Every single photon of sunlight has travelled 149,597,870 km of vacuum, eerie silence, star dust, dark matter and dark energy to come fall on you.
I am still letting that sink in.
Graciously Yours!
The Wrong Right.
They say the world is not a wish granting factory. They were correct.
His only wish was to dance. All he wanted to do was dance. He’d seen other children being praised for their dancing on television. They had fans! They had fame! And they did what they loved. Dance.
But here he was serving food to unknown people at a run-down hotel. His father couldn’t afford to grant his wishes. All wishes needed money. His father didn’t have much. His father had worked hard all his life to bring up his only son in the best possible manner but he couldn’t grant his sole wish. How cruel could destiny be?
He was going to take destiny in his own hands now. He would no longer cower down in fear and shame of letting go of his dreams. He’d do anything to fulfill his dream. Beg. Borrow. Or even kill. And kill he did. He killed his father’s pride. He killed his mother’s love. He killed his family’s name. He killed for money.
He had taken destiny in his own hands. But he didn’t know destiny had other plans in store. He’d live his dream. Only to be haunted by the dreams he’d killed.
The world, after all, is not a wish granting factory.
Graciously Yours!
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The Presence of The Past.
They say if you blink, you miss it. We waited impatiently, clicking pictures of others and selfies of ourselves, being photo bombed and photo bombing others, all the while creating memories which we probably wouldn’t refer back to again. Not because they wouldn’t be memorable. But because we create too many of them these days.
We were waiting for the lights at the famous Mysore Palace to go on. They say it looks enchanting. It is a work of technology which brings out the magnanimity of the work of art. It requires a single flick of a switch to light up thousands of little bulbs. 98,260 to be precise.
The Sun had set. Darkness had fallen. People were still clicking. Cameras were flashing. And just like that without any warning, without waiting for the clock to strike a particular hour, the lights went on! And enchanting it was!
Who would have thought a century ago that beauty could be kept locked up in pixels? Who would have predicted that you could hold the whole world worth of information just in your hands? How different our achievements are from those of our forefathers. They took pride in bigger and better; we in smaller and faster. They built with brick and mortar; we build with silicon and carbon. Their memories faded with time; ours with obsolescence. Their achievements were the heritage; ours is technology.
Graciously Yours!
Picture Courtesy : In collaboration with Ashwini Bhat.
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The Rebel’s Wife (2)
For all those who’ve been wanting more, specially the female who asked me at least thrice in the past week ~ here’s the rest of “The Rebel’s Wife“:
“Your father didn’t die in a road accident. Your father was killed on the road. The road was our home. We lost our house. We lost our land. We even lost our identity. The Government took away all that was ours. Or all that we thought we’d owned. And it didn’t even care. All it cared about was money. And we didn’t have any – for us or for them.”
She wiped her tears away. Years had passed and she’d seen worse days but she still went weak in her knees when she thought about those times. She looked into the eyes of her fifteen year old sons and continued.
“Your father, along with others, protested. They were agitating powerlessly against people so ruthless, so cruel and so unforgiving that I wondered if they were created by the same God. We were the wronged; but they looked down upon us. For days on end, we would be without proper food or water. A blanket was a luxury. Smiles seemed to have evaporated overnight. There would be children crying everywhere. Day or night, you could hear the shrieks of babies and the groans of the ill and old. The men were mostly away. Some came back to take their families elsewhere. By the end of the ordeal we were mostly women and children. No one cared if we lived or died. This went on for over a year. We were all scared. Some of us were paranoid. We thought our troubles would never end. But they did.”
“One form of trouble ended. The roads were no longer our homes. They were the burial ground for our men. And the homes they brought us to were the burial grounds for us women. They called my husband a rebel. A rebel he was. He rebelled for a home, for water, for food, for security, for identity, for a life. He rebelled for his family. And he rebelled for all the people he treated as family. He didn’t desert them and run. But he deserted us and died.”
She loved him. But she also hated him. And she let her kids know that today.
She got up to pack the twins’ bags. She was sending them off to the Army. Her country might treat her like the rebel’s wife, but she knew what her late husband wanted. Unlike him she didn’t see his vision of fighting for the masses against the classes but she never questioned him. She accepted that her fate was tied to her husband’s decisions.
Graciously Yours!
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The Rebel’s Wife.
Maitri never thought a day so bad would come that she’d have to tell her sons the truth about how their father died. And their eldest brother too.
The twins were barely two years old when they lost the eldest males of the house. They had a difficult childhood but they somehow survived, their innocence though tarnished not destroyed. They were brought up by a single mother in a one room flat in a building where all sorts of men came and went – some with arms by day and flowers by night, some with smiles by day and sneers by night, some with lust dripping out of their eyes and others, very few others, with a genuine concern for the residents of the place. But genuine concern was easily forgotten in and almost always overshadowed by the vagaries of daily life and new traumatizing experiences faced by those people – their only curse being their place of birth.
She’d been married as early as 16. For her family, she was soon crossing marriageable age. They married her off to a rebel. Well, they didn’t know he was a rebel. That’s what they called themselves – rebels. Rebels – rebelling against the set norms of the society, a society which polarized towards the rich and affluent, the ones who already had more resources than they would ever require, the ones who walked around like they owned the world and trampled the rest under their feet far more miserably than the fate faced by ants! Unlike him she didn’t see his vision of fighting for the masses against the classes but she never questioned him. She accepted that her fate was tied to her husband’s decisions. She wanted him to care more for his family than for people who didn’t give even a damn about whether he lived or died.
