Contractor's fancy

Chandan Mishra had a good life. He lived in a small hut in a posh slum in the middle of his city. He was a proud man for he had started as a small time labourer and risen to become a small time contractor. His life was like every other small time contractor’s life with its own twists and turns. He was man with varied tastes and bad habits. Famously infamous among his people, he lived life with zest.

One fine night as the contractor was returning from his midnight activity he walked on his beloved street that led home. It was an inconsequential street with its own share of open sewers and cow dung. But it was his street. On this very street he had contributed in the construction of the new showroom and the famous mall. This midnight the street was just his for there was no other sign of life anywhere. He spoke to himself, “Build all the modernity in the world and my city still sleeps by 11.” He laughed to himself and walked on the street back home as he had done a million times. However tonight was different. Because instead of going back home he stopped. Something had caught his fancy. Something that never really happened every night.

He stopped to look at an old building that stood between his modern marvels. It was an old style four storey building that stood shamelessly on the street. Old, damp and in ruins was how it appeared. But to the contractor it looked like a past he had almost grown to forget. The building was an ordinary building with its own share of cracks and broken windows. But what caught his eye was the fact that on a street where everyone slept by 11 someone was awake. On the rightmost corner of the third floor a light glimmered. A yellow eerie light that shone out the window and caught the fancy of the man standing across the street. He couldn’t take his eyes of it. It seemed to call out to him to keep looking. Oddly mesmerised our contractor stood there as a dazed spectator and kept looking at the window. The window showed a simple room and the light reflected of the wall right in front. There was no activity just that yellow light. For a normal night and a normal person this wasn’t such a spectacle. Many would have confused the contractor’s fancy as a perverted invasion of someone’s privacy. Yet despite no movement the contractor kept staring. In a few moments he saw some movement. In the yellow light a beautiful woman emerged. He couldn’t see her face but from her shadow he could make out that she was beautiful. Slowly and gracefully she took of all her clothes almost as if she was teasing the contractor. She pulled out a long cloth and wrapped herself in it. She had some magic in her for the contractor felt a pang. He couldn’t help staring at her. She disappeared somewhere and showed up again. This time she threw something out of the window. Our silly contractor should have left but his curiosity didn’t let him leave. Instead the fool got up and ran towards the bag she had thrown. He wanted to know what his mysterious muse had thrown away. He searched through the trash pile and found the bag. Before he could look into it he turned around. To his horror he saw his muse staring at him with a look of terror and fury combined. She was dangling half out of her window with her long hair falling on her face. Her hand was outstretched as if she wanted to grab the intruder by his throat and her mouth was twisted in a scream that never came out. Chandan felt fear and he ran. For some reason he ran. He didn’t even apologize but he ran with the bag clutched in his hand.

As he reached his hut he shut his door behind him. He felt uneasy but he pulled the bag he had just stolen closer. He should have left it there but in his panic he took it with him. The woman that had just terrified him had a hauntingly beautiful face. He looked at the bag and with trembling fingers opened it. He found among the contents a broken bottle of perfume that smelled of roses, a huge chunk of dark black hair and a bloody blade. He was terrified further. He knew he couldn’t keep this in his house. So he got up and threw the bag with all his might over the wall that surrounded his slum. He came back and went to sleep hoping he’d forget the entire night.

The next morning chandan woke up in a fit. He was sweaty all over and shaky. He knew last night had happened and the woman had haunted him in his dreams all the while saying, “ You shouldn’t stare!” convincing himself that all that was just a dream he got up to go to work. As he was about to leave his home he saw the same bag right across the street. He shook his head to shake of the creepy feeling and went about his day. He kept saying, “It’s just a normal day!”

His job today was easy and he wanted to get over with this day. All he had to do was demolish an old building. He followed his herd of labourers towards the decided address. As they were walking he recognized his own street and in a few moments to his horror he stood face to face with the very building that he had ogled at last night. He was perplexed. They couldn’t tear down a building still inhabited by people. He took out his papers and as he read through them he realised that the building had been uninhabited since the past five years. No one was living in the building and a team of government officials had sealed it a month back.

