The Patch

The doorbell is one rather bothersome invention humanity could have done without, for its ringing indicates the impending intrusion(of someone unwanted, more often than not), into my personal space, one built upon my insecurities and vulnerabilities. 

You can imagine my displeasure, then, when this irksome device rang out that fine Sunday. I knew who stood on the other side, friends wanting to go for a road trip and rather insistent on my participation in the same. Now, my position on excursions is pretty clear. It's all nice and inspiring to read about or watch in a movie, but I draw the line at myself being part of one; I'm of the vicarious persuasion. My friends however wouldn't have any of my protestations and were fully prepared to dislodge self from residence and deposit in automobile waiting downstairs. I knew civil conversation wouldn't help any, so I stuck two fingers down my throat, opened the door, and let it rip. I'm not an expert at retching, but the result was most satisfactory. 

I waited a while to make sure they won't come back, and then set off in my own car. I lived on the outskirts of a rather crowded, pretentious city, and the only reason I like this place is the fact that driving an hour out takes you through villages, paddy and cotton fields, before you enter the forests, and this is where I was presently headed. 

It was just about daybreak, and this is as good a time as any to visit the woods, warm mellow sun rays coming in in a slant, a velvety green hue outlining the tree tops. It almost felt like the sun was rather skeptical of sharing its asset with our undeserving world, lest we should hold it captive. Let me be clear, I wasn't here just for the optics. See, all I want to be is left alone. And solitude is a fast waning commodity in our times. It is this stark necessity that one day drove me to park my car by the roadside and take a plaintive walk through the trees. This turned out to be a nice decision, for I stumbled upon a clearing surrounded by trees and having just the right lighting. It was perfect. I called it Patch because I thought it needed a name. Patch has been my getaway spot for the better part of an year. 

I parked my car at its usual place and began my customary walk towards Patch, a 5 minute saunter. I may even have been humming a song, I could barely contain my happiness. It had been so long!

Imagine my surprise then, when I stepped out onto the Patch and saw what looked like a bird being roasted over a raging fire, two logs fashioned as benches, and a thatched hut on the far side. 

I had been standing there for all of 2 minutes when I felt a sharp pointed pain on my nape. 

"What the fuck is going on?!" is what I wanted to ask but all I could manage was a cowardly whimper. 

" Stay quiet or I'll stick this through your neck this very moment"

A deep, growling voice, coming from atleast 6 inches over my head; I'm 6'2''. I just stood there.

"Walk"; It ordered. I walked. 

"Now sit down", It said, as we reached one of the logs. My obedience game was on point. 

As It ambled over to the other log, I could finally size up Patch's imposter. Definitely a human, very tall, very muscular, a spear that until a minute ago was tickling the base of my skull in his right hand, and what looked like animal hide over his rather formidable torso. Looked like tiger skin to me, although I was sure there were no tigers in the forest. I had done my research when I chanced upon Patch. Ambient solitude is one thing, getting eviscerated by a man-eater quite another. 

"Who are you?", he inquired.

"What are you?", I shot back.

I saw the grip on his spear tighten and took that as a cue to couch my question in more agreeable language.

"I mean, what are you doing here? Are you a method actor or something?"

A grunt. His idea of laughter, I suppose. I could have run, but all motor functions seemed to have frozen over. Plus, no telling if this guy had like minded friends on the lookout. 

"I live here."

"Ah." Made complete sense. 

"My turn. What are you doing here?"

" I come out here on occasion for a break. I live in the city." I said the second part because city dwellers are inept and useless. 

"Ah. Another imbecile. Convenient pray for the capitalist machinery. You're no threat to me then." See! He read my mind! He kept his spear aside and got up all of a sudden. 

I yelped, fell off the log, and balled myself into a foetal curl. He sniggered, went to his hut, and came back with a pail of water. A coughing fit( mine) ensued thanks to the smoke rising from the fire he had just doused. I sat back up once it had passed. He looked at me with a blank stare. I returned that with one that was a cocktail of fear, bemusement, and intrigue.

"How long have you been here?". Someone had to break the silence. 

"Around 4-5 months. Should have done this earlier"

"Done what earlier?"

"This." He took his ginger shaped hand and did a 360 degree flourish sort of thing. 

"You're for real?"

"If by real you mean one of your kind, no. Well, a bit, but I'm trying."

Now I was positively perplexed. He was generous enough to read my confusion, and went on.

"I was another optimistic urban young man that came into that monstrosity you called a city. I had ambitions, I aspired to a better life. One with happiness, both material and otherwise. Hah. What a fool I was."

"So you're yet another member of a steadily growing tribe of disillusioned, frustrated individuals that realized that upward mobility and happiness are inversely proportional. Welcome to the club" I was taken aback by my verbosity under duress.

"And you're one that confuses self aware criticism with maturity without doing anything about it."

Too many words."Huh?"

"What did you do with your realization that illusions of a happy life and notions of success are a myth?"

I was positively confused. 

"Nothing, what do you want me to do? Wait, did you run away from your life?!"

"Run away? Imply cowardice once again and your insides will know what steel feels like."

