BULLY

I frowned as I got out of the lift and banged the doors shut. Never had I hated going to school so much. But school is not really fun when the biggest bully in the class is made to change places and sit right in front of you. I mean, ya he is the brainiest boy I have seen in my whole life, but, so what?

He was a bully. He is a bully. He will remain a bully.

And I hate bullies. Anyone would actually, especially if you are on the receiving end. I mean ya, being a girl, and him being a boy, I didn’t really suffer much. But God! That didn’t make him any less annoying.

Plus I was about as tall as he was. Maybe that is what made him stay at an arm’s distance from me. But still, there are a number of ways to bully someone. And I was seeing them everyday.

Really. Every single day.

Each day, Monish would enter the class, and catch the first person he could see as his first bakra. And the day would begin with getting some homework done. It would be followed by scrawling the black-board with some stupid stupid cartoon which only he found funny. Of course, the cartoon would carry the artist’s name, and that would be his second bakra for the day. In the recess, no matter how much you tried to hide it, Monish would come to know if there was something yummy anybody had got in his or her lunch box. The periods between the first and the second break would go quite uneventful, and the day would again conclude with one of the teachers probably getting her sari or dress wet as she sat on her chair. And finally, as school came to an end, Monish would run down the stairs, pushing practically anyone who came in his way aside, without much caring to see the consequences.

Really, what went wrong when boys came to fifth grade?

Like many other bullies, Monish had a huge gang of boys who followed him everywhere. They would literally lay their lives down for him I guess, if he asked; they all liked him so much.

Puh-lease!

But my guess is, they were all scared of him.

Oh by the way. I guess I didn’t tell you what he did to me.

He untied my hair.

Everyday.

Without fail.

So what was the big issue?

I had hair that came down to my waist. Mamma would braid them and fold them up and tie them so that I had two short plats that just touched my shoulders. And Monish simply loved to untie them. He took care to not let me notice it, obviously. He would just loosen the knot, and the next time I turned my head, my hair would all come loose and fall on my back.

Boys. They can be irritating, I tell you.

I reached school bang on time. I parked my cycle in the parking area and bounded up the stairs. We had a ‘half day’, since it was the last day of the month. My bag was a little lighter hence, and my tiffin a little interesting. Not the regular poli-bhaji. I had corn and potato sandwiches, my favourite! A part of me was happy, and a part of me was, scared. i didn’t want Monish to eat up my tiffin! Please! At least not today, considering he ate half of it almost everyday.

He liked everything my mom made.

I hate bullies.

I HATE BULLIES!

But today seemed different.

The first four periods went uneventful, and I could see the Monish’s impatience build up. All the teachers had come bang on time too, giving Monish almost no time to plan anything. I feared this was the quiet before a huge storm, but prayed for the best.

Recess came, and my stomach sank. Me and my bench partner Kaustubh both took our tiffins out. I looked around. Monish was not in the classroom. I quickly opened my tiffin and started eating.

Suddenly the table shook.

I looked at Kaustubh. He was banging his tiffin on the edge of the table.

“What are you doing?” I asked him.

“My tiffin… it’s not opening,” Kaustubh said, and banged the tiffin on the table again. My tiffin inched towards the edge of the table.

“Arre bang it against the other desk na!” I said. “My tiffin will fall.”

Kaustubh continued banging the tiffin on the table. And with his fifth bang, just as I was about to gather my tiffin Monish entered the classroom.

“Boo!” he shouted.

I looked up.

Kaustubh banged the table again.

And my tiffin fell to the floor with a big clang.

There was a momentary silence, and suddenly everybody burst out laughing.

I looked at the spilled sandwiches.

I looked at Kaustubh. He was laughing. I turned around to hit him, but he quickly got up and ran out of the classroom.

I looked at the sandwiches lying on the floor in a mess. My stomach was rumbling with hunger. I was sure the sound was almost audible to everyone around me. I got down and started cleaning the mess. Suddenly fat tears started rolling down my cheeks. I looked again and again at my empty tiffin and the sandwiches on the floor. The tears kept coming. And just about as suddenly as my tears had appeared, two more hands appeared on the floor beside mine. I looked up.

It was Monish.

I looked at him. I couldn’t believe my eyes. Was he so mad as to eat food off the floor?

He put the pieces of sandwich into the tiffin in my hand.

“What happened?” he said.

I told him the incident.

Within a few moments, his gang had brought Kaustubh in front of me.

Monish got up and hit Kaustubh.

“Say sorry,” he said, and immediately Kaustubh said ‘sorry’ to me. He helped me clean the rest of my tiffin.

My crying still didn’t stop.

“Why are you crying?” Monish asked, after Kaustubh had cleaned my tiffin. He was standing next to my desk, mute.

I didn’t answer.

“Should I hit him again?” Monish asked.

“No!” I exclaimed.

Monish looked at me.

“Then what?”

I looked down at my tiffin.

“I’m hungry,” I said.

Pronto Monish pulled Kaustubh’s tiffin out of his hands and opened it and held it in front of me.

Mooli ke paranthe.

I didn’t move.

“Eat na! He won’t say anything,” Monish said, glaring at Kaustubh. Kaustubh looked down at the floor.

I didn’t touch the tiffin.

“You don’t like it?” monish asked. I nodded. Monish immediately turned the tiffin upside down. The Paranthe fell to the floor. Kaustubh didn’t budge. Monish opened his tiffin and held it in front of me.

“Eat na!” he said.

“What about you?” I asked.

“I’m not hungry,” he said.

I looked at him

What was wrong with this guy? He wasn’t hungry??? What was he saying? How could that be?

“Really, you eat,” he said. I took a bite from his tiffin.

“Thanks,” I said. He smiled.

“Put it back in my bag after you are done,” he said. “I have to go!” and before I could say anything he had stormed out of the room, faster than he had come in.










Nothing altered much after that day. Monish was still his annoying self. But, I had seen the side of a bully which I had never expected to. And Monish now smiled at me every time we saw each other.

THE WAIT WAS OVER

I looked at the sky as I stepped out of the hospital. It was a bright blue colour. Absolutely cloudless. I smiled.

The first thing I saw ahead of me was a mother playing with a small kid in a pram. The kid had a rattle in his hand and was shaking it wildly. He got his mother on the head with his rattle a couple of times, but she seemed not to mind it. I walked over to mother and child and got down on my knees. I ruffled the kid’s hair and he looked at me. I smiled, and the baby chuckled and let out a delighted squeal.

I was thrilled and made to pick up the baby.

‘He must really like you,’ the mother said. ‘He is not so good with strangers.’

I smiled at the mother and looked back at the baby. His eyes were a sparkling blue. Ice blue. Ocean blue. Baby blue.

‘He is adorable,’ I said as I handed him back to the mother. She took him and put him back in the pram. I was too elated to say anything. I just smiled at her and started walking back to my car.

I got in and started driving towards our home.

I stopped at a crossing as the signal turned red. I glanced around me. my eyes fell upon a small girl sitting in the car next to mine. She must have been about two years old. She was wearing a white coloured frock. It had a lemon yellow ribbon around the waist and beautiful big balloon sleeves. She had a doll seated in her lap and was busy combing her hair. She happened to look at me. I smiled at her. She turned pink in her cheeks and looked away. She made a straight dive for her mummy’s tummy. The mother jumped in her seat and looked at her daughter. Then she looked at me. I smiled at her. she smiled back.

The signal turned green, and we were on the roll again.

I stopped by a toy shop, just a few minutes before our home. I parked the car and went inside.

The spirit of the place gripped me and I literally felt the ‘kid-in-a-candy-store’ feeling. I looked at all the bright coloured soft toys, play stations, dolls, teddy-bears, stuffed puppies and kittens that looked so amiable I felt like picking them all up and stuffing them into my car. I looked at the fur pillows, at the jigsaw puzzles, at the play-houses. The shop was almost empty, except a few kids and their parents. Suddenly I felt this compulsive need to go talk to each of the women and befriend them… I felt like one of them.

I picked up a huge life-size koala bear. The girl at the counter helped me carry it back to my car and get it in. just as I was about to thank her and get in myself my phone buzzed. It was a message.

‘wer r u? cnt wait. come coon.’

I smiled. I got in the car and drove straight home.

Just as I entered our front gate, I saw Siddharth come out of the bungalow. His face was tensed. I purposely took my own sweet time to park the car. Siddharth’s eyes caught the back seat till then. I could see his face go from tensed to confused as he tried to figure out what it was that was occupying the back seat top to floor. Finally I turned the car off and got out. I opened the rear door and set about trying to pull the koala bear out. Siddharth looked upon. Just as he saw the furry arm of the toy emerge out of the door, he grabbed my hand and pulled me towards himself. I threw my arms around him and hugged him tightly. I could feel his heart beat against mine. He pulled me away. I was smiling ear to ear, too overwhelmed to say anything. My eyes welled up with tears. He looked at me, into my eyes.

He put a hand on my tummy.

He raised his eyebrows.

I blinked.

The tears rolled down my cheeks.

I smiled, blushing ever so slightly.

And the next minute, Siddharth had scooped me off the ground and was turning round and round in circles.

When he finally put me down on the ground and helped me remove the koala bear from the car, we walked back into the house, me holding the bear by its tummy, Siddharth holding me in his arms. My head tipped onto his shoulders, as his hand came down and rested on my tummy. I put my hand on his hand and he grabbed it.

The wait was over.

MOM LOVES ME

I looked down at the floor

Two big fat tears fell on my dress. They blotted it and made it a shade darker___ a strawberry pink from a rose pink.

I bit the insides of my cheeks trying to stop the tears from coming. As if rebelling, they came bigger, faster, as I clenched harder.

I tried to swallow; my throat had gone dry in seconds. I tried to breathe, but my nose had choked. I opened my mouth and took deep breaths. I ran a tongue over my lips. They desiccated within splits seconds.

The more you try to avoid something, the more it gets back at you.

A thousand voices screamed inside my head. An army of thousand men, marching… a thousand firecrackers bursting in the sky… a thousand drums beating in perfect synchronization… nothing could have equaled the pandemonium in my head at that moment. Altogether, at once, I went back in time to when I was in seventh-grade… tenth-grade… college… last month… last week… I grew taller, bolder, smarter, wiser, more sensitive, more responsible, more mature…

But Mom was the same.

Judgmental.

Strong-headed.

One-track minded.

Hypercritical.

Insensitive.

Uncaring.

Mom was still the same.

My vision blurred as the tears pooled in my eyes. I blinked. The tears ran down my cheeks.

‘You say my behaviour hurts you. Your behaviour hurts me too.’

The words were out of my mouth before I knew what I was saying.

There was a moment of dead silence.

‘But I never say it.’

Pause.

‘Because I don’t like to. And because I love you.’