To hold onto his sanity he had to check himself. He ran into the building hoping to find nothing there making the last night a mere drunken haze. As he climbed the building he saw that every house had been locked and sealed. No lady could break those locks. He reached the home he wanted to check and found it sealed and locked like every other house. He stood there for a few moments. Convinced it had all been his imagination he started to descend and that’s when it happened. He smelt rose. A strong sent of roses began to envelope him and he felt suffocated. Panic stricken he looked all around but could find nothing. He began to run down the stairs and a voice filled his head, “You shouldn’t have stared!” it was a silent whisper but it followed him throughout. He came running out and he was back on the street at midnight. He saw a man seated across the street with a beautiful woman. He was drunk and she was beautiful. She smelled of roses. He remembered. He saw them ascend the stairs, he followed. They were in a different time he could feel it. He saw them stumble into the house on the third floor. He followed them inside. She kept giggling and he wore a smirk on his face. She dragged him to his bedroom. As Chandan gaped around he could see that he was in the woman’s house. The walls were adorned with photographs of the other man and woman.

In a sultry voice she said, “Do you want to do it in the dark or do you want to turn on the lights?”

He said, “I always like it in the light where I can see what I am doing?”

“What if someone sees us?”

“In a city that sleeps by midnight, who will? Now take of your clothes and do it slowly!”

“You are the boss.”

And chandan saw her undress. She grabbed the blanket on the bed and wrapped herself in it. “I’ll be right back!”

She went inside and came out with something hidden behind her back. The man waited for her on the bed. And chandan stood there watching the whole scene play out in front of him. She came out and told him, “I hate your beard! It makes me it itchy!”

He laughed and told her, “You want me to shave? Now?”

She giggled, “I can do it for you! And i guarantee you it will be the best shave you have ever had!”

He nodded and half naked she approached him, sat on him and slowly began to cut his hair. As she progressed Chandan saw a change. Her motions became violent. And the man’s moans turned into screams of pain. Like a maniac she cut his neck and her face was splattered with blood. She rose wiped her face on the blanket. She looked at him with furious eyes, “ You unfaithful bastard! You deserve death!”

She grabbed a bag lying on the table. She collected all the hair and the blade in that bag and threw it outside the window. “We shouldn’t make a mess now should we, you asshole!”

As she was at the window Chandan walked towards the bed and had a look at the man who had just been brutally murdered. As he saw the face he felt a shock. Right in front of him mutilated in the most monstrous way possible was the man from the photographs on the wall. Stabbed and bloody. He got up confused and afraid. He stared at the calendar right in front of him. he was in another decade. He didn’t understand. As he turned she stood right in front of him with a twisted smile.

The last thing he heard was, “You shouldn’t have stared!”

-Shweta and Denny 

That place

Alone. All alone. He stood all alone in the middle of that place. His eyes looked up at the sky looking at the stars. Stars were his world. His only friends who would never leave him. He had recently learned that the twinkle that people saw in the sky was just the brightness of the stars reaching the earth late. So in reality people saw the past. A past memory of the very bright stars. He was looking at the light that had glowed hours back. His only friends were pigments of some distant memory that didn’t even belong to him. The grass felt cold under his bare feet. He had spent the entire day inside and the night time was the only time he ever came out to look at the stars, rather the memory of the stars. He felt a cool breeze bristle past him. It was that time of the season when it was a little cold. He felt the hair on his hand rise and goose bumps covered his body. That place always did it to him. The first time around he’d been there he couldn’t survive it for more than a few hours but today he felt like he was back home. Back to that happy time where all he had felt was laughter and bliss.

In his rut of a life he was considered a recluse who rarely talked, kept to himself, worked a lot and just survived every day. But at night, every night since that fateful night, he’d come to the very spot where he stood now. He would sit and think of the times that had passed. The time he had laughed. The time he had played. The time he had made love. The time he had smoked. The time he had felt like he was happy. He could hear the laughter at times. But more often than not he heard a piercing silence. The silence just reminded him of the absence of what he had lost. Yet he came to keep that pain alive. To keep that memory alive. It had been almost a decade and yet the place kept him on a leash. For the watchmen who made his night round, this man was a nutcase. The watchmen had seen him cry, seen him dance, seen him sing, and seen him run here and there. It was the most unreal sight to see a grown man with a decent lifestyle act like a mad one. He would often shrug and say, “Those city folk are weird!” and walk away.

But the watchmen knew not why he stood there and danced or sang or wailed. This man felt at ease when he was there. It was the only place he would feel like himself or at least feel a distant connection to the man he had once been. An outlet to his past, a past so glorious and so distant. When he wasn’t here he felt like a dummy whose strings were in the hands of an unknown force. He would live through a day and not remember a single thing he had done that held any importance. His life was passing by like a meaningless debacle. But he felt something at night. He felt calm. A connection when he came back to that place. Today he was content by just sitting at his spot and looking at the stars. For the past few days he had been feeling uneasiness. His emotions had changed. The feelings had changed. They seemed like a distant memory now. They still left a pang in his heart but he had stopped prancing around and reliving. Now he would just sit and remember. It had become harder. Some things had changed. Some hadn’t. Some memories lived. Some died. And he felt incomplete. He felt suffocated without them but he had no choice. He couldn’t abandon them again. He couldn’t run again. He just couldn’t walk away again and live his life without this. This was his place. His everything.