I wanted to tell him he really needed to work on his punchlines, but wiser counsel prevailed and I adapted a more pacifist approach. I wanted to get to the bottom of this. 

"What I meant was, did all this happen because you weren't happy?"

Grunt. "You're so unidirectional."

Silence. 

"I was tired of my world increasingly becoming artificial and vain. There was just too much duplicity and deceit. Primal human instincts, cloaked in nauseating nicety and a flawed notion of civility. You've heard of Maslow's Pyramid? The base is all a human really is. The layers on top of it are just dressing; repress what you are, all the while channeling your basic makeup. You're just your needs, you don't go beyond it. I had had enough. I coudn't put on this charade anymore. If an animal that needs food and shelter is all I am, so be it."

This person was positively deranged and delusional. He continued talking.

"A return to the wild is the only way to shed this pretense. The shit those motivational speaker con artists sell is actually true; embrace your true self. I am a hunter-gatherer now and it's better than what I've ever done with my life."

Was he really senile?

"You should go now. I trust you won't be an asshole and go tell people?"

"Huh? No, no. You're alright."

"OK. Off you go."

I got up, wanting to shake his hands, but realized that would be something he doesn't do anymore.

I turned around, gave my beloved Patch one sweeping glance, and started walking, deep in thought.

I suddenly heard a whoosh, and then felt a sharp searing pain in my lower back. I fell down, face first. I tried to reach for my back, but my hands caught a wooden rod; he had speared me. 

As I faded out, I realized I hadn't asked him if his animal hide was for real. 

What would you do?

She wasn’t herself.

It might have been the new city not agreeing with her, but we had moved far too often for location to affect her profoundly. Plus, she seemed cheerful when we first went around the place. She quit her job. This wasn’t garden variety depression or a passing phase. Something had affected her. What irked me was that she wasn’t opening up. Openness had been an unspoken principle of our relationship, and she had steered well clear of that responsibility.

That something was amiss was not immediately discernible. She acted normal. She kept herself busy; cooking, reading, TV. But then there would be times when she just sat there, lost in thought, biting her lips, playing with her hairband. I’d ask her why she gave up her job, and she would give me a smile, laugh it off. A plastic smile, a hollow laugh. We talked. In the way two people sharing coordinates talked.  Her only acquaintance was our neighbour, a lady with a morbid, forbidding demeanour. The first thing she told us was about the previous occupant of our flat. A young couple. Marital strife. Domestic abuse. Slit wrist. The lady exerted some sort of mysterious pull on my wife. She seemed alive while talking to her. The neighour was a switch that controlled my wife. This scared me.

“Do you want to step out today? Grab dinner?”

“Yeah OK”. No hesitation. Perfectly normal.

I took her to a resto-bar we’d been to on our first day in the city. The Watering Hole. It might have been a seedy bar for all you know, but for the price card.

She drank more than she ate.

“So. How are you?” It had been woefully quiet save for the sound of cutlery, and my intention was not to just eat and go back to status bloody quo.

She laughed. Hearty. “Why, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing. Just that you seem off-colour of late. Is something bothering you?”

“How’s work? You like this city? I think it’s alright. A bit on the warmer side, but it’s OK.”

This sudden burst of eloquence took me aback.

“Yeah it’s good. Good place.”

“You know Didi was telling me about this place. She said you have good taste.” Didi is our neighbour.

“How did she know?”

“She gazed into her crystal ball. I told her dummy.”

She had left the tipsy station far behind. I was just pulling in.

“Why are you chummy with that lady? She puts me off."

“She’s a doll! She talks to me”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“Why do you think my folks named me Ganga?”

I was bristled by her previous remark and was just about to give her a piece of my mind when this sudden whimsical question left me surprised a second time this evening.

“Huh?”

“My name. What do you think of it?”

“Ganga is such a majestic name! The mighty river, wild and untamed.”

I raised my glass, but there was no clink. She obviously had some broody, melancholic agenda to this question.

“But that’s not me. I am meek. Cowardly. Submissive. “

I was incensed.

“Is this something that woman fed you? She’s bad for you, stop talking to her! Wait, is this the reason you quit your job?!”

Her head was on the table. She looked at me through the glass.

“The girl who slit  her wrist, she did it as her husband stood watching. What would you do? Would you stand watching?”

I reeled. She had either gone overboard with her alcohol, or…  I chose to go with the former.

“You’ve had a bit too much to drink. Let’s go.”

I walked over to her. She still had her head on the table, but a curious expression occupied her face. That same vacant stare. I tried to help her up by her arms, but she pushed me away. With extraordinary might.

I was furious but all fury and anger gave way to morbid fear and shock when I looked into her eyes.

She had shrivelled up, in a foetal position, as if she was protecting herself. She was shivering violently. Tears were rolling down her cheeks.

“Please don’t kill me please let me live please please don’t hurt me…” She went on in a bleating voice.

Shock and alcohol induced laggardness made me stand motionless, a powerless observer to the scene playing out in front of me.  I shook myself out of my stupefied state, mustered whatever strength I had, and brought down my fist heavily on the table. 

