Not Just Another Day

They had to shield their eyes from the scorching sun as they walked out of the college building. They headed towards the bus stop. It had become their latest hangout place.
“I’m not hungry.” She said as she tried to prop herself up on to the railing of the bus stop. It wasn’t the most comfortable place to sit. But it gave shelter from the sun and it was breezier than the stuffy canteen they had just walked out of. There were trees all along that side-walk that swayed in the hot summer breeze.
“When did you eat last?” He took her hand and helped her on to the railing. She noticed beads of sweat outlining his face and realised she was sweating too. Her hair was frizzy and unkempt because of the humid weather.
“Do you want to go sit inside? It’s really hot here. You’re sweating like hell!”
“I’m fine. You tell me why you’re not eating anything!”
“Arey baba, I ate a lot in the morning. Plus, it’s really hot! I don’t feel like eating now.”
They looked at each other and grinned. The sun was burning down on the street. The recess bell hadn’t rung yet, so there weren’t many people outside the college. He kept his bag between them on the railing and held it there with one hand.
“Do you want to eat my dabba?” he asked.
She threw her head back and laughed, “So this is what this is all about! You don’t want to eat your dabba so you want me to finish it, so that you can take home an empty dabba.” She wagged a finger at him and smiled mischievously.
“No, re! I’m just saying I have my dabba, so we can just sit and eat here. We don’t need to go anywhere. And also, yeah, mom will yell at me if I don’t eat it all.”
“And why can’t you eat it all?” She asked rolling her eyes at him, giggling all the while. She couldn’t stop shaking with mirth. It’s really not that funny! She told herself, stop giggling!
“Because it’s too hot. Ok? There. I said it. Now you can stop laughing.” They gave each other a knowing look and started laughing again. They laughed together till they were both breathless.
“You’re so stupid!” She said, punching him on the arm.
“Hey, I made you laugh. Is that so bad?”
She smiled, “Yeah. It’s horrible. You crack the world’s silliest jokes and I don’t understand how I can laugh at them.”
He smiled at her, bearing all his teeth and blinked at her innocently. He thinks he’s so cute.
“But I make you laugh no? That’s enough.” He said.
“Randolph! What you got in dabba today? I’ve got super boring cabbage bhaji yaar.” A thin voice emerged from behind them, along with a strong scent of perfume. “Hey, Kriti, you didn’t attend Maths this morning?”
“I was sitting right behind you, Pooja” replied Kriti, with a hint of malice in her voice.
“Oh right! Yeah, I forgot.” Pooja turned to Randolph and said, “Anyway, so show na, your dabba!”
Randolph looked at Kriti and shrugged. He took out the dabba from his bag and opened it up.
“Bhindi! You didn’t tell me you’ve got bhindi. Now I want to eat.” Said Kriti. Without waiting for a response, she reached into the dabba and picked two rotis.
“I didn’t know you liked bhindi” said Randolph. He was a little taken aback and yet amused at the sudden hunger Kriti had developed. She polished off the two rotis and half of the bhindi before Pooja had the time to settle down and open her dabba.
When she noticed Kriti gulping down the food, she commented, “Whoa! That’s fast. When was the last meal you ate, Kriti? Last month?” Pooja and Randolph laughed together as Kriti chewed on a mouthful.
She struggled to swallow as she tried to smile and seem aloof. But alas! All that food, all too quickly caused her to get hiccups. She tried to hide it, but it was too strong. This only gave Pooja more reason laugh and Randolph joined in. Kriti glared at him.
“OK, sorry... sorry. That’s not funny” Said Randolph. He looked at her with his eyes wide and said, “Water?”
“Yes” she said, trying not to sound too upset.
He held out his bottle for her with one hand and his dabba for Pooja with the other. Kriti quickly drank some water and returned the bottle to him. She watched as Pooja ate out of his dabba. She was sure Pooja had a crush on him. She was just that type. She smiles too much, Kriti thought. And she pouted too much. I mean, we all know you wear lip gloss everyday to college. You don’t need to take such trouble to show it off.
“Last bite, you want?” Randolph asked Kriti as he offered the dabba to her. She directed her attention back to Randolph. He was holding out his dabba to her. She smiled and reached out. Just as her fingers reached the dabba, Randloph’s finger slipped, inadvertently closing the lid on Kriti’s finger. She pulled it back, instinctively. Randolph stood up in fright.
A small scratch appeared on her finger. He took her finger and examined it, holding it close to his face. “I’m so sorry. Does it hurt?” He pressed the finger, to check if it bled. When a tiny dash of red appeared, he panicked. He involuntarily drew in his breath. She was a little shocked at this reaction and pulled her finger away to examine it herself.
She shook her head and smiled as she looked at it, “It’s just a small cut.” She blew on her finger. “May be I’ll go hold it under water or something. It’s burning a little bit.”
“I’ll come with you.”
“Oh don’t fuss over it so much, Kriti. It’s not such a big wound.” Pooja looked a little disgruntled.
“It’s burning a little bit, especially because it’s just below the cuticle.”
“Yeah, you should hold it under water in the basin.” Randolph picked up his bag and took Kriti by one arm and started walking towards the canteen. Kriti did not resist and went along with him.
After she had held her finger under the faucet for a while, she said “I think it’s ok now.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah, I don’t think I’ll bleed to death.” She said, and laughed.
Randolph wasn’t amused. “Ok, if you say so. But listen,”
“What?”
“I’m really sorry.”
She looked into his eyes and smiled. He was so tense. He looked at her with big, concerned, light brown eyes. She felt a warm thrill run down her spine. The recess bell rang and suddenly there was commotion in the canteen. They stood there in silence. Kriti tried to suppress the thrill she felt, as she took a deep breath and said with a slight shrug,
“It’s ok.”

