Meenakshi

18th July 1990. Meenakshi pressed her forefinger hard into the daily sheet calendar. As she did, she closed her eyes to recall how she had pressed the calling bell at the “Khushi Villa” exactly fifteen years ago. Fifteen years it was, since the day she had first touched down on this bungalow tucked away peacefully in a remote corner of Maharashtra. It was a rickety bus journey that had preceded her arrival.

Fifteen years ago, as a charming thirteen year old, Meenakshi had felt deeply thrilled at the prospect of spending her life in the villa. Back then, she had observed with wide eyes, the wild tuskers and stags that jutted out from the walls and the large paintings that accompanied them. She had wondered why the tuskers and stags had only heads and had found it quite weird. She had imagined the animals to wake up and walk around the house in the nights.

Totally fascinated, Meenakshi had felt her stay in the villa would be a launch pad to realize her dream – that of becoming a great Bharatnatyam dancer. Struggling hard to control her overwhelming joy, her eyes had fallen on Ramaa Chechi for the first time. Oh, what a treat it had been to watch her! Looking at her from behind the grilles of a window near the backyard, Meenakshi had thought she could fall at her feet. Draped in a crisply starched cotton sari, Ramaa Chechi was going around the Tulasi Maadam in small circles, with a lamp in her hand.

Rajan who had accompanied Meenakshi on her journey to the place had made a passing reference to a teacher, while sitting in the bus. May be this divine looking lady was that teacher, Meenakshi had pondered. Meanwhile, Rajan had beckoned her to the backyard.

“What is your name?” Ramaa Chechi had asked.
“Meenakshi”
“What do you want to be when you grow up?” she had questioned, patting Meenakshi’s cheek.
“I love to dance,” Meenakshi had replied and had stuck out her frail legs and hands, while also rolling her visibly, big eyes.
Ramaa Chechi had smiled, patted her again.
“Lovely, we will make you do that too.”
“Can I too look beautiful like you?” Meenakshi had asked eagerly.
“Of course, yes, why not?”

Standing before the calendar, Meenakshi recalled how much she had believed in that deceptively divine woman. Ramaa Chechi was a professional. She had pushed the little girl into her role so effortlessly. She had gently led the teenager into a room that presented an illusion of happiness, of a heaven free of all troubles – full of flowers and incense that choked her breath.

Meenakshi was reminded of how she had succumbed without protest, the first time. The surrender did not come out of acceptance of her doomed fate or as a move towards starting a new way of life. It was more a means of seeking solace and affection from a complete stranger for the grief that engulfed her broken heart; to blow away the misery and weariness of a young soul that was cheated by her own father.

And as far as she could think, the first time was the only instance she had exuded passion in her profession and never again after that. Meenakshi looked at the silver ring in her hand, thoughtfully. This was the ring that the first man had left behind for her, as a gesture of what Meenakshi imagined to be genuine love. He would have been in his early twenties then. She could say he had liked her. Loved her? She didn’t know. But she preferred to assume it that way. It at least gave her the comfort of having something substantial to dream and ponder about; something to make up for the void that so dominated her life.

Meenakshi looked dreamily at the withered rose that she had preserved in between the pages of her only notebook. Tears welled up in her eyes. Despite the many years of seeing the different men that she had seen, love was not a lost feeling as far as she was concerned. It was lost, yes, in a partial sense, but only deep within her. She had vainly searched for her first man in every man she had met after him. She had stayed hoping that he would come and take her away someday. The ring would be her only proof of identity then. She had imagined he would come while she played on the swing. He would then fall at her feet and tell her how much he needed her in his life.

Alas, but what did she know of him, except for a faint memory of his face and the wetness of his long parting kiss on her cheek years ago? For all she knew, he would be happily married off to some pretty woman who would have borne him his children. Worse still, would he even recognize her if she were to come face to face with him when walking down some street? Even so, she carried on, despite being fully aware of the futility of her dream.

What a life had she lived! She had seen all sorts of men. There were the nervous first timers. Then, there were those men who fed their egos with an air of nonchalance, a kind of despicable carelessness. Well then, animal behavior also found its place. She had dressed and undressed to please and impress them all; acts that defined the very essence of her existence. And after everything, Meenakshi felt the whole place stank of dumped feelings and a nauseating eeriness that sometimes drove her to the point of contemplating death as the soothing alternative. The only relief probably had remained her friends in the villa – Nupur, Selvi and Rekha. They would laugh and hoot together while discussing men – their subject of expertise, and remain thoughtful as they spoke about the fading memories of their lackluster childhood.

And now, after fifteen years of a life in skirts that paradoxically shouted happiness through large, bright flowers, she was waiting with her little box to leave. Meenakshi sighed, as she turned to face the villa for one last time. She was going back, back into the world that brought her into the villa. She had nothing particularly pleasant to take back and nothing particularly exciting to look forward to. As policemen swarmed around the place, Meenakshi walked towards the van with a blank look on her face.

Ironically, it was the deathly infection that had won her the prized ticket to her freedom.

It's home, again!

You know how it is visiting home after a while? It is truly like revisiting a part of yourself. After what seems like ages, mom, dad, my sister, and I are back together to live the feeling of what it is to share our lives under one roof. Vani is on vacation, I am on one too, mom is no longer the busy teacher running to school, and dad is still the man who runs the show. When did we last hear of this? ‘Way too long’ back!