“Shut the fuck up!!”

The effect it had on her was instantaneous, and pushed me further down my abyss of fear.

“What just happened to me? What did I say?”

She sat up straight and tried to arrange her dishevelled hair, looking questioningly at me. She was scared.

A glass rolled over and shattered, delaying the onset of a terrified silence.

Old man

An old man had no right to be optimistic. Men as close to the grave as he should only be thinking of the number of people who would be turning up at his funeral , shedding tears of formality, making their attendance known to all and sundry.

He picks up the cracked mirror and holds it with awe and pride. After all, he had given up all he had for this practitioner of non-pretense and unflattering commentary. The mirror hands him a rose and tells him he is most pretty. It then proceeds to draw his attention to a clearing in his otherwise luxuriant mane. He frowns, and knits his brows in silent disapproval. The patch bereft of hair had the shape of a dog-ear. The final batch of brain cells sends out a proposal which sends the old man into raptures of ecstasy, with an aftertaste of cardiac arrest.

He wakes up in the CCU, twiddles a dial, and tunes into Mann Ki Baat. Make in India reminds him of the idea that put him here in the first place. He yanks clear of all wires filmi style. He goes and incorporates a company and calls it Bald, a hair transplant company for dogs. Its logo is a dog-ear.Business goes through the roof. He is rolling in paper bills featuring a bald, bespectacled man smiling at him. When he is bored of all the rolling, he goes and pats a few dogs. One of the pat recipients takes exception, and registers disapproval with a well-timed bite of the old man’s flesh.

The old man feels ticklish and wet. He picks up the mirror. It hands him a rose yet again. Its redness is accentuated by the frothy red goo dripping from his mouth. A wave of optimism washes over him. But he checks himself in time. An old man as he had no right to be optimistic.

The significant other

Her mischief is in her eyes. She keeps batting her eyelids to shield that epicenter of attraction from her long time suitor. As if that was not enough, she maintains what many would call a respectable distance, probably as far as two ends of a cricket pitch. I prostrate before her, my forehead almost touching the ground, as if to provide a conduit for her electric magnificence to course the separation between us and travel through my body ; light me up with the potent concoction she was the custodian of. That dark formless elixir known to tame humans , ensconce them in its hypnotic allure. I ask her to come close. I beg her. All that she has for me in return is a smile; a smile that would implant in the otherwise calm and serene surface of her cheeks two beautiful dimples. That sort of smile that would make mortals of the highest intellectual order yearn and pine for her with an intensity most extreme. I hear her soft saccharine voice; it tickles my eardrum and makes me sway this way and that. She laughs again. But this time it’s not just laughter. Her voice has taken the shape of words. They seep into my consciousness, and I can hear her saying something.  “I am not playing hard to get, you are just too weak in spirit and desire!” I am stung by her accusation.

At this moment, all that I want is you. All that I want to embrace is you. Embrace such that where I end and where you begin, no one knows. Every microscopic particle of my being is attuned to this need. And there you stand, sticking a dagger through my resolve. What have I done to merit this misery? Why would you not satiate me, as you have innumerable others? Is this not cruel? Do you not have a conscience?

Let’s play a game, she says. Close your eyes. Or don’t. But lie still. Absolutely still.  Let the stillness of your body overwhelm you, let the numbness of your limbs permeate to every cell of your body. Let all activity in your brain cease. Lie thoughtless and motionless, with just your heartbeat reminding you of your existence. For every minute that you do my bidding, I shall come closer to you, until you and I become one.

OK that’s easy. No problem. I do as I am told. I just lie there. And suddenly, thoughts about the absence of thoughts start sprouting. About decay. About the futility of existence.  About perversion and decadence.  About the absence of an exit route. This cocktail of negativity constricts me. I feel short of breath. I wait for her disapproval. Even a clicking of the tongue would be like a drop of water in a parched mouth. But she is not there. She is gone. Her absence feels like a dead-weight tied to my legs, dragging me to the depths of a bottomless abyss. She won’t come back. She is too haughty to be affected by compassion and sympathy. She won’t give a second thought to the plight of this tormented soul, for she has many others to tend to. And I lie there in the deafening silence, twisting and squirming, praying that she blesses me tomorrow; hoping that she takes my hand and leads me through this treacherous night, to a morning of sunshine and possibility. 