I had finally found my voice. Thousands of words were on the tip of my mouth, but I clenched my teeth and stopped myself from saying them. ‘Cause I knew myself and I knew that I was capable of inflicting stinging tears by saying fewest of the most vicious words. And I didn’t want to do it. I was trying to learn not to do it.

And still my mother said I didn’t love her.

That I didn’t care for her.

How could she?

My ears felt hot. They were burning, red. The tears kept coming in steady streams.

I tried to think of our best times together.

But they kept coming.

I tried to think of the many times when we had laughed till our stomachs ached and jaws went numb.

But the tears kept coming.

I squeezed my eyes shut again to clear the pool of tears in my eyes. As I opened them I sensed some movement towards my right. I didn’t look up.

Mom came up to me. She put her arms around me.

And all dams broke loose as I heard her whisper in my ear…

‘I’m sorry.’

I put my arms around her and put my head in her bosom and cried.

It felt nice to be held by my mother, in her arms… after all these years…

It felt safe.

It felt secure.

It finally felt like… despite all my faults and the times that I had unknowingly hurt her, Mom still loved me…

Yes. Mom loves me.

THE WEDDING

Riddhima looked around at the people sitting in the drawing room and stifled a yawn. The clock struck twelve-thirty. It was pitch black outside.

‘Well, we certainly can’t do anything. At least till Dada is back,’ her father said, and everybody else in the room nodded in agreement.

‘But how are we going to break the news to them when they do get back?’ her mother said.

‘Parvati calm down,’ Riddhima’s grandfather said. He turned to look at his younger son. ‘When is Nikhil supposed to be back?’

‘Dada is coming back tomorrow Baba,’ Rohan answered his father. ‘He will be here by seven in the morning. Mala tar Wahinichich kalji wattiye,’ he said. I’m more worried about Wahini.

‘Don’t worry about them,’ Baba replied. ‘You take Parvati and Baby back to your room, and all of you get some sleep. We are going to have a long day tomorrow.’

Riddhima tore her eyes open as she heard Baba mention her. She got up as her father took her mother’s hand and walked to her. She held his hand and the trio walked back to their room.





Rohan lay in his bed, looking out of the window, a thousand thoughts crowding his mind…

“... this shouldn’t have happened. But then, who can stop the inevitable?... Dada-la itkyanda bolun pan... (Even after telling Dada so many times)... kids become rebellious. And then Melody wasn’t a bad girl. And Parth and Melody were both mature, and they were adults by law. Had Dada treated the issue with just a little bit of more sensitivity, maybe Parth wouldn’t have eloped with the girl...”





Baba looked at his son, his daughter-in-law and his grand-daughter as they walked back to their room. He heaved a sigh. He took his specs off.

“Why did you do it Parth? Couldn’t you come and speak to your Baba at least, before doing something like this? Have I not supported you, and helped you out of situations, and reasoned with you when I thought you were wrong? Did I ever force anything on you? Did I not help you solve things between you and your father?... Yes. Most certainly what you have done today is wrong... but at the same time, I guess I have no right to say this either... hadn’t I done quite the same thing as a young man? I can’t condemn you... but I had no ‘Baba’ to stand by me. You had one... why didn’t you trust me? Or anyone of us for that matter? I believe we have failed as a family... for you found it easier to confess into your friends and take them into your confidence than us... I guess we have failed... Yes. But still... you shouldn’t have done this Parth...”





Riddhima tip-toed out of her room and peeped into her parents’ room. They were fast asleep. She tip-toed back to her room and shut the door. She turned the light over her study-table on and took her diary out of its drawer and started writing.

“God! Eeeee! I don’t believe this. I so can’t believe this! Is it really happening? I like Melody... she is such a nice girl! And you two look so good together! But Kaka is going to be mad at you... really mad. You have any idea what you have gotten yourself into Bhaiyya? Its like, a part of me is very very happy for you. But a part of me is very worried too. I mean... surely there had to be some other way! Maybe you could have convinced Kaka. We could have worked out something... anything! There had to be a way! But God! This is so romantic! Just like QSQT! And as much as I hate you for leaving like that and not telling me and involving me in the planning, I am happy for you... I pray you will survive and make it through... and well, I received the pre-paid card you had kept for me in the drawer of your study. I will keep it on for an hour every night. But I hope this is not yet another of your jokes, and that you will really call me one of these days...”





Parth put an arm around Melody. She was fast asleep, with her head on his shoulder. He looked at her, looked down at her tear stained face, and an ever-so-small smile danced on his lips, even as his eyes filled with tears. He looked out of the door and saw the fast-receding railway tracks in the moonlight, running parallel to the track their train was on. His mind went back in time and a small voice in his head read-out to him the letter he had read and re-read several times before leaving it in his parents’ room, on their bed.

“... I don’t know if I have done the right thing Papa. But doing it felt right enough. I know you want the very best for your son Papa and that you would have had me marry a nice girl from a good family. But I love Melody. I know she is not going to live for more than a year, and I know I am going to be alone after she dies. But just think about Melody. If I had abandoned her, she would have crashed. And so would have I. I didn’t choose to elope Papa. The choice I made was to be with her and be happy for a short time, over abandoning her and being unhappy for the rest of my life. I know you may perhaps never understand my decision; that you will find it unreasonable that I waste my life for a happiness that is so short-lived. But sometimes you have to do things in life. There is no reason; you just have to do them. Melody is my Fate, and I want to take my chances. If you have ever loved anyone from the bottom of your heart you will someday understand me..."

A LETTER

DEAR TAI,

Congratulations! Heartiest congratulations on your wedding, and may God bless you and Jiju with his choicest of blessings.

I am sure you didn’t expect to get a ‘gift’ from your younger sister today, and definitely not a letter. But then, it is the best I have to offer. What else can I give you? I don’t work or earn! Hee hee…

The first time Dad told me you are getting married, I was stunned. For a moment, all was lost to me, and I was lost in nothing. And then suddenly, I was smiling ear-to-ear and hugging Dad tightly. I was so happy! Ecstatic! And even more so when he told me you are marrying Sanjay. I was so pleasantly surprised! You wont believe me, but in that insane moment, I tried to imagine marrying one of my school friends; God! I went crazy rolling with laughter. But I was so happy for you… really. ‘It must be the best thing to marry your friend,’ I thought to myself… atleast that’s what I think. But then, I’m only 16, so I maybe wrong. But I’d like to believe I’m right; it makes life so much easier.

I was very nostalgic the day Dad told me about your marriage. I found it pretty surprising, and I shocked myself with what I felt about your wedding. I mean, I never saw much of you, but then, you are my real sister after all, even if we don’t live together, and never will perhaps. And now I was not going to be able too see you at all; what with you migrating to Switzerland. I am going to fight with Jiju over this some day…

I have always wanted to have a real sister or a real brother. I used to look at you and Dada, and my heart used to fill with envy. And I used to hate myself for envying you. I used to be so excited when we met at all our family get-togethers. Really! Even before Dad told me about us being real brothers and sisters__ about us being real siblings__ you were always special to me. I don’t know why. On the very few and extremely rare occasions that you’d come to live with us, I would be so fascinated! I used to copy everything you did. I used to get up and laze in the bed. I used to sit in my window, close to you, with my toothbrush in my hand. I used to shake my head left-right vigorously after my bath. You’re hair was shorter than mine, so it was ok for you. But my waist-length hair used to get entangled so badly, Mom used to really have a tough time untangling them, and I used to often get a slap or a rap on my back for my stupidity. I never used to cry.

I remember the night very clearly when Dad told me about us. I remember his exact words, and how shocked and surprised and confused I was. I tried to make head or tales of what he had told me for a long time. So many of my questions had been left unanswered… Why you and Dada didn’t live with us, when we were real brothers and sisters; why did you never even come to stay with us and play with me, atleast once in a while; why you didn’t call my Mom ‘Mom’ but called her ‘Maushi’… I struggled to try and understand why things were the way they were. I was too young to understand the situation. It was more like, I knew the situation, but didn’t know what it meant.

I never ever felt depressed though. Never. I was never ‘sad’ or ‘depressed’ or ‘angry’ or any of the things. I never for a moment hated Dad, or even you or Dada for that matter. In fact I felt more and more close to you, and I loved you and adored you and idolized you even more day-by-day. But I did feel deprived; very deeply deprived.

As I entered secondary school, I began understanding what it meant… us being siblings and not staying together. And that is when it really hit me. I felt so terribly deprived. It was like, I had a brother and a sister, a Tai and a Dada; but I could never tell it to anyone. I would always stumble when my new-made friends would ask me: So do you have a brother or a sister? Only briefly, but I would feel… awkward. And more often than not, I’d end up lying: Nope, I’m alone. And if my friend had a sibling, he or she would call me ‘lucky’; and if they didn’t, he or she would say ‘me neither; join the club!’ they’d say they were glad to be alone, and I’d nod, pasting a smile on my face.

Every time we all gathered for any festival or festivity, you would all talk about the fun you had as cousins; and the stuff you confessed into each other; and the way you covered up for each other; and I’d feel like an alien amongst my own cousins. You had grown together, and it seemed to me like I had tagged along. I had attached myself to a group of brothers and sisters whom I had nothing in common with. I know you didn’t do it on purpose. I would always closely listen to you guys, and try and think what it must have been like. I tried to do stuff that would make you notice me and talk to me. I listened to English songs in hope that I would get to talk to you about them. I tried to adopt the several things you guys did to try and blend in with you and be a part of you.

But most of all, I always tried to be your younger sister Tai; your ‘kid’-sister. I always tried to bond with you. I loved you so much! I was in awe of you. I was fascinated by you; by the thought of having a Tai I could share my stuff with__ ear-rings, clothes, boyfriends, break-ups. I always wanted to be your ‘kid’-sister. But I never got to be.

Every time I was at your place, I’d go through your stuff and try to find out more about you; your likes, your tastes; so that I could adopt them and then probably have something in common with you that would help me strike a chord with you and make you think of me a little more and talk to me a little more and notice me a little more. I would go through the books you read__ Archie’s, Comics, Garfield, Sherlock Holmes__ I’d leaf through them. I never meant to pry through your stuff or take it Tai. I never ever meant to steal it! If I had known you did not like anyone going through your things I wouldn’t have dared to even look at your things. I wouldn’t have dared to enter your room. All I wanted was to be your sister and all I wanted was you to be my ‘Tai’. All I wanted to do was connect with you and feel at least for a moment that I had a sister; a real sister.

I was deeply hurt that day when you told Dad that you didn’t like me sneaking in your room. But I didn’t say anything. And unknowing to me I started detaching myself from you guys, from my cousins, from you. I started having my meals with Ajoba on the dining table when ever we gathered, instead of sitting among you guys and chit-chatting and having fun. I used to pretend to feel very sleepy after my meals and used to go off to the bedroom of whosever house we had gathered at and used to try and fall asleep. I had come to accept that I never was and probably would never be a part of your world; a world which you had all shared together as cousins, but which you were too old to share with me now. I never thought there would be a ‘generation gap’ between us, but that is what happened… to an extent. With you, the youngest of you all, being 9 years older to me, I was another generation for you guys, and I tried to accept it.