She loved him and she hated him. But she never told her children that. But now she would. Maitri never thought a day so bad would come that she’d have to tell her sons the truth about how their father died. And their eldest brother too. But now she would.
Graciously Yours!
P.S.: If this piece arouses your interest, I’d love to write this one further. Want more? Let me know in the comments below.
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Why? Oh why?
Often, things don’t make sense. Why does the Sun rise every day to set? Why do the flowers bloom only to be plucked by mischievous little bratty hands or to be offered at the feet of stone idols of the same Gods who created them in the very first place? Why are examinations more valued than the lives of those hundreds of young who succumb under their pressure? Why is a job position much greater than a friendship you’ve nurtured for years? Why is the money more important than the ailing parents you’ve left behind? Why is it selfish to love oneself and idiotic to love others (either ways, I’m slandered)? Why do we run after fame when oblivion is all that destiny can give us? Why is immortality a boon when you know all others around you will die? Oh and why we do we bake those immaculately beautiful and fabulous personalized cakes only to dismantle and eat them within a day or two?
I’ve diverted enough from what I really want to say out loud (or in this case, write).
Why do I hate loving you?
Often, things don’t make sense. And this is just the beginning of it.
Graciously Yours!
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Yearning.
I yearned for your touch. You slept two feet from me but were miles away. I wanted to reach out to you and run my hand down your arm. I wanted to feel your rough hands caressing my face. I wanted my slender fingers to run through your hair. Involuntarily, my hand went towards your heaving torso. I wanted to feel your heart beating. Was it thudding as fast as mine? I pulled myself together just in time. I adjusted the pillows between us again and went out into the balcony. Tomorrow I’d ask for a separate hotel room.
I don’t know when I fell in love with you. Worse still, I didn’t know when you fell out of love with me.
Graciously Yours!
Picture Courtesy : Colourbox.
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The Last Laugh.
The scratching of pens wouldn’t stop. The overhead fan was whirring at full speed. Yet, she could sense the beads of sweat forming over her brow. A couple more minutes and she would wipe it off again. The students had just another 30 minutes and then she could go and rest in the staff room.
This was the third consecutive day her cook hadn’t turned up. Her ailing mother in law was demanding even when on bed. Then there was her husband who couldn’t see her burdens even if she threw them in his face. Well, he was dead anyways. He met with an accident while he was on a trip with his mistress. The world thought he died alone and mourned him for all that he wasn’t. She didn’t care to correct their assumptions to save her daughter from the society’s cruel impending jibes.
She could see two students passing papers at the back of the room. She didn’t care! They were old enough to know what was right and what wasn’t. If they thought these marks could secure their future, she wanted to roll on the floor laughing at their silliness. The real world would make them repent for their underhand methods. Or at least life would. She let them enjoy the short lived moments of adrenalin rushed success. And noted their roll numbers for further reference.
If they were good, she was better.
Graciously Yours!
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At the break of dawn.
All the while as she waited, no sign of respite, the clock ticking by ceaselessly, breathing seemingly harder.
Her optimism was gradually fading, the smile turning to nervous twitches, the feet tapping rhythmically to the gush of the wind and roar of the seas.
The night was falling darker than before, the moonless sky not helping, she wringed her hands in despair as she paced up and down the beach.
Breaking the horizon, at last, she saw a trawler approaching, she held her breath as her stomach tingled, praying that it was the one she’d helped paint.
The horizon had never seemed farther, the time never went slower, as seconds seemed like hours and eras had bygone as the trawler broke shore.
“Oh I was so worried,” she teared as she clung to her husband’s torso. Amused, he was going to mock her, but her tears made him say, “The winds held us longer than expected.”
“Are you alright, dear?”, he asked worried, when she didn’t let him go. He fell to his knees, unaware of the rocks scraping them. Blood trickled down on to the jagged pieces while he hugged her waist like never before.
“I’m pregnant, ” she’d said.
Graciously Yours!
Picture Courtesy : Pinterest.
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Clicking your way through groceries!
Living in Calcutta? Frustrated with the daily siesta of the shopkeepers here? Don’t wish to drag your butt to the grocery store after the long hours of work and longer snarls of traffic jam?
Look who’s here! Justshop24 ~ which promises to deliver groceries at your doorstep and damn right they do!
The inventory lists at Justshop24 range from the basics of rice, dal, flour, salt to beauty products to organic foods to even sanitary napkins! It is literally the neighborhood kiraana store breaking physical barriers and becoming home delivery friendly for you.
They also offer recipes of snacks and desserts which don’t take much time to whip up. You can place an order for the recipe of your choice and they’ll send across the products you’d require for your cooking. Options to modify the ingredient list is open. I wish the number and variety of recipes provided were more because I can’t wait to try my hand at more dishes other than the ones I ordered for – cheese balls and beans on toast!
What’s better is they also have defined time slots for deliveries which you can choose from. In case you’re still unsure of your availability at the time of delivery you can add delivery instructions in case of your absence.
Now that I have received the ingredients I wanted, I can’t wait to get to the kitchen to work on them! (Don’t get your hopes too high. I’m more lazy than I am excited. 😉 But I will come around soon and let you know how cheesy those cheese balls were! )
Graciously Yours!
Inking The Thinking. 