Malice

Ok, so I buy this insanely expensive, bleed your pockets out type expensive smart phone. You can call it peer pressure if you will. Personally, I was pretty happy with those unassuming little phones that happily let you call or text anyone without any fuss and without any charade to dazzle you to the point of tech worship. But then when you live with people who swear by these insanely rich pieces of circuit boards, one relents, you know. You then seek recourse in firebrand hypocrisy by buying the device one fine day. So anyway, I have a smart phone, is the point. I am goofing around and checking out all functionality and I get this watsapp thingy everyone is going gaga over. Again, Rome, Romans, you see. So I sync this thingummy with my contacts from my phone, and about 2 hours later this phone beeps. It’s a message. Watsapp. I first think its some stupid promo nonsense but then it aint that. It said “hi..”. From some female whose name brought some vague recollection. Like those tingling sensations you get when your brain tries to desperately tell you that you have come across that thing/person/sound/taste/smell/whatthef**kever it is once before. But its too vain to tell you what. So here I am with a message from a femme who I have no clue of but for a stupid tingling sensation. Well that normally happens. You see, my contacts is this roll call sort of thing that would give those guys who study people (anthropologists?) a hard on. I have the contact details of every single person I have ever met. And I never delete. I talk to a guy in the bus about how Obama’s financial ministrations are driving us off the fiscal cliff, I get his number. I help a female with her shopping baggage, I get hers. Sounds total psycho, but then people say I have great people skills. Again, not my point. Without thinking much, I “Hi..” back. And then she says “Remember me?”. The male ego doesn’t bow out just like that. I say ”of course!! How r u?”. And she says “You don’t do you? Want to meet up tomorrow and refresh that memory of yours??”. Now  I am completely curious. Wary, yes, but then, its a femme for godssakes. I might get me a nice time. And I say, “sure. Where n when?”. Looking back, I would kill myself twice over for saying that.

                                                            ****

Counselling is bullsh**.  My Post- traumatic stress disorder, or whatever they call it is my Post- traumatic stress disorder.  No shrink through any degree of soft passionate conversation and hypnotherapy and CBT or any of those things can do anything to help me. Heck, he cannot understand me, let alone breaking into soliloquies on how to cope with it. That hurts. Feigning conviction and telling me in that sickening murmur that he understands completely. That day was another of those days when I walked into that fraud place and pretended to have cottonplugs on while he proceeded with his customary drivel. I had just left the place when I got this watsapp notification saying that someone had added me. That was when all the latent hatred and revenge I had forgotten somewhere rose again. And that was how it all began.

                                                            ****

This female should have been really rich. This place she had chosen for our little rendezvous was crème-de-la-f**king-crème. So anyway, I see her and now that tingling sensation has become like a 1000 spiders crawling all over me. But I still can’t resolve the long standing issue of just who she is. We greet each other like long lost twins and give each other a bone crushing bear hug. Her dress left nothing to the imagination, by the way. This suit clad fellow gets us a table in one corner, set slightly apart from the rest of the pack and lights this big ass candle bang in the middle of the  table. “You still drink don’t you?” she asks, and I nod promptly, feeling slightly fishy about this whole business. She orders sparkling wine, and he excuses himself with a servile bow. “So tell me about what you are upto these days man, its been so long!”. She has one of the most sinfully disarming smiles I have ever seen. A perfect blend of coyness and mischief. The perfect seductress. My point is, even if I wanted to desperately man up and tell her I don’t for f**k’s sake know her, I was in it way too deep to tell her. Too far along. That’s how the male brain rationalizes. So I get on with it and chew the cud liberally, again, like long lost friends. Apart from being the seductress, she is also quite the talker. And before you know it, we are like a house on fire. Alcohol has progressed from wine to vodka,neat. And we are still talking, speech is beginning to slur and I am seeing double, but I keep going. The last thing I remember, to this date, is looking at her cleavage, in the light thrown by that candle, which was close to burning out ,by the way.

                                                            *****

The clothes were intentional. Decency was a thing I had given up on since what happened, but this was filthy even by those standards. This was moral degradation spawned by an overwhelming desire for masochism for the soul, flagellating it in a fervent attempt to exorcise the past. And I was almost there. Revenge is a dish best served cold, some fellow said. And mine had reached frigid levels. He was this close to passing out. All he needed was a prod in the right direction, and that came via a vial that I emptied into his 6^th peg. It was with some difficulty that I wrapped his hands around my shoulder and dragged him out to my car. No questions asked. My breasts were showing all the while, but who cares?

                                                            *****

I wake up to a searing pain all over my body like I am laid on a 100 burning stoves. I am totally out, ok? Totally disoriented, and i try to raise my hand and rub my eyes, which seem to be gummed together, my eyes, I mean, but I can’t move my hands, let alone raise them. And then someone splashed water on my face and I open my eyes and find the same female sitting cross legged, smoking. “ you can’t move because you have been glued to the bathtub. You are burning because I cut you a 100 times all over, superficially of course, else you would bleed out, and I bathed all those wounds with Chardonnay.”

                                                            ******

How many glue tubes did it take? A lot. And I enjoyed every moment of it. The alcohol was an inspired touch. I read somewhere that it does something to your burn receptors which lowers its threshold, in short, he suffers more. I was still surprised that he didn’t show any signs of recognition. That stung more than those wounds would be stinging him. After all, he had conquered me that day. I was his prized trophy in that pub. Admitting defeat, I asked him, “ Don’t you remember 31^st December 2011? The Watering Hole?”

                                                            *****

And then it all comes back to me, through all the pain. I had passed out in the pub that night. And it was the next day when I came to that my friend says that I did some serious nonsense bullsh** to this girl we met at the pub. Did I? He says that he ain’t playing me and that I should get in touch with her immediately. I said I would and go back the next day and tell him that we had met and that we had talked and we had made peace. He didn’t buy it, but then I always had great people skills. Well, I believe in Karma now.