I am sorry. I am sincerely sorry for going through your stuff and for doing those things I did. But believe me, I never meant to be privy. All I wanted was to get to know you…

As I see you standing on the stage with Jiju today, I know you have changed. I can see it in your eyes. I can feel it in your gestures. I can feel the aura that you seem to be radiating. I felt it the day when, on our recent get-together, you asked me why I had chosen to sit on the oldies’ side of the table in the restaurant and not with you guys; and it’s stronger than ever today. I can see that you have ‘come of age’ as they say…

I wish you all the luck and all the very best things in life. It is great to see you so happy, and I am happy for you. In fact, I am sure I am the happiest person in this wedding-hall right now; next to you and Jiju of course!

I have put a bet with Dad that I won’t cry when you leave. But I know I am going to cry buckets when I’m alone later in the day.

Don’t tell Dad though! Or I will lose the bet…

I love you! And I am going to miss you a lot…

YOURS TRULY.

ANALOGY

‘But I have nothing to give you! My hands are empty!’

‘Not any more!’

I smiled as Jo slid her hand into Friedrich’s and they kissed under the umbrella as the rain poured down on them; and the picture blacked out and the credits started to roll. I kept staring at the TV-screen for a moment, lost in the world of ‘Little Women’… In a time when girls wore dresses that were hideously impractical and huge and made them trip over every time they tried to be elegant and walk… specially girls like Josephine March! I got lost in a world where boys actually meant all the things they said when they proposed a girl and asked her hand in marriage. I got lost in a world which though it existed only a few decades ago now seemed like eons ago.

I tried to imagine what life would be like in a world like that. I for sure would be a ‘Jo’; caught between someone I was and someone I wanted to be; clumsy and not much of a girl, or a ‘lady’… and with thoughts and questions like ‘Why do we have to marry at all?’ in my mind. But then, I realised, life wouldn’t be all that bad either; if it was going to end up in my meeting a ‘Friedrich Bhaer’! And also if it meant that I would be a published author for sure someday!

I came back to the present as the credits rolled out and the advertisements started. I quickly put the TV off, but not without hearing ‘Das saal se mera sathi’; Aaah! What a stupid stupid ad! (Sorry if you are an ardent SRK fan… actually no; why should I be sorry! I take it back!) I always hate it the way the commercials take away from all the aftereffect of a nice movie; especially a movie like the one I had just seen. That’s why I prefer seeing movies at the theatre. I cursed no one in particular and turned the TV off, the frown on my face refusing to go away. I squeezed my eyes shut, and tried to go back to Jo’s world, but with little success. But the frown sure did fade away in the process. I went to my room and shut the door. I propped onto the pillows on my bed, lying on my stomach. I looked out of the window, now the smile on my face refusing to go away. I could see a clear blue sky and the leaves of the almond tree planted in our parking. It had grown tall and I could almost reach out and touch a few of its leaves from my window. I looked at the leaves, now turning into a shade of bright crimson-orange red… quite similar to the shade of orange-red leaves I had just seen in the autumn of the Little Women’s world. I smiled. Again and again, my mind flashed back to Teddy’s proposal and to Friedrich’s kiss, in the opera, and outside Jo’s house. Suddenly a sher I had once received as an SMS came back to me…

Jisne hume chaha, usse hum chah na sake
Jise chaha, usse hum pa na sake
Yeh samajh lo dil tutne ka khel hai
Kisika toda aur apna bacha na sake

I don’t know why it popped into my mind at that very moment. The very next moment though, I found myself trying to see myself in place of Jo. I have always liked Jo the most, of all the four March sisters; probably because in ways more than one, she seemed to be my alter ego, my twin soul, running around the house shouting ‘Marmee’ every time she called out to her mother. I felt like he was addressing me when her father comes back from the army and addresses Jo as she flies into his arms as ‘The Wild One’. Jo, who lived in a world of her own where Vampires were a reality. Almost immediately I hoped though that my writing wasn’t as bad as Jo’s, or as bad as Friedrich made it out to be. I tried to decide which would be worse, it being bad, or it not being appreciated by a ‘Friedrich’; and my smile faded a bit as I realised there was no ‘Friedrich’ in my life… sigh… or was there? Yes… sure there was! I had found ‘my Friedrich’… yes I had. But he was miles apart at the moment… but then so were Jo and Friedrich at some point, right? And my smile grew wider than before at the prospects…

If only this one analogy, which was the only difference for the time, turned out to be true too, it would so be a happy ending… just like in the movie…

THE GLINT IN HIS EYES

‘Collect your pictures in half an hour,’ the lady who had just taken my picture told me.

‘I hope there is no confusion,’ I said.

‘Yes ma’am; ten stamp-size copies and ten passport-size copies,’ the lady repeated my order.

‘Right!’ I said and smiled. She smiled back. I stepped out of the studio and walked down the stairs. I came out of the complex and took a deep breath. I looked at my watch. I had come quite a long way from my house to go back and come in the evening to pick up my photographs. Besides I could do with getting them early. I decided to spend some time in the Crossword outlet across the street while I waited for my pictures to be developed.

I crossed the street and entered the store. The blast of the cool AC-air felt like a blessing, with temperatures hitting 38 degrees. I deposited my hand bag at the counter and took the coupon. Stuffing it into my pant-pocket, I started walking towards the ‘New Arrival’ section.

Visiting book stores somehow leaves me feeling rejuvenated. Every time I look at the stacks after stacks of books, piled ceiling to floor, I can’t help but contemplate over the treasure that might be hidden in those millions and millions of pages. There could be stuff out there that could change my life forever, make me a believer of something, make me hate something; make me long for something… anything. The power of words. Words, words, words.

That’s probably why I always like to go to bookstores alone. It makes me feel great. Nothing makes me feel as great as after a visit to a bookstore.

And we come there to choose one out of thousands and thousands of books...

I read somewhere that its not we who choose; the book chooses its reader. It should be true. I like to try new authors. Somewhere I believe it’s our responsibility to give them a chance. Encourage them, buy their books; atleast give them a try. We spend so much money on so many things. It’s ridiculous that we should think and debate before spending a few bucks on a book, just because it’s not by Jeffery Archer or Agatha Christie or Stephen Hawking or Paulo Coelho. And even though it sometimes boomerangs, it’s ok. Atleast for me. I still keep trying new books. I read them and I pass them on among my friends... And just as the book chooses its reader, it also chooses when the reader is to read it. I could put aside atleast five books right now from the ones I have that I haven’t read at all, though I bought them a long long time ago. For whatever reason, they have been left untouched. A few days back, one of my friends borrowed one of these books from me, and she really loved it. And she was also very surprised I hadn’t read such a nice book. Now I have been given the ultimatum: Book padho, ya mujhe bhul jao! (Read the book or you can forget about our friendship!) Anyways…

I went from the ‘New Arrivals’ section to the ‘Indian Fiction’ section. One after the other, I read the titles and names of authors. Once in a few names, a name would make me pull the book out of the stack and look at its cover, then look at its back and then the first few pages. I read ‘praise for the author’ and wondered exactly how many people actually meant what they said. I put the book back in its place. Sometimes I put it elsewhere. I wondered who’d be the next to pick it up. After going through a number of books, I settled for just one (very uncharacteristic of me). I put it in the shopping-bag I got at the door and turned around. I went to the billing counter. The man took the book from the shopping-bag and kept the bag on a pile of several other shopping-bags. I drummed my fingers on the counter.

‘Two-fifty, ma’am.’

I patted my pockets and realised I’d left my wallet in my bag.

‘I’ll just go get my wallet,’ I said and left the queue. And just as I turned around, I saw a lady enter the store with a small boy. He was wearing blue jeans and a white t-shirt with some abstract design printed in pink. His hair was an unusual reddish-brown colour. His feet were done in bright colored sports shoes. Within fraction of a second as mother and son entered the store, the boy’s eyes lit up. They grew big and wide and I saw a glint in his eyes. They were shining bright. The gleam was unmistakable. And even before the mother had a chance to say anything, the boy freed his hand from the mother’s grasp and ran inside the store, towards the kids section. My eyes followed him. He ran straight to the end of the store and stopped in front of the books section. I smiled and went back to the billing counter. I paid for my book, picked up my hand bag from the counter. Just as I was about to step out of the store, I turned around one more time to look at the boy. He was deeply engrossed in reading a book. My smile grew wider. I walked back inside and walked up to that boy. I got down and sat on my knees. I ruffled his hair (a habit I have. I always ruffle kid’s hair. Especially boys’). He looked up from his book, a bit confused. I smiled. He smiled back, but a little cautious.

‘You like reading?’ I said. He nodded. I reached inside my bag and pulled out an old copy of ‘Wuthering Heights’. I have a habit of carrying some kind of a book or novel with me when I go out. I opened the book and took the bookmark out; a typical sun-sign type. I held it out to him. He looked at it, then looked at his mother, who had now come and stood behind me. She nodded. The boy’s face lit-up with a big smile, and the glint was back in his eyes. He took the bookmark from my hand and looked at it.

‘Even my sun-sign is Sagittarius,’ he said and smiled.

I laughed. ‘Do you know what a sun-sign is?’ I asked. He thought for a moment, then counter-questioned me; ‘Do you know what it is?’

‘Yes,’ I said.

‘Then why do you ask?’ he said.

‘Bhaskar! What happened to your manners?’ his mother scolded him as she walked over to him. The boy looked down at his feet.

‘No no! Please!’ I said. I ruffled his hair again. He looked up at me and smiled as I got up. I turned toward the mother.

‘I am so happy you brought him here instead of taking him to a toy-store,’ I said.

‘Oh he loves reading,’ the mother said. ‘I don’t like reading myself much, but I always encourage him to buy books. I guess it’s come to him from his grandfather.’

‘That’s really great,’ I said. I turned to look at him. ‘Bye Bhaskar!’ I said. Mother and son both waved at me as I finally walked out of the store. I then walked down to the studio and picked up my pictures which were now ready and drove back home.

For the rest of the day, my mind went back again and again to the little boy I had seen in the bookstore. I just couldn’t put his face out of my mind. The glint I saw in his eyes… It was pure and innocent. It was strong and full of hope, curiosity, happiness and a… a kind of positivenness that was so alluring... I was to meet my Professor in an hour regarding a project I was working on. I was sitting in his office. The kaka (peon) told me he’d take another fifteen minutes to come back from his meeting. Automatically my hand reached inside my bag and I pulled the copy of Wuthering Heights out. I shuffled through the pages and suddenly realised I had given the small boy my bookmark. I smiled as his face, his eyes popped up in my mind again; and instantly my face lit-up with a smile too. I opened the first page of the book and started reading it all-over again… glad he happened to me.