At a time when responsibilities of a different order, ones confronting a married woman is all that you have witnessed for a while, you actually wonder how it felt to remain irresponsible. And that precisely is the feeling I have come to experience again, during this break, the sense of parental pampering, a rare comfort of ‘there is someone to mind it all’. You don’t worry about what’s for breakfast, lunch, and dinner and it is all piled in copious amounts on a the ‘stainless steel plate’ that exclusively belonged to you ever since you came into this world. And what luxury - do you have to remind mom about what would tickle your taste buds? Come on!

We have spoken all sorts of stories, ones buried deep inside our souls, waiting to be reborn, in the words of our retelling and our acts of hearing them out all over again. Tales like how I gave my sister the name she has come to bear today, how she used to be this little brat who wanted everything that her sister had and at one point of time trembled with jealousy over all the attention that the elder one received when she had set off for graduation.

With mom this time, it has been a run through of her patented ‘arranged marriage’ philosophy, as we laughed over all that appeared ‘once serious’ and now ‘outrageously funny’. All the same, it is also the time that she has chosen to send out those signals to my sister about ‘minding the step’. This time, it is my turn to grin from ear to ear!! With dad, the discussion as always has proceeded on a different platform – books, music, investments, the irony of how we so easily complicate our lives, as well as a rather formal talk on how the married life went on. And you know how it is with sisters, you don’t need solid stuff to speak and can get away with all sorts of nonsense!

The most fascinating part of it all is how everything fell into place, the emotions, the long-established signals of communication and the unchanged meaning of silence. And then there are these other things – dad’s driver who taught us Gujarati, and this wonderful little angel who is all but three, living in the same building. She has the most beautiful and adorable pair of eyes that I have seen in a long time. She speaks Gujju, and I speak everything else other than that and she still is so much fun to hang around with!

In between all this I miss him and wonder how he is taking care of himself, starting from what he is eating. Despite all those petty fights and admonitions (fond though they are) we throw at each other over the phone, I deeply wish he were here. I wish I can hold his hand and lean on his shoulder and whisper softly how I miss him.

And yet, I revisit carelessness every night, as I lie curled in my mom’s lap. After all, it is a means to satisfy that burning desire to be a child once again, especially when your little one is already telling you through her soft kicks that it’s time for this woman in her mom’s lap to change roles, very soon.

If I may ask..

While I was working on a report today morning, my mind wandered off to many thought landscapes. Like I had said in an earlier post, I have these questions suddenly popping inside my head that I feel like shouting them out to a crowd.

Here is today's question:

Is there this one thing (need not necessarily be a physical entity) that you love/value the most in life? If so, what is it? And, why do you love it so much??

Waiting to hear sound bytes! :)

PS: No particular reason as to why this question. Just like that!

PPS: And I want honest answers!!! :D

Story Clip #1: Raman

Raman, everyone is so proud of him, except himself. His mother tells relatives he earns plenty that he could buy a house within another year. His father tells friends that his son is ‘settled comfortably' in a rewarding job. House, car, marriage – plans, plans, and plans they made for him. But, Raman is tired even to feel proud anymore. The attraction has withered away. It is yet another Tuesday in Raman's life, a year after he wore the illusorily shining badge called 'software engineer'. He writes ten lines in the morning and stares at it all of the evening. And still he cannot break through. The brain that topped the class in the final exams doesn't help find that one bug that refuses to let the program run. The boss sends a stinker of an email demanding an explanation and accusing him of being slow. Not again, he broods. The confidence curve falls flat and enthusiasm levels dip. Do I have to do and see this all my life? Can't I ever make mistakes? he thinks. Raman shuts the application and walks out of the office, past the manager who summoned him for an explanation. Indifference for a day, to make up for the peace of mind and smile lost for a while now.

Maya's story

“And I scratched and scratched the page with the fine nib of a treasured parker, spurting out black ink, like the oozing blood of a devilish thought, springing out of a wounded ego. How else could I extinguish the roaring flames of anger? The page tore open like a deadly crevice. I ran around like a mad man pulling down all that fell in my line of sight – curtains, table covers; I took the umbrella, poked the bed and the pillows, with its tapering end. Fury and pain wrenched my heart. I had become a loner, in a world full of pretending well wishers, a world without Hanna.”

Maya switched off the monitor and stared wide eyed into the empty space ahead of her. Her hands trembled a little. It was a fiery face of Professor Malcolm that she hadn’t seen thus far, given the six months of personal interaction that she had had with him – in her mind.

She wasn’t sure about that line, she had typed – “oozing blood of a devilish thought, springing out of a wounded ego.” She opened the document, deleted the line and began typing again. “;olr n;ppf ppxomh pgy pg s epimfrf jrsty” she keyed without looking at the screen. Shit, she thought, staring at the train of red underlines that the software had left, like a school teacher who thrilled at striking down everything with that dreadful red ink. Why can’t this damned MS Word convert it to what I want? She felt like suing the software for its supposed inadequacy. Her finger rested lazily on the backspace key till it deleted the unintelligible stuff that she had just then entered. “like blood oozing out of a wounded heart, “ she corrected and sighed deeply.

She could sigh by all means, for she didn’t know where her dream was heading to. Every letter, every word, every sentence, every paragraph, and every page that made sense to the machine as only indecipherable bits and bytes were the building blocks to the vision she was giving shape.