                                                            *****

He is a smooth talker, that b*****d.  look how he plays it down. Sonofa***ch. There was this drinking game that night, and we were playing darts. Round of 3’s. guy v/s girl. Person making lesser points on a throw drinks a shot of vodka, neat, and should the girl lose, the guy gets to kiss her. I lose, and he comes over to kiss me. Sportingly, I oblige, and before I know it, he is kissing me awkwardly, aggressively, sloppily. I try to push him away at first, but then the alcohol gets the better of me, and I give in. Everyone is egging him on, and before I realize whats happening, he has turned me over, pulled down my pants, and begun thrusting. I am in pain, but my weak protestations are drowned out by the loud techno music. Its all over in a matter of 5 minutes. The last thing I remember is some girl coming over and asking me whether I am alright.

                                                            *****

Such things happen all the time in pubs. I didn’t know she was hurting.

                                                            *****

Purists might argue that this isn’t rape per se. I would gladly do this same thing to all of them.

                                                            *****

I should probably add that all this while, my mouth was neatly covered with masking tape, which she had peeled off when we were talking. In that time, she jacked up the stereo system volume somewhere in the next room. To drown out my screaming, I guess . All of a sudden, she puts this tape back on and starts emptying bottles of alcohol into the bath tub like crazy. The pain’s back on at full blast, and there I am, unable to writhe or move or do anything that could lessen the pain. She had thought this through. And through all this noise I hear her say “you will have to go now”. She lights a match and throws it into the tub. With a whoosh, all the alcohol fuels the flame and I have one inferno playing all over me, numbing me with pain. To hell and back would have been easier. That is when everything blacked out. I probably died, I don’t know.

                                                            *****

No matter what happens in your life, nothing prepares you for watching another human being burn to his death. You simply cannot sit back and watch. I had not reached that stage of malevolence. I knew this would happen and had kept an extinguisher handy. Without thinking twice, I opened it on him. I put out the flame in under half a minute. He was still breathing. Badly burnt, but still breathing. That is when I called for an ambulance, and fled.

                                                            *****

That’s love. That’s true love if you ask me. Nothing else can make a person intent on murder do a 180. Its pure,intense love. That is the only conclusion I can make, 2^nd degree burn injuries and multiple skin graft surgeries later.

                                                            *****

I don’t know what it was that made me do it. I am too busy trying to make good my escape to be thinking of it.

PS: The rape incident is based on a first person account I read somewhere. Don’t remember where. Its unnerving, to think that such things happen. Also,everything else is fiction.

Bun in the Oven

She threw up her hands in frustration.

"What is it with this city and traffic jams huh?!”

“More people, more vehicles, same road space. What else do you expect? Blame it on the burgeoning middle class wallet.” One thing he had learnt from two years of wedlock was that the only way to quell a bout of eloquence was to put off prompt replies. It worked like magic.  Both fell silent, lost in their respective thoughts. She looked around, but immediately got bored. Lots of vehicles with equally bored occupants. Her husband was humming some tune and tapping on the steering wheel, and in the process drumming up a royal cacophony.

“Stop that, will you?”

“Why, you don’t like it?”

“Not one bit.” She punctuated each word with adequate spacing to convey the message.

“OK Madame, this is your chariot, I am but a chauffeur”. She smiled at that innocent, disarming grin on his face.

She had had an incredibly happy week. He was in a really good mood. He went out of his way to please her, even took a day off to be with her. And to top it all up, they were going shopping today. It was as if he had magically transformed from that irritable, moody fellow from two weeks back. They would talk very less. She would see very less of him. And she would suffer silently. She had begun to doubt his loyalty, but then all those were put to rest. He had finally turned the corner, and she genuinely felt that the worst was over. Her thoughts were broken by the sound of a child crying in the adjacent car.

“Don’t you think its time we had children?”

“What? Oh yeah, sure! Right now?”

His cheekiness irked her. “ Its been 2 years now, how long will you keep avoiding this issue?”

“Listen, let’s just give it some more time ok? A child is an added responsibility, and I am not sure whether I am ready to shoulder that responsibility. Let’s spend some more time together, alright? I know I have been slightly off lately, but I am over that now.”

“Great, couples our age are well and truly on the family way, and here we are, still in the Know Each Other phase. Brilliant.”

“Let’s not fight and spoil our moods now. I will make it up to you, I promise.”

                                                            ***

    He was a cocktail of emotions. Anger, ecstasy, expectation, guilt and above all, revenge: allowed to ferment over time, but never watered down. He had played this scene over a million times, and it all ended in one overwhelming image: his mother and sister, whole, hale and hearty, smiling.  

   As opposed to two headless corpses, laid out unceremoniously in the snow, every inch of their bodies violated by Men of Authority. They were raped by the men multiple times; she was pregnant;before granting then the mercy of their cold knives. He had held onto that wound for 13 years, and it had culminated in an opportunity to exact his long overdue revenge. He never harboured any misconceptions of this being the Will of God.