MIRTH

I looked at the trees, the lawn, the grass and the sky. I kept staring out in the distance. Above the sound of the rain, I could hear my mom fry pakoras in the kitchen, the sizzle louder with every batch of pakoras as the oil got hotter and hotter. The first rain of the year. A proper downpour. The kind that wets every millimeter of you within seconds. Suddenly a strong wind splashed a few drops of water on my face. I blinked and drew a deep breath. I turned around and looked inside our house from the verandah. I could see dad sitting in the bean bag, pretending to read the newspaper, but actually fast asleep. I made sure mom was still in the kitchen, listening to the old Marathi songs playing on the radio. I slipped my feet into my slippers and quietly stepped out of the house.

I walked slowly and heavily on the mud path that was carved out around our garden. I stopped where it was cut to enter into the garden. I looked at my feet, at the slippers and then at the grass. I removed my slippers and stepped onto the grass. I walked slowly as I felt the grass beneath my feet. By now my clothes were clinging to me. I was drenched in the first rain of the year.

I looked up at the sky. It was a uniform grey. Spotless. Plain. But not dull in any way. I stared at the sky, unblinking. I felt the drops of rain, sharp as razor; hit my face, my eyes, my cheeks. I stood there, looking at the sky, my hands beside me.

Somewhere I could hear someone calling out to me. I ignored.

I lifted my hand and ran it over my face. Slowly I could feel this energy build up in me. My breathing grew stronger, heavier. I had this mad surge to shout at the top of my voice. No I was not mad or angry at anything or anybody. Sometimes you don’t have to be mad at or angry at something or somebody to feel like doing something so crazy. Nature drive’s you mad.

I opened my mouth and let out a loud cry. A long loud cry.

Suddenly everyone was out of their houses. They were all staring at me, wondering if I had lost my mind. Mom was standing in the verandah of our house with dad, clutching each-other’s hands. I looked at them. I looked at the people who were staring at me. I walked out of our garden onto the street and looked up at the sky again. I kneeled down and spread my arms wide apart and screamed again.

What joy!

What liberation!

I stopped screaming. My head was still tilted upwards. I drew my hands close and bent my head. I placed my hands on my laps and hung my head. I looked up at mom and dad again. And at the people who were still staring at me. And I smiled as I saw few of them were running towards me, their arms stretched out, and their mouths wide open as they joined me in my mirth and screamed.

REFLECTION - PART II

‘Hey! Relax dude! Slow down.’

I immediately eased my grip on the accelerator. Suddenly my senses were alert; my muscles tense. I tried to tell myself to calm down but couldn’t. You can’t just say ‘relax’ and relax with a gun in your face.

‘Ok ok; I’ll put it back,’ she said and leaned a little towards me. She stretched her hand and reached out for her bag kept on the back seat. I shrank back and away from her.

‘Why are you acting so scared? Look, I have put it away, ok? Now I’m about as harmless as you are.’

I still didn’t look at her. She continued.

‘Potentially you’re about twice as big as I am,’ she said, looking at my six-feet-three-inch frame, ‘and twice as strong as well.’

‘I’m not carrying a gun!’ I blurted.

She started laughing again. Suddenly her voice wasn’t sweet anymore.

‘Just about anyone can have a gun ok? And I have a proper licensed gun, ok? I bought it about a month ago.’

‘What for? To kill your husband?’ I asked, shuddering at her coolness.

‘Precisely.’ She looked at me. ‘I bought it to kill Karan,’ she said to confirm.

I didn’t say anything.

‘You know, I had planned it all out. I had even decided to surrender to the police…’

I still didn’t say anything.

‘Please stop on the side of the road. I need some fresh air.’

I pulled onto the side. As soon as I turned the ignition off she asked me for the keys.

‘Why?’ I asked.

‘I don’t want you to leave me here and run away.’

‘And what guarantee you won’t run away with my car?’ I counter-questioned.

‘Ummm… Ok. Let’s just leave the keys in the car then and lets both get out together.’

I agreed and we both stepped out. She closed the door, went to the rear of the car and stood there, resting against it. The moon was right on top of us now. I saw her full-self in the moonlight, and for the first time I noticed; she was badly scratched and injured. Her entire left arm was bruised and so was a little of her waist. Her foot was bleeding and the blood had already caked at places. Her sari was soiled too. I didn’t know how much of her wounds were concealed under her sari, but the sight of blood on such a perfect and flawless skin alarmed me.

‘Jesus Christ! You’re hurt!’ I exclaimed.

‘Yes. But it’s not much.’

‘Shut up and sit down on that rock.’

I opened the rear-door and removed the first-aid box. I shut the door and came and sat down on my knees next to her. I first took a look at her arm. She adjusted her sari over her shoulder to help me get a better view. I started by cleaning up her wounds.

‘Aren’t you scared now?’ she asked. I didn’t answer. ‘Really, it’s nothing; trust me.’

‘How did you get hurt?’ I asked, ignoring her comment.

‘While jumping out of the car.’

‘What! How? Why?’

She sat quiet for a while. I waited for her to go on.

‘Good for nothing… that is what Karan called me. Lately he couldn’t help but find faults in me… My habits, my dressing style, my cooking… I guess I wasn’t good enough in bed either. That’s probably what made him lay Charu.’

She paused and took a deep breath.

‘I was a very different girl back then___ totally crazy, fashion-freak, and a smoker. I can’t remember the first time I tried it; but by the time I was in the final year of B.A. I loved nothing more than bunking lectures and sitting on the terrace of our college with my gang, listening to Linkin Park and smoking Marlboro. I wouldn’t have dared to do it back home, but then… I was a hostelite…

One day we were on our way to the terrace. We were all running up the stairs, taking them two at a time. I was holding a cigarette in one hand, clutching my bag with the other. Just as we reached the last flight of stairs, two guys brushed past me.

“Ouch!” one of them exclaimed. I had burnt him with my cigarette I guess. “Saale teri toh___” he started and caught my hand. He turned around and looked at me and immediately shut up.

“Sorry,” I muttered and tried to break free from his iron-grip.

“Subhan-allah!” he said. I looked at him. He was staring at me.

“Let go of me,” I said.

“And what if I don’t?” he asked, smiling. I looked at him for a moment, and then stabbed my cigarette onto his hand again. He instantly released me hand and squealed in pain again. I bounded up the stairs. Mid-way, I stopped and turned around to look at him.

‘Don’t make me do it again,’ I said; ‘please. I hate wasting my cigarettes.’

That was how we met. It seems like another lifetime altogether. Karan had changed so much post-marriage, I would have laughed back then, if someone had told me he was going to turn into a womanizing monster. We loved each other so much! I quit smoking and turned into a typical good Indian girl. I didn’t want to, but Karan’s parents belonged to the old times and wouldn’t have approved of my way of living. I switched from jeans and skirts to saris___ and in the process I ended up switching names to become Mrs. Isha Karan Arora.’

She paused. I had finished cleaning the wounds on her arm. She looked at the bandages and smiled at me. I smiled back awkwardly. She then lifted her sari up to her knees. Her leg was badly bruised too. I shook my head and muttered a soft ‘Oh God’. All that blood on such perfect skin looked like a curse. I opened the bottle of Dettol again and soaked yet another cotton-ball in it. I dabbed it on the wound and she clutched at my shoulder. I removed the cotton and waited for her grip to ease a bit. I applied the cotton again, she clutched again, little less strong this time. Her body eased slowly as she got used to the burning sensation.

‘I thought… Heck. I couldn’t think straight actually. I couldn’t figure out what had happened; why he had started having affairs. Then I thought maybe that’s the true him. I accepted it. Funny it didn’t affect me or my parents severely… almost as if we were prepared for it; although how come, I don’t know. The gravity of the whole thing began weighing on me a few days after I first came to know about him and Charu. I filed for a divorce. “It’s not the end of the world,” I kept telling myself. “Marriages happen and marriages break… so many… everyday…” I kept saying. But the real trouble started when Karan refused to give me divorce and started physically abusing me.’

This time I clutched my fist.

‘It went on and on for a couple of weeks. I fled to my parent’s house. He brought me back; and the situation went from bad to worse. Finally one night, I snapped. He tried to hit me, and I hit him back with a pair of tongs. I fled to my room before he had time to recover and closed the door from inside.’

For the first time since we met about an hour ago, I saw her shiver and look scared… alarmed rather.

‘That night, I decided something had to be done about the whole situation. I had only just recovered from his recent beating. Something happened that night… I don’t know what. But as the day dawned I had made up my mind to kill him.’

I looked at her. There was mad determination in her eyes.

‘I didn’t come out of my room till he had left for his office in the morning. I contacted a friend of mine and with her help I acquired this pistol the very next day. Today I decided to kill him after he got back from work. I served him dinner. He went to the bar right after dinner. I encouraged him to just an extra drink and then suggested we go for a drive. He agreed and took the keys. I took my pistol.

We reached the dhaba off the highway. We went a little further. The car swerved from left to right as the drinks took over Karan. At one point we nearly missed running head on into a truck. And that’s where I saw my opportunity. I could get rid off him without his blood on my hands. And that’s what I decided to do. I slipped my bag onto my shoulder and sat ready waiting for the next curb. I saw it coming and distracted him by kissing him hard on his lips. He pushed me away and looked taken aback. My eyes welled up. And just as he was about to drive off the road I said “Bye Karan” and jumped out of the car.’

In the silence that followed her monologue, I tried to absorb what she had told me. Things like these happened in novels, in movies… in pathetic and third-rate daily soaps; not in real life. But this was real life. She resumed talking.

‘When I got up, the car was nowhere in sight. I don’t know what had happened to it, or to Karan; but both had disappeared into thin air somehow. I got up and tried to gather my things. Most importantly I tried to locate the pistol and found it was right there, safe in my bag.

I started walking. i walked and walked… half there, half not there. Strangely, I wasn’t feeling a wee bit sad. In fact, I was feeling relieved… and happy. Actually happy. By the time I reached the highway, I was as happy as I could be. And then you drove along.’

She stopped. I looked at her. She looked back at me.

‘You can drive me to the police station if you want to. I don’t really care,’ she said. I closed my eyes for a moment. I opened them and started putting the bandage, the Dettol bottle and other stuff back into the first-aid kit. I helped her get up and get into the car. I went and sat in the driver’s seat. Soon we were driving back home.







We reached the post office at twelve-thirty. I helped her get out of the car again.

‘Thanks,’ she said, and held out a card. I took it. ‘Isha’s Creations’ it said. ‘Drop in sometime if you want to buy a dress for your girl-friend,’ she said, smiling.

‘What will you do now?’