(1)

He had a cold, the day he died.

The night before, he had felt a little itch on the roof of his mouth, and an irritation in the throat. It’s time I took a day off, he had told himself. He hadn’t had good sleep. He woke up thrice during the night feeling thirsty. And in the morning, he woke up with a heavy head and a runny nose.
“Cad you please bake be somb strog coffee?” he asked his wife “I have ad imported meetig today.”
He liked the way she ran her fingers through his hair and kissed his forehead before she got out of bed.

He noticed a light red stain on his left cuff and remembered how he had got it. He was having lunch with his colleagues when the new employee had decided to introduce herself to them. He had unwittingly tilted his plate as he got up to introduce himself. The red oil of the subzi had soaked into his left cuff. He tried not to think of the neckline of her kurta as she leaned across the table to shake his hand. He sniffed hard. He had tears in his eyes. He wished he could take the day off. But he picked up his bag and went in search of his wife.
“I’ve made strong black coffee for you. Also, have that pill before you go.” She was sitting in the living room reading the newspaper.
“Will you be late cobig homb today?” He asked
“I don’t know depends on my boss’ mood” she said and turned to him with a smile.
He picked up his coffee and ignored the pill.
“I wish I could take the day off.”
One of the things he loved about her was her smile. She was spare with her emotions usually. But her smile said everything.
“You’ll be fine. Just don’t work too hard. And come back home early and sleep.”

He wiped his nose thoroughly while he waited for the signal to turn green. He hated driving to work in the morning. Luckily, he didn’t have to do it every day. He carpooled with his three friends from work. They were waiting for him just across the signal. He looked at his watch. He was only 10 minutes late today. He grinned. He started up the car when the people in front of him started up their cars. He put it into gear when he saw some of the cars moving ahead. But as he stepped on the accelerator, he sneezed. It was a loud, energy consuming, nerve shattering sneeze. He lost control of the steering wheel for a split second. It was lucky that he was on the left hand corner of the road. He would only have hit the pavement, if at all. But he didn’t. He gained control again and drove past the signal and stopped at his friend’s gate.
“You’re in no condition to drive today. Chal, I’ll drive.” Good friends they were. He put up no resistance and quietly moved to the passenger’s seat.
As they pulled up at the office building, they noticed a large crowd gathered around the gate. He cleared his throat and sniffed. He wished he had had that pill. Someone came to the car and said, “There was a fire last night. Nothing very big, but the electricity to one side of the building is completely shut.” They parked the car and joined the crowd.
“You look terrible” said his boss, who walked up to him from the crowd. The parking area was empty except a couple of cars, including his own.
“I developed a cold last night.”
“Why don’t you take the day off? Anyway I don’t think the meeting will happen today. Our floor has no electricity.”
“Are you sure? I mbeed I’d really appreciate it.” He couldn’t believe his luck.
“Go home. Get well soon” said the boss. He was grinning and shaking his head as he ran back to the crowd.

May be he will make some nice hot soup for himself, when he reaches home. The traffic was very light on this side of the road. He was going against the rush hour traffic. He was thrilled at how scarcely he used the brake. It would take only half as much time as it took to go to work.