     He knew very well that he was employing the cruel alternative of using unsuspecting civilians to get back at the Men. But ethical debates were strictly for teatime. For him, this was deeply personal, and he volunteered without batting an eyelid. He would have to get married to avoid suspicion and grant legitimacy to the whole op. He was however not to have children. He followed their instructions to the letter, while harbouring the utmost hate towards Them. But they were needed; he could not do it without Them.  All of that was behind him now. He was almost there.

“Don’t you think it’s time we had children?”

                                                                  ***

He had chosen the most crowded part of the shopping complex. It was time. He looked at her, and the only things he now felt were guilt, lament and immeasurable pain, as he clutched the Trigger one final time.

Sthreeswapnasamudram

It was turning out to be a most memorable night, a heady mix of nicotine, the zingy salty air, and an effervescent, eccentric female had more than taken care of that. He was just beginning to get over the rather peculiar way in which the night had begun, when she popped the rather uncomfortable question.

**

“What’s wrong in being angry huh? Everyone makes it out to be some sort of illness plaguing your system, and you try to weed it out by laughing away like morons with something up their arse, why?!! Its good to be angry, you know, its only when you are angry that you feel vast reserves of energy in you, you know, you keep bounding about saying stuff to yourself like a mad hatter, you are actually bustling with life when you are angry, as opposed to when you are docile and slouching like a spineless something in your couch trying to figure out what to watch on TV. Take it from me, you are healthier when you are angry.” Her conviction and rapidly moving arms seemed like something out of a Tarantino movie.

 “Do you do standup?”

 “No, why?”

 “Your mannerism reminds me of one, are you a shrink?”

 “No, why?”

 “The way you talk reminds me of one. You are a standup the shrink cat brought in.”

 “Cats are quite wonderful creatures don’t you think? They have that quiet dignity about them, cultured, if you will, and they mind their own business, not like those stupid canines that lick you senseless at the drop of a hat. I’ve never liked dogs, you know, too intrusive, and stupid, following you around all over the place, I let go of my Vodafone the minute they started doing those stupid dog commercials.”

“ You might want to snuff out your joint, you know, you are already way beyond your senses”, he said, taking a puff off his own.

“ oh no no darling, these rants are not nicotine fuelled. I am known to be eloquent, and articulate”, a regal, nonchalant wave of the hand punctuated her words.”

“Well if I could, I would prostate before you to make you zip up”, he was reaching his wit’s end, though he had secretly begun to admire this mysterious chatterbox acquaintance he had made.

“ Oh you poor wasted boy, then do it, why don’t you?”

“I am presently indisposed”.

“Indisposed, indisposed is such a convenient word no? It is the yada yada of excuses”. He felt a pressing need to ask what yada yada was, but he somehow suppressed his urge.

“So tell me, what made you come over to this lovely place at this unearthly hour? Lizards copulating madly in your bed ?”

“ Oh I would be a fool to hive up a rendezvous with such a pretty female”, his blunt methods of flirtation were rather well known.

“ Oh so you are one of those shamelessly hopeless romantics aren’t you?”, she was known for calling a spade a spade.

“ Well it has worked to great effect previously”, he said in defence, never one to admit defeat.

Conversation died off, as they lay there in the moist sand, gazing up at a cloudless sky, silence broken only by the waves as they rolled ashore one after the other, leaving a crab or two scurrying along in its wake. The lighthouse illuminated vast swathes of the sea, as the beam of light danced around in wide arcs. Overall, it was a most tranquil, beautiful night, appealing to the romantic in him, doing nothing of the sort to the cynic in her.

“I had a dream of someone trying to kill me, it was pretty unnerving”. She burst out in peals of uncontrollable laughter.

“ So that’s why you are here? Because you saw a dream? Boy oh boy !” Her laughter eventually died down, leaving him rather red faced, though she couldn’t see that in the darkness, much to his relief.

“ Why are people so scared of death? Is it not a relief from the tribulations in life? Come on man, we need more stars up there in the sky, it will look good, the stars down here are arrogant truckloads of trash!”.

“ I get the point”, he said, through clenched teeth. She was clearly off the hook.

“ Hey tell me something, this person who killed you, was it a female who stuck a pen in your neck?”

“ How on earth..”, he was stopped midsentence, as just then she proceeded to take out a Reynolds from her pocket and sink it viciously in his neck, rupturing his jugular vein. He was too shocked to respond. A piercing pain permeated rapidly through his body, which then gave way to a gurgling sound as blood oozed out in copious amounts.

**

He was too shocked too notice the speedometer needle and the fuel needle approach red. This was not the first time he had had nightmares, but this one was different in terms of the effect it had on him, It was grotesque, unnerving, and he could not go back to sleep, not with that image playing in front of his eyes. That’s when he got on his bike and shot off into the night.

**

He was not expecting anyone at the beach, not at this hour. It was a secluded, isolated place, not someplace many people knew, and that made him more nervous. As he went closer, he realized that it was a cigarette toting female, a rather young, attractive female at that. He felt his fear steadily seeping away. He walked up to her, she seemed to be sleeping.