He smiled when he remembered the time that she had kissed him. They awoke in each other’s embrace and he remembered her hands had caressed his face. They had one of those kisses, the kind that makes you feel connected. It was a perfect kiss. Passion and intimacy. He remembered how he had walked through his home looking around. He felt comfortable in his home. He even thought of his child, his little girl who looked like an angel while she slept on her princess bed in her room. He could hear his mother’s voice in the background singing her daily prayer. He could see his father struggling with the new sport shoes and fussing about how complicated things had become. He walked through that morning like he had every night. And then things changed. They felt a jerk. A jerk they had never felt before. Everyone looked shocked. His little girl was awake and calling for her mother. He saw her run to their child. His mother’s voice had stopped singing. His father stood with one shoe in his hand the other on his foot and fear on his face. And the jerking began. Everything began shaking. At first it was a jerk and then it grew. It grew into a violent and deadly shake. Everything was falling. The walls that had been their safe harbour were beginning to crack. At first they were small but the cracks grew exponentially. The walls began to break. He yelled for them all to run and lead them. Soon they were outside their home running down the stairs to get out. Everything was crumbling around them. Piece by piece everything fell. His father was the first to fall. His little girl kept screaming out of fear. His wife was drained of all her blood out of shock. She couldn’t move. She was in a state of panic. He tried to move her but she wouldn’t. He picked her up and ran. He was too scared to register his father’s fatal fall. He just ran. He had to save everything. He had to save everyone. They were his life, his family. He ran dragging and pulling them. And that’s when the floor beneath their feet crumbled. In a moment the beautiful morning turned deadly and soon he was pressed down on his own daughter and his wife on his other hand. A huge slab of rock pressed him from the back. His daughter was bleeding and his shirt was drenched with her blood. His wife was stiff in his arms. He saw his mother’s feet right in front of him. A bigger stone pressed her down. For the next 37 hours he lay their incapacitated. He passed in and out of consciousness. His daughter’s breath kept falling. His wife wasn’t moving at all. He kept believing he was dead too. He didn’t want to let them go. He kept holding onto them. There were times when he’d feel tears down his cheek but he wasn’t sure how real they were. He prayed for this to be a bad dream but god wasn’t listening. Suddenly he felt movement. The huge slab of debris that pinned him down began to move. He felt hands grabbing him. He strengthened his grip on his family. He couldn’t let them go. They might survive. He didn’t want to let them go. But everything else was a blur.

He woke up with a jolt. He was in the hospital one moment listening to the doctor tell him of his family’s death and the other he was back at the place where once his building, his home and his family stood. His eyes were wet. His heart was aching. He was back underneath that rock pressing him to his dead daughter. His hands shivered with which he had held his wife. He was there with them. He was there alone. He could still see his mother’s bloody feet, his father’s shoes, his daughters scream and his wife’s last kiss.

The stars were disappearing and the sky had turned greyish. The sun was about to rise and another pointless day without his family awaited him. He got up and turned to walk away from the life he wanted more than anything. The life that the earthquake had taken away from him. Other than God he blamed no one. And he walked. The only sense of life that he felt was when he came to the death bed of his family. That earthquake had taken a lot from a lot of people. He called it god’s joke. God had left him healthy and unharmed but had killed his soul, his reason for life.

~Dedicated to the millions who died during the earthquake that happened almost a decade back in Gujarat on 26^th January 2001. It was one of the most horrific experience of my life. The pain and suffering was unimaginable.

Shweta A. K.

Something inside.

I did it today! I did what I shouldn’t have done, what I shouldn’t have said and what I shouldn’t have thought. The priest told me envy is a sin. The priest told me lying is a sin. The priest told me lust is a sin. Still I did it. And today I suffer from the consequence of my own darkness. I loved a man I shouldn’t have and mistook his lust for love. I lied to the world about him and today I bare the consequence of that lie. I trusted the wrong woman and today I stand betrayed, alone and angry.

The priest told me to control my anger and take the misfortunate incidents of my life punishment for the sins that I have committed and as a true Christian I bore it all in silence. And then it happened today. That final burst of anger, of an emotion so deeply repressed that it exploded. I saw him and I saw her and I saw them and all I could think of was the wrong that had been done. My mind refused to accept it as the punishment for my sin. I stood there feeble and weak as if I couldn’t do anything to punish the monsters that had ruined my life. I wanted to make them suffer; make them pay for the illness they had spread in my life.