‘Go up and sleep,’ she replied simply, like nothing had happened. I figured she didn’t want to talk about it… at least not then. I picked up the hint and didn’t press the topic. I got back in the car as she turned around and started crossing the street. I turned the ignition on and looked in the mirror.

She was gone.

I put my head out of the window. I couldn’t see her. I turned the engine off and got out of the car.

She was nowhere to be seen.

‘What the hell!’

I ran across the street and reached the apartment. She couldn’t have possibly crossed the street so quickly… with her leg sprained and with so many wounds all over her. I ran up the stairs of the building and reached her flat. The flat was locked.

Cold sweat broke on my forehead a second time in that night. I started walking down the stairs… How could this be? One second she was there, the other she was gone! I started imagining crazy things… Ghost? Spirit? Poltergeist? What?

Suddenly I remembered her card. I ran back to my car and picked the card up from the dashboard. It felt real enough. I removed my cell from my pocket, and stood just like that. Something was holding me back. I just couldn’t bring myself to dial the number on the card, fearing what I might find out

I finally mustered up all my courage, and dialed the number on the card. The hair on my body stood on their ends as I heard a pre-recorded message;

“This number does not exist…”

REFLECTION - PART I (my first attempt at writing a thriller)

I stepped onto the brakes. The car came to a stop. I looked at whoever it was asking for a lift at ten-thirty in such a God-forsaken place on such a pitch-black night. It was a girl. A beautiful girl.

‘Yes?’ I said.

‘Can you please drop me off at the post office on Shami Street?’ her voice sounded like a piece of soft music.

‘At this hour? It must be closed ma’am,’ I said, glancing at my Omega.

‘Actually I live in the building opposite to it. Gulmohar Apartments.’

The name rang a bell. I was lost in my thoughts for a few moments.

‘Excuse me?’

‘What? Oh yes; ya sure. I’ll drop you off,’ I said, opening the door for her. She opened the rear door. “Attitude!” I thought to myself. Then she dumped her bag on the rear seat and shut the door. She came and sat next to me. I looked at the steering wheel sheepishly. I started the car and pulled onto the road again.

We were both quiet for a long time; during which, I tried hard not to stare at her. Clad in a black Chiffon sari with a halter neck blouse and absolutely no jewellery, spare a silver watch on her left wrist and her black beady eyes, she looked simple yet stunning. She had a fair complexion that was so soft and delicate and spotless, you’d think she bathed in milk everyday. Finally I asked her;

‘What are you doing all alone in this part of the city at this hour of the night, if I may ask so?’

Now you may think that was a stupid question to ask; but when you see a girl so beautiful and all alone at ten-thirty, about five minutes away from the highway… it doesn’t seem to be an odd question, right?

‘Funny you should ask me that,’ she said, playing with a lock of her long black curly hair.

‘Yeah; maybe… But then I’m a guy… and not much in danger. But you are a really beautiful lady___’

She suddenly burst out laughing. She then took a full look at me, her eyes lingering on my biceps, then my abs.

‘How many hours do you work out?’ she asked me.

‘Two.’

‘And you think you are strong?’

I kept quiet.

‘How strong would you be if I had a gun with me right now?’ she asked. My hair stood out on their ends.

‘Do you?’ I asked. And she laughed again.

We were quiet again for a while. Shit! Could I have run out of conversation with such a beauty so soon? Had I really put her off by my silly remark? But then the whole situation, simple as it was, was seemingly unusual.

I switched the radio in the car on. Asha Bhosale’s voice came floating out of it;

‘Aankhon Se Jo Utari Hai Dil Mein…’

‘Aaah!’ I exclaimed, then apologized immediately.

‘What for?’ she asked.

‘I don’t know… Maybe I was too loud?’

This time she simply ignored me and looked out of the window.

Again silence.

WHY WAS I ACTING SO CHIVALROUS? Come on… I mean, this wasn’t like the first time I was driving with a gorgeous female sitting next to me. I mean, it was routine for me. Oh, didn’t I tell you? I am a photographer.

‘So you are a photographer?’

I looked at her as she tried to tuck in a curl that was carelessly bouncing on her forehead, and said, ‘How did you know?’

She pointed to the rear-seat. I glanced back, and for the first time I was glad for all the mess at the back of my car; thermocol sheets, black cloth, tripod stand, and safely put in one corner among all this clutter, my precious precious camera.

‘Ya,’ I said, happy she had initiated the talk this time after my two miserable, failed attempts.

‘Cool! So you work for a magazine or something?’ she further inquired.

‘Yeah; I work for GLAM.’

Wow! We were finally talking. I could have become her chauffer for the rest of my life if only to get to see that breath-taking face in the rear-view mirror and hear that sweet voice again and again… man! I was thinking crazy things!

She pushed the back-rest further behind and leaned against it.

‘My brother was a photographer too,’ she said, her eyes closed, her body relaxed.

‘Really?’ I said.

‘But a wild-life photographer.’

‘Oh.’

I again found myself studying her in the silence that ensued. God! I tell you she was beautiful. But there was something about her beauty that was queer… something really odd. Her skin was so fair… or was it the moon playing tricks on my slightly over-worked mind? I tried hard to resist myself from reaching out for her arm.

‘Girlfriend?’ she asked suddenly, pointing at a small picture on the dashboard. I quickly picked it up and threw it on the back seat. She looked at me and raised her eyebrows.

‘Ex.’ I said, focusing on the road.

‘Name?’

‘Akanksha.’

Why was I not being able to answer her unselfconsciously? And why was I at all giving this strange, but beautiful girl a fill-up on my personal life at now almost eleven, when I didn’t even know her name?

‘I’m Isha,’ she said; ‘Whats your name?’

‘Can you read people’s minds or something?’ I blurted out.

‘Sorry?’ she asked, confused.

‘Nothing,’ I said and continued driving. A moment or two later I reached out for the glove box. My hand brushed her leg slightly, but she didn’t seem to notice it. I on the other hand, with adrenaline pumping in every inch of my body, felt it. My hand lingered a while, fidgeting with the handle. I shook my head and gathered myself. I opened the box and withdrew a pack of cigarettes. I noticed she was staring out of the window. I pulled a cigarette out of the pack and lit it. The smoke made her turn around and look at me.

‘Marlboro?’ she asked.

‘How did you know?’

‘Oh I can recognized that smell in a thousand other, have an extra one?’

‘You smoke?’

‘Used to.’

I handed the pack over to her. She removed a cigarette and held it between her lips. I lit it for her. She shut her eyes and sighed. She withdrew the cigarette and blew out a ring.

‘Wow,’ she exclaimed. ‘This feels so great… so liberating.’

‘How did you quit?’

‘Karan didn’t like it.’

I closed my eyes… squeezed them shut. My fingers tightened around the steering wheel.

‘He said he didn’t want my pink lips to turn black.’

‘No boy-friend would want that if you were the girl involved,’ I said.

She laughed. I immediately felt like an idiot.

‘He was my husband.’

I clutched inwardly. ‘What does he do?’ I asked, trying to conceal the disappointment in my voice.

‘Nothing much. He is dead.’

I did a double-take. ‘What?’ I said.

‘I killed him.’

I stamped onto the breaks. The car came to a screeching halt right in the middle of the road.

I just kept staring ahead of me for a minute or so; blinking rapidly; trying to make sense of what was happening. I turned around to look at her.

‘Keep driving.’

She was holding a pistol in my face. Cold sweat broke on my forehead. I started the car and began speeding down the road.

(TO BE CONTINUED)

MY MOST EMBARASSING MOMENT

You ever had a moment when you wished the ground beneath your feet should just split open and swallow you whole and people shouldn’t even realise you have ceased to exist? Or that you could just flick your fingers and go 'POOF!' and land up in the safety and confinement of your home, where you could dance naked and not be seen for all you cared?

Sounds familiar? I bet it does...

I used to always get stuck on the 'Most embarrassing moment' blank while filling up slambooks for friends back in school... I started with my name, filled in my phone number, my address, my most memorable moment, and then I’d come upon 'Most embarrassing moment;' I’d pause, scratch my head, and then jump to the next blank... I'd continue and fill the entire slambook, and would again come back to the 'Most embarrassing moment'... I'd scratch my brain a little more, and would eventually end up returning the slambook, the blank still blank. But if i had to fill one now, I’d have loads to write about... Loads... And it wouldn’t be my 'Most embarrassing moment' but my 'Extremely mortifying and 'go-beet-root-red-in-cheeks' moment'...

One fine Monday morning (although how can a Monday morning be fine, that too after a rather long and tiring Sunday is beyond me) I was getting ready for college. I had just come out of the bath and was still in my bathrobe. Water was dripping from my hair. I was already running itsy-bitsy late for college… but I was too lazed to get ready. The first lecture was ‘English’ anyway, so didn’t matter if I went a little late. So there I was, hanging out in my room, going through the pile of much used and dog-eared books___ novels, reference books, text books, magazines___ while Nick, Howie, AJ and Brian all tried to convince me I was ‘One In A Million’. I swayed left-right-front-back as the song went on; its rhythm and melody like the boys had had just an extra shot of Tequila. Mom suddenly barged into my room and shrieked.

‘What do you think you are doing?’ she said. I froze. Holding my position, I turned to look at Mom, facing the mirror of my dressing table simultaneously. I took a look at my reflection in the mirror and burst out laughing.

‘God! Whats wrong with you? You are acting like you’re having a hang over!’

‘Maybe I am!’ I squealed; Mom looked daggers at me.

‘Chill Mom! I’m ok!’ I said, and swirled around. Needless to say, I lost my balance and fell on the bed. That sent me into more fits of laughter and Mom into those of anger.

‘God! Honestly, what have I been rearing the past nineteen years?’ Mom said.

‘Ok, what is it now? What did you come in to talk about?’

‘Nothing, what are you doing in the evening?’

‘Nothing. Why?’

‘Can you come with me? Got some work, could use some help.’

‘Sure.’

Happy that I had agreed so quickly, and without giving me a chance to change my decision or rethink, Mom danced out of my room and I went back swaying around my room. Somehow I was on a high that day. You know, it happens… sometimes you are inexplicably happy, for no reason. They say it is because of your karma… some of your past deeds, maybe of a past life, have been rewarded, and that is what makes you happy… But let’s not get into that… Bottom line is; I was on a high. It seemed like nothing could mar my mirth. But no! I have now learnt my lesson well; eight out of ten times when you get such a feeling, be sure something is going to happen. In fact, I should have picked up the signs when Mom marched right back into my room.

‘Now what?’ I asked.

‘What are you wearing today?’ Mom asked.

‘Oh no… not again!’

‘Mi tula jauch denar nahiye aaj (I am not going to let you go today) unless you wear your salwar-kameez.’