Maya had grown up reading every name board on the road. Even as the bus or scooter or auto she was moving in advanced faster than her letters/second, she craned her neck to finish the name down. “Lakshmi Tea Stall” “Connections BookPoint” and everything else. Sometimes, she had the feeling that the name of a shop didn’t fit its appearance. Such beautiful names for those ugly faced tea shops, she would grumble under her breath.

And, when she grew a little older, she loved assigning names to strangers. May be that girl would be called Rachna – that cute face with two pony tails would be complete only with that name. Swarnamukhi, for the dancer, her friend’s neighbour; Akshay, for the guy who was seen driving the Enfield everyday outside her house; after all, it was her own world of imagination, and people here could assume names that she wished to give them!

Her love at sixteen was books. Papa and Mama had no trouble finding gifts for her. They knew she would smile the widest at the sight of a bookstore. Maya literally fed on books, relished a different taste out of the many writers. Archer was like espresso coffee while Narayan was like a chocolate that slowly melted away, leaving behind that lingering sweetness in one’s mouth. Hesse was like a tastefully prepared filter coffee, an enriching philosophical experience that left one relishing it even after the act was complete. Austen and Dickens were like classic hot chocolate, Woolf was a dense dry fruit milk shake – you had to stop once in few minutes to munch those nuts – those powerful nuggets that gave the dash of splendor to her work. Hardy was bitter chocolate. What would hers be? Maya wondered.


Maya equated writing to love, simply and best put. She absolutely loved it. Stories were her passion. She wanted her words to be the window to a world she created. The characters in her story would be thoughts that danced to the tune of her creative forces – but sometimes they were not puppets. They shaped to something beyond her control sometimes bringing a smile and sometimes making her scratch the whole thing down. Each word was a revelation. Writing was to her, as music was to a singer and dance to a performer.

There was a man who wanted to sell his soul. She found him creepy. There was another who was willing to buy it. She found him loony. And what about those people who wore all that heavy makeup and chatted nonsense? She found them to be a rather strange breed of people. Did the others know about them? After all, they all lived in her paper world. She would let others see them, through her novel. She would tell them things that they knew well but never consciously realized. She would make them nod in childish delight (one arising out of discovering matters, all over again!) at what she told them.

Dreams, she had plenty of them. Like reading out excerpts from her novel to a group, autographing copies to a mad audience, for instance. She even wanted to do a workshop telling aspiring ‘kids’ (she would have moved out of the block then!) how to write. She would clip all reviews for her book together and read them at leisure. She would try correcting herself and scorn at a mindless review. Plenty of them, her dreams; But, she had fifteen more chapters to go and a publisher to find! Talk about literary dreams and aspirations! Would Maya make it? I am clueless, actually! :)

My DNA

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The day

Shyama was not sure. She sat in her room, smiling at everyone, as people walked in and out of the small cube that stored God knows how many things, including herself. She smiled, but her insides moaned – was she sure about what she was doing? Her cousins were chatting, laughing and giggling, throwing sideward glances at her. She was supposed to be the happiest woman in the whole world that day. But, was she? She wasn’t sure. Worse still, the point was, she shouldn’t be worrying about it then, not at that instant.

A few anxious seconds. And then, her dad seemed relieved. Granny hugged him. Mom was brushing away happy tears. Little sister hugged her. A mix of emotions – relief, happiness and a strange emptiness. Amidst all that, Shyama stole a glance at him. Raghav looked at her as well. She felt reassured, smiled for the first time from her heart, since the morning. She trusted her instincts. They told her it would all go on well.

A year later, she stood staring at her mirror in their bedroom, twirling a curl dangling near her left ear. They had taken many steps together, forgiving, fighting, understanding, giving, sharing, loving and holding on. Shyama stood there lost in memories. Suddenly Raghav hugged her from behind. “Happy Anniversary, sweetie,” he whispered. She smiled - a smile of genuine happiness.

Letters to Dad - 15th March 2004

Dear Pops,

I loved pouring over your letter that came in a little late. Never mind, it was worth the wait for those five pages of your still undecipherable handwriting. Dad, you really are getting old. :), and your slants are getting slightly shaky.

You know how busy life is here Pops that I had to postpone this letter by a week. It is ironic that the topic that I choose to write today is about the lives of people who are at the other extreme of those we discussed in the last letter. Yes dad, I am indeed referring to my visit to the old age home, on my birthday. While I marvel at what my son teaches me through his ways, all that was left of me after that visit was silence and a vacuum.

Many of them, Dad - a sea of faces. They were about thirty couples at Karunalaya, each and every one of them, unique. Mr.Prakasam, the one who was so particular about his fitness was the first one that we met. Clad in his starched white kurta and dhoti, he was taking his morning walk in the garden. Full of warmth, that’s how he was. Mr.Prakasam shook hands with Akash, placed his palm on my head and then on Aryan’s and mumbled a blessing. Welcome, he said, we are all expecting you. We could only smile back, gratefully.

The woman behind my success, he introduced us to his wife, who had just emerged from the puja room. Come beti, she invited me, and then it was ‘ey chotu’ to a visibly nervous Aryan. She indeed looked divine in a simple chungudi saree. How could her children leave her here? How could they do away with such sweet parents?

Dad, each of them had stories to say; some happy, some sad, some heart-wrenching, some really brave. The Subramanians have shared sixty four years of marriage between them. And the love hasn’t diminished one bit, Dad. Mrs. Subramanian could hardly hear and said a different thing while her husband spoke something else. But her better half was patient, always smiling and trying to raise his already feeble voice to as high a decibel as possible, to convey the intent. We are old, he said, and our sons are away in a foreign land. We speak to them once in six months when they call up after sending us some money, he explained, while his wife just brooded and nodded. And suddenly, she looked up and smiled, as if there was no trouble in her world. Is that the slow insanity that old age breeds into one?