Love is sincere and beautiful. Friendship is honest and faithful. Trust is binding and liberating. Things the priest had taught me at every Sunday mass. I hadn’t just learned them I had lived them. A moral life of a true Christian. I had followed the testaments of Christ to every word. Life was perfect. Prayer was my only job. A life that just wasn’t wrong. The priest then told us about love and marriage. The day I learned about love I wanted to love a man and have a beautiful marriage. The only marriage that I had known as a young imp was that of the lousy neighbours who fought all day long and threw things. I always thought marriage was a war. But the priest told me marriage is holy. And I wanted everything holy in my life. So I wanted love and I found a man who wanted love. And I gave him my love, but he only took what he really needed and did not find in me what he wanted. I couldn’t even blame him. The church forbade it. He wasn’t wrong. At least that is what I believed. I let him go. You had to, as my very wise spinster aunt told me that if you really love someone you must let them go. If they come back they are true else it was never meant to be, it was god’s will. So I let him go and he left. Never came back. I cried tears of sorrow without the world’s knowledge. The priest only knew. He was bound to. Confessions was the only Christian way to come clean.

Lost love I found solace in a friend. A friend who had been wronged by a lot of people and misunderstood by everyone.  She was very different from the church. A person unique and unreal. I saw some sense of sincerity and understood her darkness. Judging her wasn’t my job it was the holy God’s. She taught me a lot and I stood by her. She helped me move on. Move far ahead and she always told me to stand up and fight. Forget the man who left me and embrace the options I had. She ridiculed the church. Showed me a side to them I never saw before. Showed me how wrong they were or how wrong she thought they were. I was too lost to comprehend anything. Trust was the only thing I could bestow on her and trust is all I had to offer. And trust is what I lost in the transition.

With her being dark was easy. With her being bad was easy but being with her wasn’t easy. And the fruit of my stupidity is what I bear today. I am ousted from the church I once was loved in and she stands on the holiest pedestal there could ever have been given. As an outsider I try to remember what a true Christian should do. I must wait for god’s justice and wait is what I did. Patiently I stood outside the church everyday hoping to find that justice, to find that solace and to find the peace that I deserved. But I had none. But I got none. The man I loved didn’t love me back. The friend I trusted took my biggest secret and my good faith and turned me into a laughing stock an ostracized joke. She told the church that I had committed the ultimate sin. Of loving another man. You see Christ doesn’t accept one man’s love for another. My hidden repressed feelings were what betrayed me. My moment of passion was what destroyed me. I was a simple honest to heart Christian who loved Christ and did everything Christian. My only mistake was to find love in another man, engage in homosexuality the ultimate sin. My other mistake was to trust a sweet honest woman with my secret. Let her know my darkest secret. Her ridicule of the church convinced me that my sin was love. She twisted my reality and exposed me to win back stature in the church and I was thrown out like a useless life form.

So I did it today. I took my father’s old gun determined to make those pay for the sins they did. I went and stood outside the church on a Sunday morning. I knew they both would be there. Pretending to pray, pretending to love Christ and basking in the glory they got at my cost. I stood outside the church to fire those bullets that would set me free forever. The gates opened and my hand fastened on the trigger. As I saw them walk out I pulled the trigger.

When a bullet is fired it can pierce through anything. The first one pierced through my heart. The second through my head. And I saw those two sinister people gape at my dying body. They deserved the guilt. They deserved the pain. And I needed the liberation. I am flying into heaven now. Where my Christ will decide my destiny, my eternity. After all I was a true Christian.

Escapade

I stood on the outskirts. It had been a long day and the herd stopped to rest. They surrounded the pond and hogged down the cool water. I had had my sip and lurked on the edges of our marked territory. We were going to settle her for the next few sun sets. While the leaders discussed the future of the herd, the followers looked at them with monotonous eyes. Nothing out of the ordinary.

A young leader was rebelling against the aged ones; the minister was intervening with the leader’s wishes. They were all agitated and prepared to fight. I had been a part of it all not so long back and now as I looked at them squabbling over petty issues to assert their dominance I felt my food rise up my throat. I looked around my not so special herd. We were all slaves of one another, slaves of the rut that we were forced into. As a young one my folks told me that to survive I must fall in line as the entire herd did. We survive because we follow each other. I was never the kind to follow suit. I was different but they changed me to become one of them. The only way to fit in was to be normal. Was to be enslaved. It wasn’t a cruel life. Much better than the kind of life ill fated rebels had received. Imprisonment by the humans, being murdered by a stronger predator and worst of all being caged. At least I had a secure survival. I had food, water, shelter and a future to look forward too but I swear the open meadow that I stared at looked so tempting. When you have the gift of speed in your bloods merely standing still just doesn’t work.