Ok, I’d like to add a few things here. I am not the types who hate wearing anything that speaks of my ethnicity and shows in a way that I am Indian. I like wearing salwar-kameezes… love it in fact. But what Mom doesn’t seem to get is I have my ‘days’ or my phases… There are days when I wear only salwar-kameezes one after the other. And then there are days when I just don’t feel like it, and I stick to my jeans and t-shirts. And although mom doesn’t mind the former, she hates the later.

‘But Mom___’

‘Te kay pujayala ghetlet ka?’ (Have we bought all those dresses to worship them?)

‘Nahi, pan___’ (No, but___)

‘No if, no but,’ mom said, reaching out for my cupboard door. She opened it and pulled one of my salwar-kameezes out. ‘You wear this and come out in the next fifteen minutes, ok?’

‘Yeah.’

Mom went out of the room, and I threw a pillow at the door. I heard Mom laugh. ‘Mend me, bend me, but you cant break me!’ she called out.

‘YEAH RIGHT! WHATEVER!’ I shouted back, nonetheless smiling to myself.

Note: if you are my friend, remember one thing. Never; NEVER EVER make me do something I don’t want to. Consequences can be disastrous.

As instructed, I came out of my room, twenty minutes later, clad in a white Lucknowi salwar-kameez, with long ear-rings, and with a Shabnam on my shoulder.

‘I’m leaving!’ I called out, and Mom came rushing out of the kitchen.

‘There you are! How pretty you look!’ Mom said. ‘Bye!’

‘Thanks… bye!’ I replied and stepped out of the house.

We had three out of five of our lectures off that day. And on top of that I had planned to bunk my last two lectures anyway, as I wanted to go for a movie, which meant I was not going to attend a single lecture that day. I spent most of that day hanging out in the parking and the canteen of our college with classmates, seniors and of course, my new world friends. Soon it was quarter-to-two; time for me to go. I said bye and took leave. The show was at two-thirty. Half-way to the parking, I thought I should probably just wash my face and go… I had been in college the entire day anyway, and had been sitting in the parking lot since the minute I came. So I made my way to the Ladies Room. And the minute I set my foot inside the room, I shrieked.

I looked down at the floor… it was all wet. Completely wet. There was water everywhere and no one was in sight.

Now I am someone who can’t stand it when people leave taps running, or unnecessarily waste water in any way, so obviously I was furious. I walked to where the washrooms were and saw that one of the taps in the basin was running… Someone had turned it on all the way and probably left it on even after the water ran out; so that now that the water-tank was full, the water was running at full speed.

‘Shish!’ I exclaimed, as I hurried to the basin, trying to hold my salwar up so that it wouldn’t get wet, and trying to balance the dupatta and the Shabnam on my shoulders and myself on my heels. I quickly reached the basin and began turning the faucet off.

Soon I realised it wasn’t turning off.

I looked at the tap like it had been jinxed. I adjusted my dupatta and Shabnam and stood a little more firmly, now facing the basin, and tried to turn the tap ff with both my hands. But it just kept going round and round and round. And then at one point, it just snapped.

‘Ooo! Shit!’ I exclaimed and sprang away from the tap, dropping my Shabnam to the floor in the process, spraining my leg, and hitting the wall behind me.

I blinked rapidly and tried to regain my equilibrium. Slowly, I moved one hand, then the other, and then my legs. I looked around. My books were lying in a puddle of water… or more precisely in three inch deep water; and so was my Shabnam. My dupatta was floating away to one corner of the room; and when I finally got to look in the mirror… I didn’t know whether to laugh or to cry.

For a few moments, I just froze. I kept looking at my books, my dupatta and my reflection in the mirror again and again. Somewhere in between I figured that my phone was in my bag too. I lifted my bag off the floor, and water poured out of it. I put my hand inside and took my cell out; and for the first time, I thanked Mom inwardly for forcing her things upon me. Just the previous day she had bought me this plastic cover for my cell, and so my cell was at that moment absolutely dry and safe. I took it out and dialed mom’s number, thinking i'd ask her to bring me a change of clothes.

Have you noticed that often when one thing goofs up… it doesn’t stop there; it goes on in a series and stops only when sufficient damage has been done to leave you feeling utterly embarrassed and miserable.

So what was the next thing that had gone wrong in my series?

Mom was not answering.

Then one after the other I tried calling Dad, my brother, my neighbour and my aunt. And with every phone call, I was almost expecting the next person to not be home/be available too… and that left me with just one option. And if you are not a really really dumb person, you must have figured it out too.

To drive back home.

On my own.

In a white Lucknowi salwar-kameez that was no longer white.

I cursed my luck several times and finally dared to step out of the Ladies room. I looked around and noticed that there was nobody in sight. I quickly got out and ran on my toes towards that parking. Luckily (ironic I should use that word under these circumstances, right?) there was nobody there either. I quickly sat on my bike and drove out of college.





That day I came home at an amazing 80km/hr; and again ‘luckily’, I didn’t get one red-signal. I didn’t get stuck in one traffic-jam, which had now almost become mandatory for every time that I drove to or from college. I drove so fast, that my dress and me were half-dry by the time I reached my house. I rushed into the bathroom and stripped the dress of… it was a sorry state. I put it in a bucket of clean water and let it soak till I took a quick shower.

Mom burst out laughing when I narrated the whole thing to her in the evening after everyone got back home.

‘You are laughing! Damn! It all happened because of you!’

‘Me?’ mom said through her fits of laughter. ‘Why me?’

‘If you wouldn’t have forced me to wear the salwar-kameez, none of this would have happened!’ I said, and Mom-Dad-Bro all broke out into more and more peels of laughter.

‘And your cells!’ I said, addressing all of them; ‘go dump them into the sewer! God! I got so fed up of listening to the same line over and over again. “The customer you are trying to reach has moved out of coverage area”. What the hell!’

By now we all had tears in our eyes… theirs out of laughing, mine rooted in fury and anger. I picked up my Mango-milkshake glass and stomped off into my room… I shut the door and could still hear the laughing and my brother mimicking me now… God! I so hated it when he did that. I grabbed the remote control lying on my bed and turned the music-system on, and of all the cassettes that could have been in it, Aqua shouted out to me;

‘FREAKY-FRIDAY! THINGS AIN’T GOING MY WAY!’

And finally, for the first time in that day, after so much of fretting and tantrum-throwing… I laughed my arse off at the bloody timing! Or should I say ‘luck’ again???

CONFESSIONS OF A TEENAGE SOUL...

Ok. So it was happening again. And I was prepared; or so I thought…

At the exact moment when I realised I was falling head over heels for my friend all over again, I also realised he was not interested in me, all over again… or that he would probably never be…

I still tried to play it cool… Try and ‘take it all sportingly in a stride’… Be happy for him… Ask about the girl without feeling jealous or left-out… Smile and actually mean it… act mature…

But the main problem with acting mature is that at the end of it, you are still ‘acting’ mature… and not actually being mature…

I again convinced myself… or tried to; that I am a ‘nice’ girl… good-looking and all… and that maybe I am just worth someone better… that I am not his kind but that doesn’t mean I am never going to have a boy-friend or anything… For the zillionth time in my life I tried to get over… over what? Even I don’t know really if you ask me. I mean, we weren’t going around, so I can’t call it ‘heartbreak’… so whatever it was that I was trying to get over… I still haven’t figured out… maybe trying to get over being the ‘outcaste’… trying to get over the fact of being the only person among my gal-pals who didn’t have a boy-friend, and so also didn’t have any of her friends who could spare some time for her and meet her and catch up on things… trying to get over feeling unwanted… trying to get over the feeling you get when your feelings are not reciprocated… Like always I tried to convince myself and said good things about myself to me… things that would, or were supposed to cheer me up… I tried to tell myself… I tried to argue, ‘why is it so important for me that a guy should like me, fall for me or whatever?’, and ‘why was my happiness conditional?’, and on and on I went inside my head. He was sitting in front of me and talking… I could make it out from his lip-movements, but I wasn’t really listening.

I went on and on… trying to ‘look at the brighter side of things’, if there were any… and I tried to ‘act mature’…

And then at one point… I just snapped.

You know what? No matter what you say and what you do… IT SUCKS.

It sucks to be the only single girl in your group of friends… It sucks to always fall for guys who don’t like you… It sucks to have all guys think of you as a ‘guy’… as an equal… just because you are frank and straightforward and bindaas… It sucks big-time. It really does. I am fed up of having to be the ‘poor-me’… and I don’t know what to do about it… I am fed up of eating with a voice at the back of my head that constantly reminds me the number of calories I am putting on… I am fed up of watching models with unrealistic figures on TV… I am fed up of going to college to look at girls who are ‘bitchy’ and pathetic people on the inside but who are also surrounded by people just because they act sweet on the face and are ‘oh-so-girly’… I am fed up of hanging out with friends who have nothing but their boy-friends to talk about… It’s such a shame that people should judge you by how you look and who you hang out with and what time you sleep and whether you go to pubs or not and whether you have a boy-friend or not… and whether you are fat or not… and whether you enjoy late night parties or not… I am fed up of going to romantic movies and then wistfully looking at the hero and the heroine as they kiss each other in the end… It’s so so sick. I am fed up trying to make myself ‘fit’… make myself accepted… I’m fed up of trying to be someone I am not… Ya I don’t wear make-up; I sleep at nine; I am fat; I am not a typical girl; i don’t go to pubs; I don’t wear short skirts and I don’t have a tattoo; and I have never had a boy-friend; and I have never been kissed… SO WHAT?

You try to be cool… you try to get people to accept you into their group… and you don’t succeed… and then at the end of the day, its just you sitting with your tears giving you company… even when you know the whole thing is nothing worth crying over… You know that you are better off such people… and that it’s not the end of the world… but nonetheless, it’s a fact. It is the world you are living in… it’s the world I am living in. It’s a world where I am alone in a crowd. It’s the world that is pathetic to the core, but it’s the real world… and my only consolation lies in this sentence I read somewhere…

Life is a dream… I will wake up when I die…

NOT FOR ME

I. Hate. Coffee.

These words weren’t supposed to go together in a sentence, if they were linked to me. I mean how could I hate coffee???

In case you don’t relate to this or fail to understand this, let me tell you about myself.

I was three when I took my first sip of this drink that tasted like it came right out of the Angel’s goblet. Hot. Bitter. Sweet. All at once. Wow! I knew I had discovered my addiction, but it wasn’t until I was in second standard that I actually caught onto it. That was the max my Mother could keep me away from my sweet poison.

‘Nandu,’ she cautioned my father, ‘this is not correct. You are spoiling her.’

‘Relax Mona, its just coffee! Besides, we make it mild and of milk only!’ Dad said, a coffee addict himself; and Mom knew she’d lost the battle.

Over the years, my coffee, and me, went through a lot of changes… and now, my coffee was strong, black, hot, and bitter; and I was… well, I was a teenager… What else can I say… What else needs to be said?