“ Mind if I join in?”, she woke up with a start.

“ Whoa, you scared me, I wasn’t expecting anyone to turn up at this hour”.

“ Well that makes the two of us, whats your name?”

“ Nothing significant, got a cigarette?”

“ I have something stronger”, he lay down next to her, and they lit up. “So why are you here?”, he asked, to break the ice.

“ Stormed out of the hostel, spat with warden”, they smoked their joints in silence.

“ Angry young female huh”.

**

He lay there in the sand, writhing in pain, steadily losing consciousness and a lot of blood. She stood above him, smoking, in no apparent hurry.

“you know boyo, there are two types of dreams, the good dream and the bad dream. The difference between the two, is that bad dreams usually come true. She suddenly yanked him closer by the collar and whispered in his ears, “ You, my love, had a terribly bad dream”. The slow, passionate strawberry flavoured kiss had a tone of finality to it. And that’s when everything turned to an endless sea of white.

Mouse to replace elephant as Railways mascot

In a move that is bound to stir up a hornet’s nest,Union Railways minister Tinesh Dwivedi today announced his intention to replace Bholu,the endearing,cuddly elephant mascot of the indian railways with a mouse,named rather aptly as Sahyatri.

Speaking at a press conference, he revealed that it was something which was on his mind for a long time,and he felt that this was the opportune moment to roll it out. “I have talked to a lot of people,both as a minister and as common man,and I feel that I speak for a wide cross section of the junta”,he said.

Explaining the logic behind the move,he said that the ubiquitous mouse had become an integral part of any train journey. “ Among the things that you would take back from a train journey,the mouse would be right on top of the list,its actually your sahyatri, something you would inevitably associate with the Indian Railways, and hence this change in the Railways’ mascot is apt and befitting”.

The move seems to have struck a chord with frequent travellers, with a lot of them voicing their support for the same. “It takes time for the import of the move to sink in,but when it does,you marvel at its compelling simplicity and novelty and bask in its glory,absolutely splendid,one of the best things to have happened to the Railways”, said a rather eloquent and visibly thrilled gentleman. “Just to look at these harmless,amiable creatures diligently scurrying up and down the aisle is in itself a source of inspiration,and when you are sitting in a train,with little to do,these things seldom go unnoticed”,averred a psychiatrist.

However,like any other government policies,this move has had its fair share of dectractors as well. The most vociferous opposition has come in from Statue City,with a visibly upset Bhaiji  trashing the move as being absolute rubbish. “The elephant has over the years come to represent the trials and tribulations of the socially downtrodden,this move is paramount to a slap on their faces,we strongly condemn this atrocious move”, he said. He also informed the press of the party’s intention to erect a statue of an elephant outside the Statue Central as a mark of protest. Joining Bhaiji in expressing displeasure over the decision,Ms DeeDee has alleged that the states were not taken into confidence at the time of drafting the legislation. “The Railways might be centrally owned but the very fact that rails pass through all states makes the Indian Railways a state subject. The government’s policies seem to be in direct conflict with the principles of a federal structure,and this sort of autocratic rulership is not acceptable,the government must get off its high horse.”,she said. The season of rollbacks was not lost on her,and she wasted little time in asking for the Minister’s head. “He has proved that he is not capable of running such a crucial department,and has lost the mandate to be Railway minister. I demand his immediate resignation and a rollback of this nonsensical proposal. In fact,I ll be going to the Capital,on elephant back,to see to the matter myself”,she concluded in a hurry.

While the proposal  is set to hang fire for a long time to come, it is obvious that the move has captured the nation’s imagination,and it remains to be seen whether the government gives in to popular demand or satiates its political allies.

The Unholy Confluence

It was the coldest day in about a decade,they said. The news channels and papers were full of it. “thand se behaal janta”, screamed one channel; “thand ki maramari”,said another.

Bhen ke l***e,he said. You don’t have any right to talk about how cold it is,sitting in a centrally heated room with plush interiors,elaborately covered from head to toe,sipping a cup of steaming hot coffee. You’ve got to be outside,on the roads,fighting a losing battle with the merciless elements of nature. You’ve got to know how it feels like when ice cold winds rush in through a stuck window,steamrollering a meek defence in the form of a shredded blanket and cut through your bones. You’ve got to know the futile attempts involved in getting some circulation to go through your benumbed hands. You’ve got to know what it takes to steer an ailing taxi through dense fog with those hands.

Well,they were correct to some extent. It definitely was the coldest day ever.  He was shivering from head to toe, partly because of the cold, and partly because of rock bottom alcohol reserves in his system. He held the steering wheel firmly, to get a grip on himself. It wouldn’t work.  Nothing would work. He simply needed spirit. He had just finished work, and was about to wheel it for the nearest watering hole, when he was flagged down by a rather agitated couple near the flyover. 