Seethamma was different. She was loud, frank and full of disbelief. Her husband was timid, unobtrusive and deep into the day’s newspapers. Seethamma seethed in anger. All you children, you don’t care about your parents. Why have you come here today? You distribute sweets or serve us lunch and go away. Does our misery change after that? She glared at me. The man, lifted his head up, threw a glance our way and then a feeble smile. Commotion, it seemed, was a parcel of his life. But dad, her question fascinated me, quite.

What are we to them, other than being people merely sharing a day’s joy with them (ironically, we hardly know whether what’s happiness for us, is happiness for them as well.) and doing the disappearing act after that? But Dad, I think the solace and the answer is that, we attempt, genuinely at that, to try and bring a smile on to their faces at least for a day; to make them believe that there are people in the world who still care; to massage out the numbness of a lack of love that has clung on to their souls.

Mrs. Parvati insisted she would sit next to Aryan. He reminded her of her grandson, she said. She insisted she would feed him. I let her do it. Aryan didn’t understand, Dad. Confusion was written large on his face. His eyes brimmed with fear. That night, he was quiet and finally asked me, Mama, who are those old people? I told him. I told him, they were like his grandparents, but they stayed there because their children could not take care of them. Why, he asked me, that’s really bad. I nodded and patted his head. Mama, I will take care of you and Papa, when you grow old, he said. I cried silently. After all that claim of ‘we will stay independent in our old age’ that I and Akash so often reiterate to each other, I still seek reassurances. And damn that, from my three year old son, who is yet to see the world, in all its beauty and devilishness.

And what’s with this Indian tradition, Pa? Parents would stay with their sons, but never with their daughters. Isn’t it unjust of the society to have moulded such a strange ideology? We grow old, and children are channels through which we remain assured. At twenty nine, I am already seeking it. I wonder how it would be for you. Don’t you wish you could stay with us, but you still deny yourself the pleasure, just because we all live the Indian way?

Papa, I am serious. I really wish you and mom would consider staying with us, for some days at least. I know how it feels Dad, to be old and staying away. Mrs. Srinivasan words still ring in my ears. She is old, frail and dying. When I turned to leave that day, she held my hands and asked me when I would come back again. Do keep coming, she said, it’s not for the sweets or the food, our tongues have long last that desire to taste. It’s only love and company that we yearn for. I look beyond the gates, everyday, seeing as far as my poor vision can let me see. I imagine I see my son and his family. But they never come.

Love to you and mom,
Sumi

P.S: Keep writing.

In a world of many things..

In a world of many things,


At one moment, you feel you could rest your tired head on to a silky pillow that absorbs all worries while the ivory moon sends its love as rays filtered through the window. That’s when you smile, a smile of light-heartedness, of relief, of a realization of peace and calm.


And then, the next instant you are running into the green open, cutting through straight and sometimes slanted shreds of silvery threads, descending from the heavens. That’s when you get soaked to the skin, unmindful of a world existing around you.


And suddenly, you feel transported back in time, when the scent of the past tickles your nostrils; of days that you have left behind but whose vague memories you have carried along. That’s when life’s meaning dawns; that you have indeed come a long way from being a child.


And what happened to those friends with whom you shared everything from a meal to the deepest secrets? They are all away, but something of a memory stirs in you and you are smiling through reminiscences of love, of a different order.


Ah, then a moment to savour, for it brings with it the first instant you caught his eye, smiling, the instant you held his hand and decided to walk together.


I tell you I tie musical notes to precious flashes of time.


I tell you this is what I live through when my iPod slides from one song to another.


They are unconnected emotions; but ones that make perfect sense, in a world that’s only yours, where music is the backdrop, filling the ears and the being.

It's Feb 01 again!

Two years since it all began and the story continues under a new name. I never thought this journey would come this far when I wrote my first (silly) post on the 1st of February 2005. Then on, I have moved through many, many experiences – some fondly remembered, some best forgotten, and some still making me wonder why they ever happened. This blog is where I have given vent to my many literary dreams – I would scribble ideas and gaze at them in wonder, as they took the form of stories, poems, and essays. Here’s where I could do anything, anytime, and in any damn way I wanted.

At times, I have caught myself smiling at a post, for voicing an opinion way too strongly, that it carried the heat of the moment at which it was written. At other instances, I have journeyed down the memory lane, reliving experiences by merely looking at the written words echoing the past. Dreamy, romantic, and fairy-tale like – that’s how it has been – for I live on with the feeling of constantly being engaged in a fulfilling affair with a virtual lover – one that I really hope will qualify for the much-desired phrase “ and happily ever after..”

This blog year (as I choose to call it) has been a memorable one for me for many reasons. It was also the year which saw one of the most tragic incidents of my life. Of late, this journal has not seen much of an activity, but I sincerely hope things turn for the better, very soon.

Like I said last year, I take this moment to thank each and every one of you who has taken the trouble to come to this site and leave a comment. And a double thanks to those who constantly keep a tab on what’s happening here.

I sincerely hope this blog has much more to offer, in the coming year. Thank you all.

Cheers,
AV

Of cobwebs, dust, and inactivity..