So I was now a girl who was always seen in coffee shops, with an espresso, and a cute guy occasionally… But I was waiting for my best friend that day. We were meeting after a gap of seven days… seven whole days! For people who SMS-ed each other first thing in the morning even before brushing their teeth, then called up each other on reaching their respective colleges, then met up in the evening for a cup of coffee, and still argued with their mothers’ sometimes for permission to meet for a late-night ice-cream, seven days was a time unbearable to stay away from each other! So there I was waiting for Ankita, and she came in fifteen minutes late… as usual…

‘Heyyyyyyyyyy!’ she said and spread her arms… and we engulfed each other in a bear hug.

‘Hieeeeeeeeee!’ I replied. ‘How have you been? And how was the tour?’

Oh didn’t I tell you? She had gone to Coorg… as part of the study tour organized by their college. She is doing architecture.

‘Missed you yaar…’ I said as we took our seats. And Ankita did something very uncharacteristic of her; she reached out and pulled my cheeks.

‘I missed you too yaar! We had so much fun! You would have loved it… there were so many photographic locations!! You would have loved it yaar…’

‘I know… ok now lets order first and then I want a blow-by-blow account of what you did!’ I said.

‘Ok, how about we both have espresso? Like we did on our ‘pre-result freak out’?’ Ankita suggested.

‘Sure! That’ll be cool,’ I said.

So we ordered two espressos and started chatting. Now everybody who has ever been to CCD knows what the espresso out there is like… they say if you are sensitive enough and if the coffee is hot enough, you get a kick out of it, if you drink it in one sip, like a Tequila; its so concentrated and bitter.

Ankita started telling me memoirs of the trip, right from the minute they boarded the train. From all that she told me, I gathered the best part of the tour was the two nights they spent in the train! What with everybody staying up the whole night and playing ‘truth n’ dare’… That’s one game I still haven’t grown out of… or we, as in my Old World Friends, haven’t grown out of. I cant remember one time when we all met and didn’t end up playing atleast a few rounds of ‘truth n’ dare’… and as it turned out, it was Ankita’s idea for sure; and everybody loved it.

‘And then at one point the bottle pointed out to Prajak,’ she said.

‘Oh no, not again!’ I said. I hadn’t met even one of her friends actually, but I would easily spot them on a crowded street if I were to see them… such is the magic of Ankita's anecdotes. I already knew them all like they were my friends… who did what, who liked who, who was the idiot, who was the ‘poor me’, who was the ‘wanna be’, and who was the joker… of course, it was Prajak. So I could imagine what must have happened, and I started laughing; but nothing prepared me for what she told me.

‘No no! Listen!’ Ankita said. ‘He chose dare; so one of the guys dared him to pick out any girl at random in our class and propose to her!’

‘No way!’ I said.

‘No really! And you won’t believe, he picked out Pooja, and oh my God! He proposed to her so so sweetly! He got down on one knee and all! We were all dumb-struck! For a moment after he finished, we were all just staring at them. Even Pooja was looking like she’ll drop her jaw to the floor any minute. And then he just got up and went and sat on the seat again, and we all started clapping and cheering!’

‘Really!’ I said; I couldn’t believe it either.

‘Ya…’

And then she went on to describe everything… how they reached an hour late; checked into their hotels, had food and headed straight for their rooms as they were all dead tired; then went on their first study the next day; came back home in pouring rain… and on and on it went till almost quarter to eight. Finally it was time to leave. We paid the bill and went to the parking area across the street. Ankita was waiting for a rickshaw. I opened the dickey of my Activa and threw my wallet in it. I removed the scarf and was tying it around my face when I suddenly heard someone scream out my name. I turned around. It was Ankita. She crossed the street and ran up to me.

‘Are you nuts or what?’ I said. ‘What happened?’

‘Arre I got you something and forgot to give it to you!’ she said. She fished into her hand bag and removed two small packets.

‘What is this?’ I said as I took the packets from her; and answered my own question before she could… the aroma was not one which I wouldn’t recognize, and we both ended up screaming together gleefully;

‘Coffee!’

‘Ya,’ she said.

‘Wow!’ I said and opened one of the packets. I smelled the coffee and within a minute I was in heaven. ‘God! That smells almost divine!’ I said. I smelled again. ‘Yummy!’

‘I knew you would like it! I was hunting for a souvenir for you all over! But nothing seemed to strike a chord… and then on our last tour, we were having food and I smelled coffee. And you won’t believe, I followed the smell and traced it to this really tiny shop, like a kiosk. They were selling hand-ground coffee, and I knew I just had to buy it! So I bought two packets for you and two for me.’

‘Oh my God! That’s so sweet of you! Thanks!’ I said and engulfed her into a bear hug. She hugged me back.

‘By the way, don’t mix them up. They are not same. The one with the red rubber band is ‘Chicory mixed coffee’, and the other is plain coffee,’ she said; and immediately I opened the other packet and smelled that too.

‘Hmm… smells almost the same,’ I said.

‘That ‘almost’ makes all the difference!’ she remarked and I smiled.

‘Wowie, thanks yaar!’ I said. Just then a rickshaw slowed down next to us.

‘Aana hai madam?’ (You looking for a rickshaw?) The guy asked.

‘Haan haan,’ Ankita said as she hurriedly got into the rickshaw.

‘Call me!’ she called out as the rickshaw drove off. I gave her the thumbs up.

I got home and couldn’t wait to finish dinner. Mom was rather surprised to see me in the kitchen after we were done.

‘What are you doing?’ she asked.

‘Making coffee; it’s quite cold.’ I replied without looking at her.

‘Deva! Wachav re baba!’ (Oh God! Save me!) She said as she walked back to the bedroom and closed the door.

I poured the steaming hot ‘Chicory mixed coffee’ into my favourite bright red mug and washed the vessel. I cleared the counter, turned the light off and walked back to my room. I was getting ready to enjoy a late night of coffee and reading, snuggled in my blanket. Mom and Dad were already in bed, trying to sleep as the cold bit into them.

I found my iPod and turned it on. Ah! What luck! My favourite song played on the shuffle list. ‘Perfect!’ I thought as I fluffed my pillow. I arranged the small stool right net to my bed and placed my cell and my coffee mug onto it. Then I got into bed and pulled the cover till my shoulders. I opened the book and took the mug in my hand.

‘This is life!’ I said to myself and took my first sip of the coffee.

I spat it back into the mug.

‘Aaaargh!’ I said as I wiped my mouth to the back of my sleeve. I looked at the coffee like it was poison. I smelled it and looked at it again. I tried another sip, a tiny one this time, and spat it back again. I set the mug aside and immediately picked up my cell. I looked at the watch. Eleven-fifty. ‘I don’t care,’ I said as I opened the message window.

‘wht shit hv u givn me as souvenir? U tryna kil me or wht?’ I typed and sent it to Ankita.

‘wht?’ came the reply, after five minutes

‘wht is tht chicory stuf suposed 2 b?’ I replied again.

‘u din lik it?’

‘I HATE IT MOR THAN ANYTHING I HAVE EVER TASTED! ITS DISGUSTING!’ I replied.

‘thts weird. ppl luv it. funy u dnt… n u say u r adictd 2 coffee.’ Came the reply.

‘YA RIGHT!’ I shouted.

‘Mrunal! Shut up!’ came the reply, this time from my parent’s bedroom.

‘Ya ya!’ I said and threw the blanket off me. I went inside the kitchen and switched the light on. I poured the entire mug right into the basin and flushed it. I rinsed the mug and set it on the counter, inverted, to drain off the water. I opened the refrigerator and took the half finished Dairy Milk bar. I munched onto it irritatedly… but the chocolate soon took over me and I got engrossed in the book and slept off sometime around two-thirty.

For the first time in my life, I got up and didn’t have coffee the next day. It took me several weeks to start drinking coffee again… and for a few days, mom was in heaven. Everytime I looked at a mug of coffee or passed a coffee shop or saw some advertisement of Bru or NesCafe, my mouth screwed up in the most difficult way and I turned away from whatever it was that had reminded me of the coffee.

‘God! What happened to you yaar?’ Ankita asked me, the day after my ‘Chicory mixed coffee’ disaster, over the phone. She was laughing her guts off.

‘Nothing,’ I said; ‘but I hated whatever it was that you gave me. And one thing’s for sure, I like coffee, but chicory is not for me,’ I said, and Ankita laughed more…

LONGING

I know you are not here… And that you will probably never be…

I know you are never going to read this… these words that I have got to write anyway…

I don’t know you… I don’t know where you are… but I can somehow feel it, within the heart of my heart, that as I write these words one by one, as they come to my mind, you can perceive them… somewhere… somehow… I don’t know what to say to you… does anything need to be said? They say when you really want something; the whole universe conspires to get it for you… I don’t know what I want… but if you can feel me, you may well know by now, what it is that I want…

And till then, I will wait… in this pain that doesn’t really hurt… in this wait that is necessary… I have come to like it now… come to live in this longing to meet you someday… Will you be like I have seen you to be in my thoughts, or have felt you to be like when I close my eyes? Will I recognize you if I saw you in a crowded street? Is that what ‘striking a chord’ means? I believe in serendipity… do you? Will you ever come across this? Will you try to reach out to me when you do? Maybe you will… Maybe you won’t…

And even though I really wish you would… a part of me wants to live in this longing… forever…

PERFECT PROPOSAL

I woke up with a cold sweat on my forehead and my heart racing faster than PT Usha perhaps; and my first thought was: Do early morning dreams really come true?

I hoped and hoped they didn't… I didn’t want to lose Dhananjay after all… Not for a thousand other friends… Or for a thousand other guys precisely… You only come across your dream guy once after all, right?

I went through my daily chores mechanically… I had Chemistry practicals that day, so I had already bathed and packed my bag by the time it was eight. Mom had packed my tiffin for me and left it on the kitchen counter already, and she had left for her morning walk. I entered the kitchen and picked up my tiffin. Stuffing it in my bag, I left the house sharp at eight-fifteen.

Dhananjay made a grand entry at nine, for a practical scheduled to begin at eight-thirty. Ma’am was already past the stage of getting angry at him.

‘Sorry ma’am I__’

‘No! Its ok. You don’t have to explain,’ Ma’am replied, her voice rather even. Dhananjay, and the rest of the students including me, rolled our eyes. Dhananjay muttered a meek ‘thanks’ and went to keep his bag on the shelf.

‘What are you doing?’ Ma’am called out.

Dhananjay turned around and looked at ma’am. He kept staring at her.

‘Out.’ Ma’am said.

‘Ma’am but__’

‘I said its ok. You don’t have to explain. Pick up your bag and out.’

Realising he didn’t have a choice, Dhananjay picked up his bag and stormed out of the lab. Suddenly everybody in the lab became quiet. There was not a word to be heard after that till the end of the practicals. We joined Dhananjay in the canteen at eleven-thirty.

