met God in a Bar

I was drinking beer waiting for my friend in a bar when this gorgeous girl walked up to me.

She: Hi! How are you?

Me: Hi! I am good. How are you?

She : Great. Can I sit here? What’s your name?

Me: Rohit. And yours?

She: God.

Me (coughing in my beer mug): Which one?

She (smiling): All of them, I guess. Rolled into one.

Me: Listen, can I buy you a drink, dear lord?

She: Sure Earthling. I’ll have a beer too.

So, God and I sat comfortably on the sofa sipping beer, eyeing each other. She was a pretty God.

Me: So, God. What are you doing here on Earth?

She: Just roaming around. Checking how you guys are doing.

Me: And how are we doing?

She: You want me to answer that? All right. You guys are pathetic. I am thinking of ending your race. I am thinking of bringing the dinosaur back.

Me: Really? That is a noble thought. But we are an advanced species. We have made such scientific advancements in the last 200 years. Why would you want us dead?

She: You guys are in such awe of yourself! It’s amazing how being in awe can make you blind to everything else. Tell me something. Point out one thing in the world you would like to change.

Me: Whoa! That is a very difficult question. Hmmm. Let me try. Weapons. Remove all weapons from the world. Yes, that would be perfect.

She: Your stock markets will probably crash if I do that and half of the nations will either be bankrupt or lose their purpose of existence. Anyways, that was a noble thought human. *She smiled* What next?

Me: Vaporize all the terrorists, I guess?

She: What about the people in the position of power who actually fund terrorism? Do you want them to be vaporized too?

Me (emptying my beer mug and ordering another) : Sure.

She: Do you even realize what you are asking for Earthling? Your whole system will collapse if I do that.

Me (realizing that she was getting quite serious) : Relax. You need another beer?

She: Yeah sure. What else?

Me: You really want me to keep going, don’t you?

She: You are angry, I can see it pulse inside you. Out with it.

Me: Okay. You asked for it. I want people to stop littering. I want the spit of a person to fly back in his mouth the moment he spits on the ground. *She giggled* I want people to respect each other’s decisions. I want freedom to express myself. I want girls to be respected. I want politicians to understand the gravity of their position. I want all the black money confiscated. I want honking to be banned. I want poverty to be eliminated. I don’t want to see a single human die of hunger. I don’t want any farmer to commit suicide. I don’t want a single child to be blinded to beg or a girl pushed into prostitution. I want all rapists to be castrated. I want peace. I want people to love this gift of life and give it the respect it deserves.

God stared at me for a while. Her beer arrived. She sipped it thoughtfully.

She: That was quite a mouthful. Now say all this in one sentence.

Me: Ummm. I would like people to be more helpful, to smile at each other, to be honest, to respect.

She: Do you understand now?

Me: Yes. Yes, I do.

She: Killing terrorists and destroying weapons will not solve your problems Earthling. They are the manifestations of decades of wrongdoings. You have to begin from the beginning. One person at a time. From here. *and she tapped her finger on my heart*

It was my turn to stare at her.

Me: Who are you, again?

She: I told you. I am God. *She gulped down her beer in one go* My second glass of beer is over.

Me: And you pick a random stranger one at a time to have a chat and drill your point?

She (smiling): No. Not one at a time. I can appear at a million places at one go. Surely you know that? And besides, I get free beer. 

My mobile beeped. It was a text from the friend for whom I was waiting. He was not coming.

Me: Do you want to walk?

She: Sure.

We walked for a while. The air was cool. It felt good. I slipped my fingers between hers.

Me: Can I call you sometime?

She: Of course you can. *She turned and faced me, moving her fingers on my cheek* You were my greatest creation Earthling. You can always close you eyes and call me.

With that she started walking towards the next turn.

Me (shouting as she turned the corner) : I was going to ask for your mobile number.

She smiled and turned. I ran after her. There was no one there.

I started walking towards my car scratching my head. I saw an old man walking by. I looked in his eyes and smiled. He hesitated and then smiled back.

[This post has been written for IndiBloggers Time to Change contest

http://facebook.com/sftimetochange]