Helplessness, that’s what I feel when I look at The Storyteller’s Hut. I began last year with this story (one of the posts, closest to my heart) and this year, something as trivial as this post. What a contrast!!

Now, how do I stop that bitterness that’s lumping up at my throat?

I miss you dear blog!

I really wish I could find the time to experiment more, to write more! :(

God, are you listening?!!

The Moment

#
Here, on this earth,
Where nothing stays,
Like,
The passing cloud,
The flowing stream,
The rushing wind,
The fresh bloom and the fading flower,
The seed, the cub,
The withered tree, the dying lion,
The autumn, the spring,
Like wars, people, and innocence..

#
You flow too,
And so does that one dream,
That both our eyes painted..
Ah, shades of love,
Smudged by tears;
When colors seem meaningless,
I request for a streak of gold -
Can I hold on to you,
For a minute now -
And cherish it for a lifetime?
This memory,
The joy of a minute’s beauty.

Amritavarshini

Amritavarshini. You would hardly hear anybody calling me by my full name. The last time I think I heard that myself was when my class teachers took our daily attendance back in school. I am Varshini to my dad, Amrita to my neighbours, Varshee to some of my friends, Amy to few others, Varshu to my cousins, and Ammu to my mom. Ammu – would Siddarth have called me that way?

Siddarth – all I know of him is what I have heard from my parents and my aunts and uncles. Are you surprised when I tell you that I didn’t know of him till I was ten years old? He was like a little box of chocolates hidden away from me; a treasure that remained oblivious till I was deemed fit to be told about it.

It was on December 19 1996, when mom pulled me into the dining room, as I returned from school and threw my bags carelessly on the sofa. I still remember that day so vividly, in all its detail, as if it had happened yesterday. There was a cake with a single, lonely candle, glowing serenely. And my, what did I catch in the light of that candle? It was the photograph of a sweet, chubby face, with such innocent eyes, the photograph of a boy with lovely curls.

I saw Siddarth for the first time in my life, heard of him for the first time during his 20th birthday, 20th if he had been around, with mom, dad, with me. My mom spoke of a brother that I had, a child they had till five years before I was born, a precious child they lost in an accident when they sent him with his grandparents for a vacation.

Somehow, I didn’t pester my mom for details. But I burned with curiosity to know more about my brother, who had drifted away like a beautiful feather, back to God, who wanted him back so badly. How would he have looked? How would he have handled his little sister when she got all the attention that he had received by all means, earlier, exclusively for himself? Would he have flung her new doll to the corner, scribbled with a sketch pen all over its face? Or would he have kissed her gently, stealthily, when mom put her to sleep and disappeared into the kitchen? Would he have run away to grab his share of mom’s lap when the princess slept in her cradle?

What are these questions that remain answered even today? Tormenting figments of imagination, that’s what they are – when one remains clueless about what would have happened, if what happened hadn’t happened.

Siddarth was all but five when he left my parents. I think of my mom now. How many times I would have nagged her as to why I didn’t have a sibling! Why should I be the only one? Oh, how many times I have bothered her! Where would she have buried her face and cried then? My heart feels heavy, like a rock tied to the end of a thread; so heavy with guilt. Don’t give me reasons – you were afterall a kid and anyway, you didn’t know what happened. I tell you, this feeling is beyond any human reasoning.

My brother I hear, was so naughty, that his eyes forever sparkled with innocent mischief – like those of khannaiyah. My aunts tell me that he was one among them, more than belonging to his generation. He used to claim to be Lord Krishna himself and talked all sorts of things, like what big men do, for he declared that he was a big boy when he was four! Another of my aunts fondly recollects that he said he would marry her, when he finished college. The many beautiful facets of a small child that never saw light.

These are like pieces of a puzzle for me. I gather them all together to get the bigger picture, of a brother whom I have grown to love more with every passing day, a brother with whom I wish I could spend at least one day. Sometimes, I sit by the sea, smiling to myself as I let my imagination run loose. How we would have built a castle out of sand, together; how we would have taken sides with mom and dad, and laughed a great deal in the end, together; how we would have shared secrets and sealed our mouths and fooled her, together; together, together, together. I am a lonely dreamer who dreams of us being together. I am Ammu, who became Amritavarshini because Siddarth once said his baby sister would be called Amritavarshini, years before I was born. He lives no more to see it, and I live as an impression of what my brother once uttered – as a fragment of memory called Siddarth.

To each one, a tale..

Sai was clutching his tummy and almost rolling over the floor. Well, laughing. Anybody who didn’t see his face would easily assume that he was having a fit of spasms. His hehehes and hahahas reminded me of a monstrous but cute creature like Shrek, guffawing at a joke that may be only he found utterly amusing.

“Sai,” I called. He was too busy laughing to pay any attention to me.
“Saaaaaaaai,” I screamed, “Now what the hell is up?”

“Oh, here comes our Ms. Moody Memsaab,” he spurted out between giggles, “hehehe..hahahaa”

“hahahahaha”
“hahahahaha”

His whole body shook without any hassles, like ‘laugh laugh, no trouble buddy, am there with you to see through it all.” I stood there with my hands folded, waiting for the uproar to die down. As I did, the jumbo- bimbo’s laughter that spiked and slowed alternately, finally sloped down to a much desired silence.

“Now, could you for heaven’s sake share the joke?” I scorned.

Puffing and panting, Sai lifted his left hand and pointed at Ashok, who sat at his desk, facing his computer.