It was a moment’s glimpse that caught my eye. As I looked around the boundary of our occupation I caught a glimpse of the beautiful meadow right ahead. Right as I was about to stare into its beauty I heard screams. As I turned I saw a fight breaking out between the old leader and the new one. They argued and fought as they always did. And I had to go forward to calm them down. It was my job. Unsuccessful, I managed to be thrown off. Giving up I went back to my spot. As I looked back at the open space the meadow beyond me felt a tingle in my nerves. It was beautiful. An open ground with a never ending horizon to run after and the element of not knowing what lay ahead. I felt a jolt I hadn’t before but I couldn’t leave. Leaving meant rebellion and rebels were never treated right.

Yet that meadow looked so beautiful, the grass honestly seemed greener and the fresh air was just too irresistible. But every eye of the herd was on me. They never understood me. I was the weird one. They never understood my musings about freedom. I could see right through each and every one of them.  How each of them had compromised so much to fit in that they resembled each other in more ways than one. And they considered me an outcast who was too foolish to understand that to survive you either becomes the alpha or you follow the alpha. And the alpha was no leader himself but was a slave of the herd. It was suffocating to pretend to be ordinary when every bone in my body wanted to rebel. Was I too afraid? Or was I just bound? I didn’t know. This life that I had chosen was the only life I had ever known. Our herd frowned upon rebellion and called it a sin. But why would they consider freedom to be a sin. I wanted to run away yet my legs felt heavy as if they’d been bolted to the ground beneath me. I was stuck in this herd with no friends. None of them understood me. None could be trusted. Each of them had their own regrets that they reflected unto others. The greedy ones only wanted power and food. The selfish ones took what they needed. The holy ones were above everything else and were engrossed in their own world. The foolish one’s played into the hands of the greedy and selfish ones. The sincere ones never got their dues yet kept working unquestionably. The alpha men treated everyone else like dirt and everyone was an alpha to someone else. The lowest of them all were the returned rebels- the ones who had failed to find freedom or survived from a misfortune and had to return to the herd. They were treated like dirt. Everyone saw them as the black sheep. No one respected their will to explore. As the day ended the herd began to rest. I was about to sleep when the minister approached me. I was appointed as the back guard which translated into a night watchman for the entire herd. The minister did babble on about how age had taken its toll on the alpha. When I refused to be a part of his petty politics he left disappointed. And I was left with no other alternative but to stand still and stay awake and alert. As time went by my visitors increased. One after the other followers of the young alpha came and hounded me with ill facts about the old alpha. Power struggles- they all have the same pattern. One contender who is too eager and too hungry and one contender who is too adamant. I heard them fuss about the sorry condition of the herd. I was dazed and my head began to hurt. With time their numbers decreased and I was left in my solitude. Silence never seemed better. The fresh cold air in my lungs made me feel alive. I felt that urge again to run. To run into the wilderness away from all of it. I was in a place where unknown darkness seemed more tempting that the well known life that I had.

In that moment, the temptation just overtook me. I ran! I ran away from the place where I had stood still for so long. I felt like God. I was running like I was meant too. The wind had to catch up with me. The sound of my hooves on the grass was music to my ears. I felt the air rush on my face. It tasted sweet, like the taste of freedom. I was in control; every turn I took was my own. I could feel the shackles breaking. I didn’t feel any burden no more all I could feel was liberation. I was free. Running wild like I was meant too and it felt real. It felt natural and most of all I felt elated. I ran and I ran into the wilderness unaware of what lay ahead. It was a chase and I was in pursuit of the horizon that never seemed to come closer. I was free and happy for the first time in my life. I felt like I had when I was younger when the word responsibility meant going back to mother at sunset and lying under her warm body and drifting off to sleep. I was free. As I kept running I realised that I had left herd behind. I knew I had to return in time. Yet the time I had now was mine. All mine.

-Shweta A. K.

Just another story

“It’s raining outside. Come on. Let’s go out!” she nudged him under the desk.

“No, we have to study. Two days and then exams! We can’t go out now!” he responded in a light whisper.

“Oh you are totally useless. Fine I’ll go alone you sit in this stinky library and study” she got up and left.