Their car had broken down, apparently. What caught his attention however, was the woman.  He saw more skin than clothes.  He had no intention of taking them anywhere,not when alcohol was waiting,but the cleavage and assets and all relegated alcohol to second spot. “kahaan jaana hai?” 

“Bhai rpm lounge hai basant lok mein,wahaan chod de” ,

 “400 loonga,ulta padhega” ,

“tu 1000 le le bhai,seedha kara de”.

They seemed filthy rich,and he was ripping them off senseless. He didn’t mind,he saw it as an exercise for reducing the gap between rich and poor. The woman didn’t seem happy with her partner’s bargaining,and she was rattling off sentence after sentence in chaste English. The gentlemen seemed to be reciprocating in kind. He didn’t mind, he had dedicated all his senses to the rear view mirror.

                                               ***

“Step on it,will you? We are already late,this party is pretty important for me. “

“Well you are distracting me with that rather risqué dress preference of yours,madame,tu ekdum maal hai yaar,gaadi kaise chalaaoon?”

“Shut up and keep driving,douchebag, its an A list party,man!”

“I cant for the life of me understand whats so special about the party. You’ll start off with being slightly tipsy,you ll then graduate to being Her Holy Highness,and you ll top it off with being freelance cotwarmer. Whats the difference?”

“Hey am I dreaming or is it actually smoke coming outta the bonnet?”

“Well,you surely aint dreaming,lady..  We have a problem”

“Pull over and see if you can fix it no?”He pulled over. He checked if it could be fixed. It couldn’t.

“It cant be fixed”

That’s approximately when the lady lost it.

“What the f**k do you mean by you cant fix it??! Bloody useless vermin,try and get a taxi then!”

There seemed to be no taxis around,everyone had called it a day rather early,and the few on the roads were in a hurry to get off it. Except for one cabbie,though.  Well it was clear what prompted him to hit the brakes though, a minimally clothed female always tilts things in your favour.

. “kahaan jaana hai?” 

“Bhai rpm lounge hai basant lok mein,wahaan chod de” ,

“400 loonga,ulta padhega” ,

“tu 1000 le le bhai,seedha kara de”.

“Are you f***ing mad??!! He s ripping you off man!What nonsense is this! Its barely 4 kilometres away are you in your senses!!?”

“If you have not noticed by now,you have miraculously managed to attract the attention of a dozen  odd lecherous eyes,the best thing to do would be to get you indoors as soon as possible,so shut up and play along for once”

She had worked him up considerably,and as much as she liked bossing him around,she didn’t like it when he was in one of those moods. She knew how to cheer him up. Her agile,nimble hands slowly slid along his lean physique and came to rest roundabouts the crotch.

“What do you think you are doing??! This is a taxi for god’s gracious sake stop it !!”

That’s when he saw another pair of the lecherous eyes he was talking about staring at the duo in the rear view mirror.

“kya dekh raha hai bhen***d gaadi chalaa sharaafat se!!”

He was now positively livid. Well,so much for trying,she thought.

                                               ***

He had completely forgotten the fact that he was  the one driving the cab. The rear view was the only thing that mattered now. Heck,even those movies they showed at the theatre didn’t have such sensational females.. Subtlety and wind became one, this was now shameless ogling. Things had started to increasingly mirror the movies,the car may as well drive itself for all he cared,he had totally given in to carnal pleasures.

“kya dekh raha hai bhen***d gaadi chalaa sharaafat se!!”

Well,all good things come to an end rather rapidly. The cold and the shivering and the alcohol craving and the honking and the steering wheel  and the road all came back in an explosion of sight,smell,sound,taste  and touch. There was an awkward silence in the cab,and he drove on,looking resolutely at the road,with the feeblest of glances towards the rear view.

They were at a traffic junction now. Even the homeless seemed to have found some sort of lodging to go to,the junction was devoid of all hawkers and beggars,except for one kid,who presently came up to the taxi.. He didn’t seem to be in good shape. Tattered blanket,tattered clothes,skeletal figure..

“chutta nahi hai,nikal yahaan se”;said the guy.. He still seemed to be angry.. That more or less remained the mood till he dropped them off at the lounge,and shot off for the nearest bar.
                                                         ***

It seemed to be a rather busy day for the morgue guy. All hell had broken loose in the city. Lit up lounges,illicit liquor,winter related deaths.. He was at his wit’s end.. He was having a tough time getting people to identify bodies of their folks,and to compound matters,almost all his colleagues had gone on leave:he was severely shorthanded.. He was nearing the end of his shift,and the replacement guy hadn’t turned up. He could take no more,he decided to close up the morgue and leave. It was when he was switching off the lights that he noticed the 4 unidentified bodies in the corner. 2 were charred beyond recognition; that would be the lounge fire, he said to himself.. Then there was this boy they picked up off the streets..A victim of the coldwave.. And then there was the hooch tragedy guy.. He was impressed with his memory.. Aging didn’t seem to have any effect on it.. 

His attention went back to the corpses. He somehow was fascinated by the way they lay,in eternal slumber. It was as if Death whispered a lullaby.*

                                
                                                  _____________
PS:* Credits due @opeth for the lovely ,lovely song title