“Well?”

“Ashok,” he paused gulping down a piece of unavoidable laughter, “our dear handsome man seems to have had a great day.”

Sai shot a glance my way to see if I was responding. “Hmm“I nodded. “Whatever happened?”

“Arrey yaar Purnima, tu itna tube light be nahi ho sakthi hai!”

“Yeah right, you talk everything else other than what you are supposed to. “

“Aww..K, “he said and cleared his throat, as if on the verge of making a crucial announcement, “let me get serious,” he paused, “and not laugh, err and be precise..”

“Our romantic hunter went chasing his favourite bird with rosy dreams and the bird hopped away saying it already had a mate,” he grinned. “Our man proposed with all the romance of a love stricken heart and she told him, Can I ask my fiancé and let you know?” “hahaha, kya slap maara!!” and laughed again.

“Sai, that’s hardly funny!” I said sternly. “Why waste moments laughing?”
“Waste? Naah my dear lady,” he said, “it definitely made me feel better,”

“How unjust Sai,” I retorted, “you feel happy at someone’s expense!”

“That’s not the way you see it, Purnima,” he said meditatively. “I am just lightening up the heavy mood.”

I looked at him and sighed and moved to Ashok’s place.

“Hi Ashok,” I called out softly, “been a bad day, has it?”

“Well, yeah, didn’t expect things to turn out this way,” he spoke, words dribbling out like drops from a soaked sponge. Sadness oozed out from his voice, grief was smeared all over his face.

“Am not going to say it’s alright,” I spoke, “it takes time to get over but I know you will, someday.”

That assurance came readily from me until later when I wondered whatever made me say that. Can you get over something like that with time? Can I even make a claim to have been successful about it? Jesus, no! It’s tough and a struggle, and it hurts, hell of a lot.

“Thanks Purnima,” I heard Ashok say, “It felt good to hear that,”

“Now let me strike a blow to the gloom that’s settling in this work area,” Sai came announcing. “Let go guys, just learn to let things go.”

I smiled, hopelessly.

This man, Sai, Sairam was my immediate boss but to an outsider I suppose it would least seem that way. His heart was as big as he was. You could seek emotional refuge in him and be assured that your tears aren’t wasted. Feeling good? Go to Sai. Feeling utterly dismal? Speak to him. He always had the heart to listen, an unmatched ability to heal. I ought to be grateful to Sai. He tore open the cocoon of silence that I had spun around myself after what happened to me a year back. I suffered from what I may call a ‘loss of love.’

Do you know how it feels to be in love? I am not launching into one of those obsessed, heart wrenching, and utopian discourses on it. Love, I think, is plain, simple and beautiful. It fills one with awe, happiness and fulfillment. But, isn’t there always two sides to a coin? Haven’t we all heard of how love hurts? Few friends have told me that this perspective is farce. It depends on the way one sees it. Losing one’s love, however immature it may sound, hurts. It is like a thousand pins shooting down your heart leaving it bleed in agony.

When I met Shyam for the first time, I never knew love had come knocking. We met at a common friend’s party, started going around and things began to take shape. It reached the climax when he proposed to me on my birthday last year.

You know how it is when you have found the person of your life. You start weaving dreams, literally, thread by thread. And finally, one fine day, someone walks through the door and shreds your fabric to a million pieces and your heart lies shattered like shards of glass strewn devastatingly over the floor. That’s precisely what happened with me. As much easily as he breezed into my life, he slipped out, only that this time, he left a big emotional scar.

You can’t brush away the man just like that, can you? He left me because he couldn’t face familial pressures and finally yielded to it, married some other woman, leaving me alone.

I refused to show any signs of interest in marriage following that and much to the despair of my parents, moved away from Pune to Bangalore. Fussy I sound, don’t I? But I believed that change was a big healer.

The ad agency that I work with and the people around me sprinkled hope back into an emotionally deserted terrain, my heart. And suddenly, at some point in time, I felt I was standing like a fool, trying to leap from one cliff onto another, fully aware of a deadly chasm in between. Sounds cryptic? For all that seriousness in that statement, there is a dose of humour in it too. Laugh it off, horrors and horrors, I realized I was falling in love again -in love, with the man who had just then lost his love.

Ashok joined me over tea the next afternoon.
“Feeling better?” I asked.
“Hmm, just alright,” he said, flatly.
“Guess what Purnima,” he continued, “I truly felt like an idiot yesterday. I mean, it was bizarre. I actually felt burnt up, it that sounds any close to how I felt.”
I nodded, blandly.
Ashok looked into my eyes and I searched in those misery plagued ones, helplessly for love, for me.

Later that day, Sai walked into my cube to inform me of a client meeting.
“Sai, what would you do if you loved a girl like nobody’s business?” I asked him when he was turning to leave.
Shocked, dark silence, broken by a sheepish grin.
“I wouldn’t even tell her!”
“Come on Sai, stop kidding,” I screeched.
“Can we catch up on this during a late evening walk?” he requested. Suddenly, I felt like the boss. (Grin!)

Sai had grabbed a handful of popcorn from God knows where, when we left for a walk. After a string of useless talk, I desperately tried to drive him back to the point.
“Answer my question,” I said.
He nibbled away the single popcorn thoughtfully.
“Well, tell you what Purni, I would really tell her some day. When, I have no clue, I would do it just when it seems right!”
I smiled; Sai and his pretence of orderliness and problem-solution crystallization; Clever, quickwitted, funny and yet, thoughtful and immeasurably kind.