‘Kya yaar!’ (What man!) Niraj exclaimed. ‘Why can’t you be on time for once?’

‘Arre ervicha thik ahe, (It’s another thing everyday) I come late on purpose. But I had to go to the doctor today morning.’

My ears pricked.

‘Why? What happened?’ Niraj asked.

‘Same thing. This cold will really kill me one day.’

‘Is it causing a lot of trouble?’ Tanmaya asked.

‘Not ‘a lot’ really, but enough to make me make a trip to the doctor.’

‘So what did the doctor say?’

‘What will he say? “Take care, wear a sweater,” this, that.’

‘But you said your asthma was under control now?’ Tanmaya again.

‘Yes! But just check out the cold man! 5.5o! Who thought Pune could get this cold! It gets a bit hard in the winters…’ Dhananjay said.

‘Yeah…’ Niraj said.

‘I know…’ Tanmaya said.

‘Why are you so quiet today?’ Dhananjay asked me suddenly.

‘Nothing…’ I said and looked away.

‘God! I’m ravenous!’ Niraj said out of the blue. ‘Let’s eat.’

We all proceeded to bring our tiffins out of our bags. Dhananjay put a hand into his bag; it came out empty.

‘Shit!’ he exclaimed, banging his hand on the table.

‘Now what?’ Tanmaya said.

‘I forgot my tiffin.’

‘Oh no!’

‘That’s ok,’ Niraj said, ‘We all share our tiffins anyway right?’

‘Why don’t we go to the University Canteen instead?’ Dhananjay suggested. ‘I mean if it’s ok with__’

‘No!’

This came from me. I surprised myself as much as I surprised the three of them at the sudden exclamation.

‘Why not?’ Tanmaya asked.

‘Let’s just not go ok?’ I said; for only I had foreseen what lie ahead of us if we were to go to the University Canteen.

‘But why?’ Dhananjay asked. ‘In fact a little bit of sun will do me good.’

‘Ya, come on! Let’s go yaar!’ Niraj persuaded. I tried my best to protest, but couldn’t. Finally I gave in to the idea.

‘I don’t feel like driving though,’ Dhananjay said.

‘Come on! You know I can’t drive!’ Niraj said.

‘It’s ok! We’ll drive today!’ Tanmaya said.

‘Ok! I’m sitting on your bike then,’ Niraj said, leaving Dhananjay to sit behind me. Soon we were on our way to the University Canteen.

‘Whats the matter yaar?’ Dhananjay asked me, his voice lower than usual, as we were driving. We had entered the University premises.

‘Nothing,’ I replied, trying to keep my voice steady.

‘You are shivering,’ Dhananjay said.

‘It’s the cold.’

‘Since when did you start feeling cold?’ Dhananjay asked me. I kept quiet. ‘You are looking pretty today though,’ he added.

Under normal circumstances, this should have sent me to seventh-heaven. I should have been extremely flattered, ecstatic, and incomparably happy. I mean, you don’t always receive compliments from your dream guy right? But I didn’t even as much as smile at him. In fact, I was almost on the verge of tears.

‘And why did you say ‘no’ to coming to the canteen?’ he asked further.

Now how was I to answer that? ‘Because you are going to die now’? I tried to fight back my tears. Superstitions, when they are related to or when they involve people you really love and care about, can scare the daylights out of you. I didn’t want to lose Dhananjay; no! No way! On the one hand my heart was praying and praying madly that nothing should go wrong, that my nightmare shouldn’t come true. And on the other hand my brain was laughing at me for actually believing or thinking that such things happen… that such superstitions come true.

‘Hey! WATCH OUT!’ he shouted in my ear. I blinked; and the next moment I found myself headed straight towards a Maruti 800. I swerved my bike and avoided banging head-on into it.

‘Stop! Stop right now,’ Dhananjay said. I obeyed. He got off the bike. I got off it too. He took the key from me.

‘Sit.’ He ordered. I obeyed. We took off again.

We were both quiet after that; he being angry; me… a lot of things. I breathed in his scent. My lungs filled with the smell of ‘Old Spice’. His muffler was fluttering in the air as he sped through the maze of roads. Suddenly I had a strong urge to hug him, and before I knew it, I really was hugging him.

‘Hey! Hello! Kya hua hai yaar tujhe aaj?’ (Whats happened to you today?)

I kept quiet.

Dhananjay didn’t say anything after that; but he placed one of his hands on mine and drove slower. He slacked in his back, making me nuzzle against him. The rest of the journey was completed in silence, with him whistling one of the stanzas of our favourite song, Bin Tere Sanam.

About an hour later we were having a walk through the University Garden. We had just finished eating, and nobody was in a mood to go back to college and sit for the lectures.

‘Lekin bol na yaar, tujhe hua kya hai?’ (But what is the matter with you?) Niraj again asked me.

‘And don’t say nothing,’ Tanmaya said.

‘Abe mujhe puchh na!’ (Ask me!) Dhananjay said. ‘I’ll tell you what the matter is. Madam is lost in thoughts of her lover!’

I shot Dhananjay a look. His eyes were twinkling with laughter. Tanmaya and Niraj were already acting like I had announced my engagement or something. We were out of the garden now, heading back towards our vehicles.

‘What! Really?’

‘Who is it?’

I kept looking at Dhananjay. He stared back at me.

I looked away. I could hear them all tease me, but I couldn’t really figure out what they were saying. I was there with them physically, but mentally I seemed to be lost somewhere…

‘Do you believe in superstitions?’ I asked all of a sudden, and everyone went quiet.

‘What?’ Dhananjay was the first one to speak.

‘I just had this weird dream last night,’ I said, finally coming out with what had been eating my mind since morning. ‘They say early morning dreams come true. Do you think they really do?’

The silence that ensued was so dead, if I tried real hard, I could’ve probably heard their hearts beat. With perfect timing I realised there was nobody on the road; it had emptied almost suddenly. There was not a vehicle or a person to be seen. I glanced back at the garden; it had emptied too. Just like in the dream…

‘I don’t know…’ Tanmaya said. ‘Maybe they do.’

‘Yeah… I mean, I never had a dream early morning. I mean, I don’t get up that early anyway, so I wouldn’t know really…’ Niraj said.

‘Yeah… And I don’t dream so much…’ Tanmaya added. ‘So…’

I looked at Niraj and Tanmaya. Suddenly I realised they were wearing the same clothes as they had dressed up in in my dream. I looked at Dhananjay. He was wearing the same clothes too.

I closed my eyes. And just then I heard a car in the distance, approaching us from behind. I quickly pulled Dhananjay on the inside of the road and started walking on the outside.

‘Anyway! So where were we?’ Niraj said.

‘Madam’s lover!’ Tanmaya prompted, and they all started laughing. The sound of the car grew louder. It was coming up fast… real fast.

‘Right! Ae bol na Dhananjay (Come on tell us Dhananjay). Who is the mystery guy?’

I turned around. I could see the car now. I turned back and looked at Dhananjay.

‘It’s no one,’ I said.

‘Oh ya! Really?’ Dhananjay said, looking at me, his eyes twinkling as they always do when he is up to some mischief.

‘Ya.’

‘But then what was that stuff about__’

And just then, Dhananjay stopped in mid-sentence, took my hand and pulled me hard towards himself. The car drove past us.

I heard Tanmaya shout.

I heard Niraj shout.

Me and Dhananjay fell to the ground.

I quickly recovered and got up.

‘Are you nuts or__’ Dhananjay began to say, but his voice got swallowed up in his coughing.

‘Laksha kuthe hota tujha?’ (What were you so lost in?) Tanmaya said. She quickly got down to her knees and removed her water bottle from her bag. She offered it to Dhananjay. He took the bottle, but couldn’t stop himself from coughing, even enough to drink the water.

‘Oye yaar, take it easy!’ Niraj said. But Dhananjay’s coughing only got worse. I began rubbing his back.

‘I am sorry Dhananjay,’ I said. He looked at me; his eyes were blood-shot and watering from the excessive coughing. And just then I realised; he was having an attack.

‘Oh my God,’ Tanmaya said, as it struck her too. She went through his bag to find his inhaler, but it wasn’t there. Seems like he had forgotten that too. Dhananjay's coughing was now at its peak. He was gasping for air.

‘I’ll go check the dickey of his bike, it might be there in it,’ Niraj said as he sped off in the direction of our bikes. Meanwhile I and Tanmaya tried to reduce the coughing. But we didn’t know quite what to do. And just then, Dhananjay breathed in one last time, closed his eyes and fell to the ground.

Tanmaya froze.

I froze.

We kept staring at a motionless Dhananjay.

Just then Niraj cam back with the inhaler. He took one look at us, and the inhaler dropped out of his hand.

Suddenly Tanmaya burst into tears.

Niraj bent down on his knees and held her in his arms.

I just kept staring at Dhananjay… kept staring at his hair, his eyes, his lips… all things I was crazy about… all things that were now lifeless… dead.

I raised my hand and placed it on his heart. I ran it across his chest. I bent down and placed my head on his chest. I closed my eyes. I could still hear Tanmaya crying. My finger grabbed his t-shirt slowly… my fist growing stronger and stronger. I bit my lips. Slow and steady the tears started pouring out of my eyes.

Suddenly I felt a hand on my back. I looked up.

Dhananjay was staring at me.

I blinked. I turned around and looked at Tanmaya. She was standing now, and so was Niraj, right next to her.

I looked back at Dhananjay. And now, his eyes were wet.

‘You love me so much?’ he said.

I blinked, still not able to make head or tails of what was happening.

Dhananjay now sat up and leaned against the tree behind him.

‘It was a joke,’ he explained.

I looked at Tanmaya and Niraj. They nodded. I looked back at Dhananjay.

‘It was a joke,’ he repeated. ‘I talked Tanmaya and Niraj into it. When Tanmaya told me you liked me… I couldn’t believe it. Why would you want to be with a guy like me? Someone who has health problems and a medical history and all… So I decided to__’

‘Pucch hi lete ek baar. Mein bata deti,’ (You just had to ask me once. I would have told you.) I said and got up. I started walking toward our bikes. Dhananjay called out to me. I didn’t respond. I heard him get up. Tanmaya and Niraj chose not to follow him as he came after me. I started walking faster as I heard Dhananjay close up to me. He started walking faster too. Finally he ran up to me, and held me arm. He pulled me towards him.

‘I am sorry,’ he said.

I looked at him. And before I knew it, I had slapped him.

He looked back at me.

‘I am really__’

I slapped him again, this time on the other cheek.

He looked back at me. His eyes were welling up… fast. He took me by the arms and tried to pull me into an embrace. I tried to resist… but gave in finally, breaking out into tears.

‘I love you,’ he said.

I cried harder… but nodded. That’s all I could do really at that moment…






I stop here… but I smile as I realise I still haven’t told you one thing: I don’t believe in superstitions anymore, but I do believe in miracles…