He saw her leave and followed her. Of course he wasn’t going to let her go out alone. As they walked out of the air conditioning into the world outside the rain looked beautiful. Heavy rains had the entire place drowned. She looked back at him and smiled. Satisfaction that he had followed overwhelmed her. Her smile as ever made him flutter a little. And giggling she ran out into the rain. Though they were outside the library, she acted as if she was in her own world. The raindrops felt like heaven. He walked behind her watching her every move. She swayed gracefully in the rain. Jumping on a puddle, singing in her non musical voice and running around like an excited five year old. He was lost in her giggles, lost in her beautiful smile only to be brought back by her awful singing.

He smiled at her and let his own self get wet drop by drop. She came back to where he stood and said,” you know whenever it rains like this I feel like I am watching the end of the world.”

He raised one eyebrow at her not knowing how to answer and shrugged. He was not the kind who talked much. She continued, “When it rains like this, you know, the whole cats and dogs analogy, don’t you ever wonder why? It’s like god wants to wipe the slate clean. Like all of it must finish today so that once all this stops a new world can be born again. Like a fresh new start. What do you think?”

He was puzzled. It was so like her to philosophise about everything. He sheepishly said, “I think it’s raining very heavily and it’s beautiful.”

“Hmmm...so you mean to say the end of the world is beautiful. Wow, that’s a different way to look at it. But when the world ends we’d be too terrified to look at the beauty of things. Wont we?”

He stared at her. Not knowing what to say. She was in her element talking about things that he never could comprehend. He let her babble on and saw her talk. The way the drops of water made her face sparkle fascinated him. He was in love with her and all he wanted to do was to make time stand still then and there. Love her forever. He always felt he never said it enough. He wanted to have a life with her. With her silliness, with her crazy talk and with all of her. He was never the kind who ever walked into a rainstorm. But he was out there. With her. Watching her dance, watching her jump. She wasn’t always that happy. She wasn’t always that alive. The rain brought it out in her.

He was so lost in his thought he failed to notice she had stopped talking. She was looking at him. He snapped out of his dream world with her and saw her looking back at him. She had a crooked smile on her face.

“You haven’t heard a word I have said have you!”

He nodded his head, “I paid attention till the world ended then I just lost interest.”

She laughed. He laughed. And then they were silent.

“I love you” he said.

She smiled. Took his hand in hers “you know I do too.”

“Say it then. It’s been so long since I heard you talk!”

She smiled at him again, “I love you”

“I miss hugging you, holding you in my arms and just brushing my hands through your hair” he said with a tear trickling his eye.

She looked at him with a pained expression on her face. “I come here only to meet you, you know that don’t you. I miss it too. But what can I do. I love you more than anything in this world but what can I do?”

He lifted his hand to brush her cheek, “it’s not the same you know.”

“I know!”

“What will I do? I can’t live like this!” he said.

She said, “You have to learn to live. You can’t keep holding on to me. I won’t come back!”

He said, “You said the same the last time. As soon as it rained you were here. I knew rain would always bring you back.”

“Stop it. What happened wasn’t supposed to happen. It was my fault. And now it’s done. You have to let go.”

“I can’t. I just can’t. When I see you like this I just want to love you forever.”

She had tears now and pleaded, “Stop it please. This is hard for me. I don’t come here to give you pain. I come here to see you. Every time is the last time. I can’t keep doing this forever. You need to move on. Why won’t you?”

“Because I really love you”

“Even now. Even after what I have done. I am such a fool. And you still do?”

“Yes I still do. And I can’t stop loving you ever.”

She looked at him, he looked at her and finally she said, “You have to learn to live without me. You know I am not true. You know I am not real. You know I am not here.”

“Yes you are. Yes you are real. I can feel you. I can see you. I can believe you.”

“That just you’re feeling taking over reality. I died. I am dead. And this is just your imagination. Don’t you remember that night?”

He said, “I don’t want to!”

“YOU MUST! We walked out of the library to walk. I wanted to go out. We were walking on the road. I got playful. It was dark. I shouldn’t have been fooling around on the road. That truck came. And...”

“No please stop! Stop!” he said.

She smiled, “I may be dead. But I still love you. Don’t torture yourself like this. Don’t go and sit in our old place where we used to sit in the library. Don’t pray for it to rain like it did that night. And don’t walk on that road to die the way I did. You must stop!”

“I won’t stay away from you...I love you...I will do whatever it takes.”

“I love you too...but you can’t do this everyday.........”