"But, I will tell you another thing," he continued, "I wouldn't care if she liked me or not and wouldn't sink even if she said a no!"

"To me, it's the feeling that matters, and it's just that! which is what I have always told you, ever since we met."

I kept quiet. What he said was true. This is a lesson he had always preached to me for months now.

"So," he startled me, "Let's come to the point. What's running in your head?"

For a moment, I felt like I had a transparent head; as if he could see through everything.

I sighed.
"Sai, I think I am pathetic."
"I think I am falling in love, all over again! With a man, whom you would least imagine."
"Ashok?" he asked me plainly while I looked on, dumbstruck!
"Sai, What the hell! How could you? I mean how did you..for heaven's sake, I tell you.." "Holy shit, you are too much!!" I spoke, broken sentences.
Sai laughed.

"Now tell me, how did you ever come to know?"
"Magic, magic.." he smiled and walked ahead.
I pulled him by his sleeve.
"Tell me Sai," I persisted.
"At the risk of sounding cliched, but definitely to tell you the truth, I could see it in your eyes."
And I thought I had cleverly avoided leaving any evidence.
"Do what your heart tells you to," he said and walked off.

Ashok. How was I going to tell him? Wouldn't he think I am a moron, who just advised him big time a few days before and now comes to him with a silly proposal? How stupid!

After two horrifying days and restless nights, I went up to him.
"Tea?" I proposed.
"Sure."
Over tea. The usual exchange.
And then,
"Ashok, I got to share something with you."
"Hmm..You like someone, don't you?"
"Mighty God, how did you know?"
"And I also know who it is.."
I blushed.
"Well?" I paused.
"Sai, isn't it?", "He loves you man, he told me that once!"



I just felt like a loose end, yet again.

Her Music

I watched her fingers play in perfect rhythm, dip, brush, and caress the keys of the piano as if it were a new born child. Ah my, what graceful movement of those long, divinely sculpted fingers that somehow held the key to a certain rarely experienced ecstasy! When she played, it was as if air, water, and fire seethed in anger and gushed at you, overpowering the hapless observer that one is. And yet there was that newly found peace and calm at the heart of it. Wasn’t her music beautiful for the irony that it presented with such ease?


My words seem to shiver in shame for their inability to duly describe that lingering sadness and the hum of a smiling music, unified in a moment. The force, a strangely magnetic one at that, stripped me of the human resistance I possessed and drew me fiercely, that I could go fall at her feet and slowly look up at her face. I did fall and I did see a face; a face that glowed with an unearthly serenity, a pair of grey eyes that defied the word beauty of its worth. I also saw that all that those soft eyes perceived was a screen of perfect black when her music produced a riot of colorful dreams.

My new bookshelf! :)

Tadatadaaaaaaaaa!!!



:)!!

And I continue to dream..

Of so many things! Like taking a vacation, and writing a story, and catching up with friends, and buying a bookshelf! Recently, I have been taken in by the charm of a beautiful bookshelf, particularly because of its simplicity and elegance.

I am surprised how I can take liking to certain things almost immediately. While my obsession for books, bags and music are always growing exponentially, there are those other desires that pop up now and then and hold my fantasy for a good length of time. Like the bookshelf that I am talking about. Let me refer to 'it' as a 'she' from now on.

I see her in my dreams because I am always preoccupied about where to place her if she arrives and how I would arrange all my precious darlings from fiction to non fiction to poetry to management to comics. May be this should go into shelf one, that into shelf two and so on.

Now that am writing about this, I should share with you a similar obsession that grew in me when I bought my scooty pep three years ago. I desperately counted down 45 days before the red princess came to belong to me on a rainy evening in Bangalore. Hell, who cared for the rains?

Like some of my friends would know, that day, I actually woke up at two in the night to check if she was alright. I am glad to say that my interest in her hasn't weaned away one bit, even today. I call her my daughter, pretty, sweet, child.

The point is, I am amazed by human attachment to certain things. We care for them like they are the most precious things that define our lives and a small damage to it or a life without it seems unbearable. Suddenly, all philosophy takes a back seat and you can't think of a life without getting your hands on it. Isn't it?

I began a countdown last Monday for yesterday when my hubby promised to take me to the furniture shop. Unfortunately, the rains killed all my dreams of seeing and bringing home my much desired bookshelf. What now, I have begun another countdown for the next weekend for the same mission! :D

Updates will of course be available! :)..Good day till then! :)

Where have I been?

Everywhere else, except around my blog. I am busy shuttling between work and home, with very little or no time to spare for writing some stories and other stuff that are swirling inside my head.

I hope to make the time soon and get back with a post, really really soon!

Take care all of you and enjoy life (and work!) !! :D

Cheers,
AV

PS : A lot has changed back from when I began blogging. I felt the title of my blog needed a change and hence, it has changed! Request people who have my old blog name on their blogroll to update it with this one!

I have great pleasure in welcoming you to The Storyteller's Hut! :)

Waiting for Grandpa

I draw lines on the canvas of dew that has settled on the window panes. I would fix them straight but they would trickle down aimlessly, beyond my control; Random, strange patterns. Try again, and again, and again. Random, strange patterns. No straight lines. They behave as they will. Does God script lines of fate similarly?