It was almost noon when he reached back. It was scorching hot when he got out of his car but he couldn’t stop sniffling. He walked into the building, barely noticing the watchman who was fast asleep, or the third floor aunty who waved at him, or the two men who seemed to be looking for someone. The lift wasn’t working again. He had to drag himself up the stairs. His head seemed to get heavier and he felt feverish. He pulled up his bag and held it to his chest and sniffed hard. His head was pounding. I think I will take that pill after all, he decided.

If he wasn’t so drowsy with cold he would have noticed the two men walking up the stairs behind him. He would have realised they were stopping on his floor. He would have turned to them and asked them who they were looking for. He would have noticed that one of them was holding something behind his back. As he opened the door to his house, the men pushed past him into the house and kicked the door shut. One held his arms behind his back as the other cupped his mouth and pulled out a knife. Before he had time to react, he felt his flesh being sliced through. A searing pain rose from his gut and into his chest. He felt the cold blade inside his stomach twisting and then being pulled out. He tried to wriggle his hands free. A second later, he was let go. He tried to make some sound but instead, he vomited blood. He couldn’t hold himself up anymore. His knees buckled and let his head fall to one side.

He thought of his wife and then he thought of his soft bed. His head started spinning, and he started losing consciousness. The floor was covered with blood and the two men had disappeared. He reached into his pocket and took out his phone. He dialled his wife’s number and then he let himself sink. He was dying. He coughed and felt the metallic taste of blood in his mouth. He sniffed and felt blood in his nose.

A Book Upon the Sand

Those last rays that struggle to survive, that cool breeze at half past five,
Roasted corn and salted nuts, balloon monkeys, were all alive.

Broken toys and chattering children, frozen hearts and gossiping women
Swollen eyes and the setting summer; over all these passed a breeze silken.

There lay a book upon the sand, a little tattered, scribbled by hand;
It’s leaves fluttering hopeful and exhausted, but on a new page the moon did land.

The Big Uncle with the Big Moustache

I was the first one to call him the Big Uncle. I was afraid of him as a child because of this one incident that had occurred when I was seven years old.

I had developed a boil on my right arm which hurt terribly. Everybody had said that the only thing to be done is to burst it. But nobody had the guts to actually do it. Even my mother refused to do it because it was too gruesome for her. Big Uncle stepped in to do the job. He saw me writhing with pain and knew something should be done about it. He came to me and said, “All it will take is one minute of pain, I promise. After that you will feel nothing. This thing will be gone.”

“What will you do?” I asked him, cautiously.

“Nothing, only burst it.” The thought left me shaking with fear. But Big Uncle said it so cheerfully that I was confused for a minute. I ran, not knowing what else to do.

The sun burnt down on me with a vengeance as I held on to my right elbow tightly. I was running away from the big uncle with the big moustache. My mother insisted that it is for my own good, but my seven year old self refused to believe that a man willing to twist my arm is trying to do me any good. I held on to my right elbow for dear life. The boil that had developed on it the day before, now was the size of a 25 Paise coin and was oozing menacingly. Wedding preparations were going on in Painkulam and there were enough people to hide a little girl like me. I quietly found a little corner in the veranda and sat there for a while.

“I told you, you cannot hide from me!” the voice made me tremble uncontrollably. I knew who it was before I recognized the big moustache among all the million faces swimming above me. His smile looked so endearing yet so frightening! “I’m telling you it will not take more than a minute. You will just feel a prick, that’s all. I promise.” I shook my head wildly. “Come on. I’ll give you lots of chocolate after that.”

I felt my eyes watering. I wanted to be brave and fight him. But I could see him losing patience by the minute. “Come quickly or I’ll have to take your hand forcibly” he said ominously. I shut my eyes and told myself, maybe he isn’t that bad. May be my mother is right, is it for my own good. The gigantic boil on my hand is not going to get any better. Might as well let him do whatever he wants with it. So, I gingerly stretched out my right arm. Instantly he grabbed it and twisted it in order to take a better look at the boil.

As if this wasn’t frightening enough, he took the boil between index finger and thumb and squeezed it hard. The pain was excruciating. I screamed so loud that the entire veranda went silent. It was over in a second. But the memory of the pain is still vivid in my mind.

My hand healed quickly after that and Big Uncle gave me goodies to eat afterwards; for being brave. I would take the jackfruit jams and the juicy mangoes and ignore whatever he said. I was still soar from the pain he had inflicted upon me.

Now when I look back on that day I realize, he was the bravest of all that day. Nobody else could muster up the courage to get rid of that awful boil and make me better. Not even my mother could stand touching the thing. I did not speak to Big Uncle for the rest of my stay at Painkulam that year. It took me a while to get over my fear of him. But I learnt quite quickly that, although he caused me some grief, it was for my own good. Over time, I have grown very fond of the Big Uncle with the Big Moustache and a Bigger Smile.