He broke down. And as he opened his eyes to look at her again she was gone. He was alone. Alone like he had been for the past so many years of his life. 

Smart India

There used to be a time in my life when I thought I am a part of the upcoming youth of India. That I am an example of how the young people of this country think and I would sit and wait for my turn. I would look myself in the mirror and say when I grow up I will be surrounded by people who are honest educated and socially aware just like me and I will build an army, an army of SMART INDIANS. Indians who are educated, and are not afraid to use their education, their intelligence to fight the evils that have crippled my country. And this army of young educated individuals would be invincible. I was pretty sure  about the fact that educated individuals can any day take on and defeat a bunch of illiterate politicians and gundas whose only power is might. I always thought that as a community, we could take over this country that we love so much.
And then I grew up. And I realized what really the youth means. It was just another bus ride that I was taking. As I stood in the midst of a variety of people and in the midst of a variety of smells, in the heat struggling to maintain balance and not fall on the weird guy who was sitting right behind me staring at me as if I was an alien, I realized something. What exactly do we mean when we say the youth? And what exactly is Young India? I mean you have the rich brats whose only obsession is getting the latest apple products and the not so rich brats who lust after them. You have your hopelessly poor youth whose daily battles for survival consume their entire life and often pressurize them to take up crime as a way of life. Or are we talking about the young people who we see washing our clothes or giving us chai at the Gallas and thellas we so love to hang out at. Or should I say that the young India is another IIT or some IT college mass produced engineer whose is looking forward to doing an MBA from abroad or IIM and go abroad or that doctor who topped PMT and is on the run to become a brilliant Doctor studying with another who got in through a hefty donation and through the ever popular NRI quota. And of course we have our roadside Romeos, the smart men who wear the latest Hindi film style clothes, ride on bikes around and believe in living life to the fullest, who painfully sigh at the tragedies that happen everyday but don’t let them interfere with ‘fun’. the metropolitan modern people with money and ambition or the small town hard working not so smart simple guy or the wannabe or the unfortunate or the irresponsible talented and it goes on and on. And then it hit me.
One thing about Indian bus drivers is their super ability to stop a vehicle as huge as a bus overcrowded way beyond the safety limit. Within seconds they can go from 60 to 0. And they get years of practice with nonchalant pedestrians who know they are immortal when they walk the roads and expect a huge bus to stop for them to cross the road instead of weight like a loser for the grand vehicle to pass. When that vehicle was stopped I did something I never thought I had it in me and I stopped myself from falling on the weird staring guy. I stood with a new found pride and smiled and then it hit me. As a youngster I didn’t know much about how life really is and how hard survival is and still India is thriving. Yes there are categories that each of us falls into and yes the Indian youth shows as much uselessness as the predecessors. But there is something different about the people today. They are growing to become fearless. And today when I think I believe that there are people who want to be free and independent. India is a country that nurtures hopes and dreams. Every man who travels in a bus hopes to drive a bike on the road one day. Every person who grew up as a chaiwalla works hard to give his children a better life. That hope to get better one day is what drives this nation. Yes there is corruption. Yes there are evils that would disgrace the devil. But there is also hope. There is a sense of getting a better life. Its more than survival. it’s the greed for a better life. And as my understanding grows with age and I see people around me I realize that everyone is fighting for something. And I realized education doest really give you the kind of encouragement that you really need to bring about a change. There are so many educated doctors and engineers I know who are a far cry from being civil or for that matter socially responsible. I still hold that dream of having an army of smart Indians but I don’t see only educated people. I see normal Indians who have not only fought and survived but have grown to get better lives.
I used to believe that the period of the revolution for independence was the best time for an Indian to be born. To live with the feeling of fighting for something you deserve- independence. To be surrounded by architects of society who believed in virtues like honestly, simplicity and peace. To live in a world where every Indian had a common enemy- a white fascist gora. And most of all to live with the feeling that you are ready to die for the land you live in always swelled me up with pride. And today I understand that apart from the hunger of freedom it was their greed to make things better that made them fight the mighty British and defeat them. I see that hunger today. And its never black or white as it used to be when I was young. Its become grey.
So smart Indians is a possibility but a possibility with very different members that I had expected to be. I mean wouldn’t you want that chaiwalla who fought strong and hard to give his son the best education and make him an engineer or the woman who refused to beg and worked as a labourer and even as a prostitute to protect her family and send her younger brother and sister off to college. Or that young engineer who worked hard in college and is working with the brightest minds abroad or that lawyer who chose to fight for the poor labourer who lost his hand in the factory or the young journalist who exposed how corruption is so rampant rather than sit on an expert panel and ‘discuss’ what should be done or wouldn’t you want the bright young man who studied hard for IAS so that he could change his village into a city. These are the people I see today as young SMART Indians. People who aren’t afraid to go out and make things better. Maybe for themselves or for someone else. You cant hold someone for wanting a better life. One day this feeling will become the public sentiment. One day we will say no to useless politicians who want to create divides in the name of regionalism, language, religion, caste. We will stabilize our self from a bad shock. Maybe get up or not fall at all when someone pulls on the break suddenly and we will smile and say “shut up! ” and take control in our own hands.