I watch through the misty glass, the pale yet unusually calm face of the man I so revered and loved – Grandpa. Yesterday was not like this. He and I had had a nice, warm chat, sitting by his bedside. And suddenly, with minimum fuss, he slipped into a coma.

Granddad was telling me about his childhood days. How he and his little friend, Somu, jumped over his neighbours’ compound wall, into their farm, to steal mangoes with great expertise. These for me were like silver screen stories in real life. Where had I ever heard of such stuff? The movies, I bet.

Ageing is such a mysterious reality, even stranger, the phenomenon of death. To me, they are frightful truths that often haunted one in the nights and quietly escaped through the backdoor as morning descended with the illusions called life’s responsibilities. Don’t we categorize them as simply, daily routine?

Coming to think of it, there is the other side. We run in a race, fast and faster, to be the first and always on top. In the process of running, many of us forget that the ultimate finishing line is the end of ourselves. I somehow, can’t subscribe to the fact, “there is only one life, live it.” We should live it, but well aware of our coordinates. We don’t live forever. Sadly, many of us either ignore death or worry too much about it. How many of us can gracefully accept that death is indeed a humbling truth?

Surprisingly, Grandpa always had a calming view of death, not the frightening undertone that it usually presented. He only dealt with it, with such elegant ease. The calm that stemmed from his subconscious glowed on his face, as if preserved till eternity.

We fear missing others, in their deaths and in our own, missing our own selves and lives, those lives, however miserable they may get. We fear death even more, because we have no conclusive control over the causative factors.

I was missing Grandpa’s toothless grin, as soft as a baby’s. I was missing his childish craving for the forbidden jalebis, his assuring talk, his strong will that beat the fragility of his physique. I was missing the complement of me, a weak young woman– he, the strong, old man. I was missing my confidant.

Is there nothing that we can do? I ask the doc, gazing at Grandpa. The doc shrugs in reply. He is deteriorating. I hold grandpa’s hand that had grown to wear the characteristic softness of old age. I will wait for you, Grandpa. Afterall, who am I to draw lines?

Confessions

The river bounces along talking sweet murmurs and deeper down, escalating to a silence, inert and cold. I sit in the muddy banks, throwing stones into the water and watch them disappear clueless into the ashen grey, like a spine chilling mystery; sucked in by an astonishing power of absorption. Isn’t it a similar kind of gravity of the past that’s drawing me inside, to my inner layers that I have been desperately hiding away from?

I am not a woman who somebody would easily want for a wife. That was my husband’s last remark, when he was my husband.
“Jane, you are just not happening! Look at you. Now, why don’t you pump some life into your being?”

Now that I think of it, this was never how things began between us. Rosy, picturesque, dainty, and smooth – made for each other, we had imagined. But what we reaped in the end was disdain, hatred, repulsion, tough luck. All those happy moments were ephemeral that evaporated without a trace, to nothingness.

“I don’t for the life of me understand what you want,” I had screamed one day. “Walk around with dipping necklines, revealing thighs, party all time and smoke cigarettes offensively into faces? Is that what life is to you?”

“Come on Jane,” he roared, “That isn’t everything. But that, is also life. Is seclusion, quiet and mute arrogance all that there is in life for you?”

Petty fights weren’t real reasons why we separated. They were trivial, invented, to force a separation. We forced flaws, sharp divisions of attitude to merely get away. We were getting unbearable to each other, so I thought. I had all these days, tried running away from that one truth: What forced us to invent reasons? Was I so incapable of sustaining a relationship? Was I the reason for him to bring up reasons?

These have been days of emotional curfew. I wouldn’t cross the disturbing line, after which I would break down. “Why should I waste my tears for a heartless man?” I used to reason, but the reality was that I was running away from identifying myself, as possibly the core of the entire fault.

Ah, the travails of a wandering mind! I struggle to place the entire relationship and the events associated with it, under a surveillance system – my conscience. Where had it been all these days? Had I just snubbed it all those times when it rose before me to warn me of a possible breakdown?

“Let’s give ourselves some more time,” he had suggested and I had flatly refused to even lend an ear. What could you expect out of a heart that was fuming red with rage and obscene hatred?

“Don’t try to patch up things, Sam. I am tired of showing up this façade of loving you and living happily with you.You hate me, accept it and get done with me!” I had yelled.

“Jane, you are not a woman that someone would easily want to have for a wife,” he had shouted and walked out of the house. And with that he drew the final between us. Rather, it was I who forced him to face the severity of a separation.

Then, I had thought heavily about not compromising on my individuality. Why should I party and mix, when I don’t have the inclination to do it? Why should I stop doing what I love to do, when he doesn’t like it? Even the disappointment on his face wasn’t remedy to the selfishness that I was cultivating inside me. I could have at least tried out that day, couldn’t I? I could have at least made an attempt to set it all right. Give it some space, like he had said. Like I have today; I have worn the skirt that he so wanted me to wear then.

My love for him seems to have been locked away in unfathomable depths and I had let silly things come in between us only to realize that the love choked and died a silent death inside me, inside him, that the damage became irreparable. God damn, my murky, obscure attitude!

The sun has turned a dense ball of orange, and the sky a backdrop of shimmering gold. The water suddenly appears dyed orange, a flowing satin of orange. Time to leave, I decide and walk back, unmindful of the soggy mud. I turn and see that I have left a track of my footprints. These, I think, will be washed out in moments. I fervently hope that the ironies of life will brush aside too. Realization in itself is a big thing and it has begun today. I know I will learn to live, someday.