Forgive me for this post. Out of boredom and ennui, it came... but enjoy

It’s a purple room. But the paint has faded and it looks more like a very light shade of baby pink under the white light. The elongated table in the far corner of the elongated room is animated. The giant computer screen occupies half the space making the other residents of the table press together in the other half. The stacked up cds in one corner is headed by the queen cd holder with a golden crown over her. There is a little stuffed lion hiding, behind a mug pretending to be a pen-stand. The mug is efficient, because it holds several pens without ink, unsharpened pencils some candle sticks and some nail-files.

The lion is now peeping over at the new comers, a stack of papers a colourful book, an empty pouch and a headphone. As if this table top was not crowded enough! The empty plastic bottle doesn’t seem to be pleased about being shoved to the edge. The large green file is also annoyed at being side-lined in this clumsy manner. A little wooden urn, another pouch and some other smaller things wish they had a say in the matter.

But we all know; it is a power struggle. The bigger, the more influential...
Or that’s what you may think, if you don’t notice the carefully placed little box at the centre of the table with a pair of silver earrings awaiting to be worn.

Who’s table is this?

That first time again

This was it. I had to do this. It has been a while, and I might sound like a horse, but I need to do this. For my self. For my peace of mind. For me to know, that I can do this. I squatted on the floor, placed my hands on my lap, straightened my back, closed my eyes and took a slow deep breath. As I breathed in I took in the ring of the electronic shruti. The amalgam of three basic notes. I separated them, unconsciously and chose my note. And synced my voice with the shruti and sang my first note after a long time. I felt my vocal cords vibrate and my voice surrounded me. I felt myself swaying as if I was swimming in the tone of my note. I was almost out of breath but I held on until the end. Then I took another slow deep breath. The silence was deafening. I sang the next note until my breath gave way. Then the third, and the fourth and the fifth. I was singing again.

Strangers

A single drop of sweat ran down her temple and into the shallow cave under her jaw. The orange street light and the white light inside the bus reflected against that single line of sweat, accentuating her slender, oval face. An angry finger wiped it off clumsily. Little fringes of her hair stuck to her forehead, undisturbed by the rhythmic bobbing of her head. I couldn’t help being thankful for the humidity that day.

I was on my way back from work. On an impulse I had stopped for pani puri at the roadside chaat stall outside my office. Sairam’s stall was as usual swarming with young professionals refreshing themselves from a hard Monday’s work. I had to squeeze and push my way through to reach the panipuri wala. But I was in no hurry to leave. The traffic on the road didn’t encourage me to add my bike to it. I was rolling up my sleeves when the BEST bus came to a halt in front of the stall. It was so close to the pavement that the tires almost brushed against the concrete bricks. The bus was packed with the rush hour crowd. With every lurch of the bus, the crowd inside moved in inertia like a tribal dance.

She was a peculiar sight. I don’t know what was peculiar about her but there was something about her that caught my attention. She was seated in the front of the bus at a window seat. She had earphones on and an elbow stuck out of the window. She had long wavy hair that was tied in a pony tail at the nape of her neck. Tiny fringes of curly hair sprung out on her forehead. She was fair. There was a slight unconscious smile lingering on her lips. I couldn’t tell what her eyes looked like because they were hidden behind fat rimmed glasses. She was singing along with the music playing in her ears. I could see her only between a thickening layer of heads. But I saw that her eyes were shut, her head bobbed and her fingers tapped together in rhythm –

tap – tap tap – tap
tap – tap tap – tap

I suddenly lost my appetite. I asked for a glass of water instead. When the man gave it to me, I made my way out of the crowd around the stall. She had opened her eyes, and looked at the traffic jam ahead as if she had just noticed it. Silly girl, I said in my mind and shook my head as I poured some water into my cupped hand and splashed it across my face. I needed to cool my face badly. As I opened my eyes and looked up at the bus, still stationary. I noticed she was looking at me. She was longingly looking at the steel tumbler in my hand. Her eyes slowly shifted to my face and suddenly my face felt very hot. She looked at me with piteous eyes as if to ask something of me. A strange energy rose up in my stomach, past my chest. But as it reached my throat it came out in a sudden laugh.

I panicked. I knew that was the wrong reaction. And it wasn’t even what I wanted to do. I waited for her reaction. She looked at me one long second and giggled under her breath, a little embarrassed. I relaxed. The bus lurched further and suddenly I realized the bus was going to move. For the wildest second I considered getting on the bus. But I didn’t. And walked to my bike. And left.