Shweta

BLIND

A city, a college and a career. Three things that define a lot more than any aptitude test can. As an impressionable modern young girl with a education career poses to be my only source that could help me sustain this life and more importantly this life style that I have grown accustomed to. Starting with the city I live in, I live in a simple city rather a mega city. it’s a fine cross between your run of the mill small towns with its own dash of modernity.  Gujarati at heart but dressed with Versace I am surrounded by people from all walks of life and all types of Guajarati. They are sweet with everyone, they have fun all the bloody time and they are smart when it comes to making money. And then there is my own background. A family full of professors, IAS officers, doctors and engineers and over expecting parents. They have big expectations and so do I. I love writing but I could never settle for a life that survives from paycheck to paycheck. And of course I am not the kind to shun away responsibility. So its tough to grow up in an environment where money is made and spent like the flow of a flooded river. Moreover morality poses a bigger dilemma than ever. Being brought up with values like sincerity, honesty, compassion and social responsibility doesn’t really prepare you for the world. It just kind of builds a character that you end up protecting and fighting, for the rest of your life.
Moreover college is your world. You have your peers, your friends who have dreams of their own, up bringing of their own and ideas of their own. Your ideas seem unreal in front of their more practical decisions. Your life seems more sketchy compared to their rich business nets to fall back on. Becoming an engineer was never a choice it was always the other alternative to medicine which I took fearing the intensity of studying medical demanded. And now that I am a proud Five point something Engineer in my third year I have the second biggest foot hold in my career glaring right into my eyes. And this time again I have two major choices- go corporate or go government. MBA or IAS.
Honestly being a topper in school is the worst fate a child can suffer. When you prove to your parents that you can win the battles they believe you can master the bigger wars. They brought me up with the belief that I could conquer the world if I wanted to and that I am destined too. And honestly this very belief scares the hell out of me. This entire deal with survival of the fittest. I envy the thinker of renaissance or the old poets and pundits that adorned the king’s court. They were treated like jewels as entertainers. Their work was appreciated and they lived an easy life. It is this easy life that we all fight for. Everyone wants to make it big and make life easy. The real reason for the shark fight out there. I can be romantic and talk about life as an artist who only lives to write. But romance is only as good as the three hour movie you watch. Once the romance fades reality hits you right in your front teeth. So now I am down to two choices ( my only choices)- either I can join the Indian Administrative Services and serve my country and gain access to power or I can gain the much coveted MBA degree from a venerable institute ( IIM or maybe abroad ) and become a big shot ceo in a company and earn in millions. I know I can do it. If I put my heart into it I can do it. As my dad makes me believe that I can rule the world. But these choices seem more like a rope around my neck. What do I pick? Do I go with that patriotism that I am struggling to keep alive within me or should I go for the comfort that I have grown so accustomed too. And I have seen great honest men turn into power hungry animals in a government that is meek internationally and a bully nationally.
All of us have heard the story of the unfortunate poor Indian who came in the way of the government. There are cover ups and there are conspiracies. The government is like the mafia with a license. Encounters, politically motivated murders and what not. Government kind of gives you ultimate security. And in turn you must give into the system. You can either get involved and alter your ways or you can stand as a distant by stander who never interferes- does his/her work and leaves. You take control and you have to control everything or be controlled.
And then there is corporate. You get to swim in money but that’s about it. You go against the very environment you want to protect. You cheat and bribe your own government. And you work like a dog so that you can live like a king. You are like the million others who pass out with you every day. You come up with thankless schemes for investment of money ( yours or someone else’s). and the only adventure your life has is the fluctuating market. You play with money. You win you earn loads. You loose someone looses a lot.
So it’s a choice between power and money. Two things you run after. Its like the decision you make is going to decide your position in the world. They talk about how miserable life gets and I somehow feel like a misfit. This choice is trouble. For someone who has no clue about life I feel like a blind person crossing a six lane highway on my own. Every step I take could take me to the safe side or could put right in front of a truck and then I am off the road.