House in Goa. Often feel the urge to get nestled in nature, for good.
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Category: Writing
(Collection of content of varied nature – from fiction and non-fiction writing, including extracts, to visual – both graphic and video – content)
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Extract: Meander (Short Story)
The following is an extract from Meander, a short story
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What a place! Wish I could keep meandering here. Forever! No need to find good food to prove a point. No need to wear different clothes for different occasions. Perfect!
But everything wasn’t as serene in Rashi’s heart of twenty-two years. Daily fracas with parents had turned home into an ugly battleground. And if it were not enough, job had become a nauseating decay and she had started losing more friends than she had ever made. Always the one for immediate judgements, she had reached the brink of ramming her car in to a fast approaching lorry about a fortnight ago. But for the alertness of the opposite driver, she would have succeeded.
Akhil was the only one who knew about it, in spite of the fact that they had not been talking for over a month at the time of her extreme attempt. He had found himself in that state earlier too. And at times he found it a bit curious. Not just because he was a friend of barely an year but also because most of the period was spent in not talking to each other! Yet, neither found anything unusual when he could convince her to take a sabbatical; and go off to a far away place.
But Akhil hadn’t bargained for Rashi asking him to accompany her. Moreover, he didn’t know anything about going out alone with a girl. And you think I go to remote jungles with guys every weekend or what, Rashi had retorted angrily. But that wasn’t the point for Akhil. He wanted Rashi to spend some time with her own self. However, being far away and alone was out of question for her. Besides, Akhil’s company never created much dialogue anyway.
You’re like a toll free psychiatric helpline that first lets me speak for hours and when I’m done, asks me not to hold back anything, she had once giggled.
The only other thing that she was sure of was, that Akhil affected her. Though, she could never really understand how exactly and why. At times she thought that maybe it was his spirit that touched her the most. She remembered how once after one of his worst setbacks he had joked, It feels wonderful to know that I’m now so deep down in life that I’ll be the first one to come out from the other end.
At times she thought it was more than that. At very different times, he had thought the same about her.
At the moment, she wasn’t thinking about any of that. I can’t stay unhappy for long, she’d once told Akhil. And she no longer was. Of course, being at a place that she’d often seen in movies must’ve helped too. It was a world of trees, trees and more trees. Most were taller than her apartments while some were wider than her small car. Some were naughty enough to make use of every windy excuse to splash water on to her and some seemed to hold each other in a group, just like she and her brother had for a family photograph. And to top it all for her, it was raining like she had never seen before. Only she knew how desperate she was getting to call up Nikki, her best friend, and describe the place.
God! Imagine it raining for 7 days continuously. It was not only pouring like hell, but there were also little streams every few meters. My hands and feet had become so soaked that they looked morbid. Very pale; with blue veins crossing them. At times, the rains would suddenly step up and make it difficult even to keep the eyes open, forget walking. It’s impossible to describe how drenched we were. How our clothes had really got stuck on to our bodies. And honestly speaking, it felt extremely arousing at times!
She smiles thinking about Nikki’s naughty take on her confession. Of course, even in her thoughts, she wanted to first complete her talks before allowing the other person to speak.
Seriously, sometimes I really thought that if it were not Akhil, I would’ve found it difficult to control myself. But you should’ve seen him; I mean the six feet dumbo was walking as if we were going to some pilgrimage!
But it was fun. And so strange! We just kept walking, without knowing where we were going. I mean we knew that we would walk in for 3 days and then start walking back. But that was it. No talk, nothing! It was crazy. I really wished it were our group there; we would’ve had such fun. I really missed you guys.
But the truth of the matter was that she had started liking things the way they were. The incessant rains, the excitement of being where she was and the fact that she hadn’t felt as relaxed for long now. Suddenly, she is shaken out of slumber as she feels something at her ankle. She immediately lets out a shriek. An alert Akhil immediately gets a proper hold of his stick as he turns about. And as the two immediately look down in the ankle-deep stream, they almost simultaneously find out that it was only a very small piece of floating wood that had caused the commotion. As he turns around to continue, Akhil’s indifferent stare makes clear his displeasure about the alarm. That in turn doesn’t amuse Rashi much.
Soon some poisonous water snake is going to bite me to death and I’m sure this silent emperor of philosophy would have very engrossing take on that too.
Rashi can’t help smiling at her own thought. She loved to think of herself as the little devil. And the couple-of-years-older Akhil as someone too logical or too mature. But if she knew what Akhil was thinking after noticing her again during the stir, she would’ve realized why her singularly oriented judgement irritated him.
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The following is an extract from Svetlana, a short story
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My name is Svetlana. Svetlana Safina. It is a very common name in Russia. why, even two of my seven sons have married girls name Svetlana. My surname is also very common. Four girls in my apartments have the same surname. So it is either Svetlana or Safina. Those are the only people i have met since last one year. It is also because I cannot go out. I forget the building. I don’t identify people easily. I cannot hear properly also. My doctor says it happens when women turn 95.
Grandma, someone is at the door.
What?
Someone is at the door.
Why?
Why!
What?
Forget it. I’ll go and see.
What did … Where are you going? The family book cannot be complete with me. Come back. I have many stories to tell.
These kids, they don’t care for their grandmothers anymore. He is Ivan’s son, right? I think he said he was Ivan’s son.
One moment I was clicking a tiger family as it crossed our path in Kanha national park, and the very next instant I was measuring the infinite sands of Jaisalmer atop a camel. But before the sands could enter my eyes, I found myself meters away from a Himalayan bear in Gulmarg’s snow capped peaks. Only to find myself spotting the huge rhinos in the Kajiranga grasslands.
Snap! A sudden blaring sound from the rapid life around breaks my reverie; breaks my symphony of four of my childhood vacations. Sigh!
I look within, and then peek around,
What goes round must come around.
I built a web, and got caught within,
Call for a sky now, I call for a ground.
At such moments of solitude and reflection, when one wonders the worth of the rat race, all one wants is to close eyes and dream of a life beyond the tentacles of the daily life; a life that speaks a language completely different from ours or a life that only hears the hymns of the glorious Mother Nature.
And when the world of dreams starts enthralling beyond any reason, one becomes a tourist. For, tourism is not an activity, it is an emotion. Tourism is a state of heart which leads the body to explore new sights, new emotions. It urges the body to carry its entire world in a rucksack and breathe afresh in newer worlds; and then ensures that you bring that freshness back to your principal life.
It may sound esoteric in today’s bottom-line driven world; but not for anyone who has traveled around India. For India is not a piece of land; it is a collage of life in its many colours. Whether you cross the smiles of little monks in the vast Himalayan terrains of Ladakh or marvel at the boat races in the backwaters of Kerala; whether you watch with caution the mix of contemporary and ancient within the pristine nature of Nagaland or move in the fast lanes of the western India, you realize how much there is to life.
One does not travel through land; one travel through cultures, languages, colours, smells, sounds and most importantly, smiles. No, one does not travel through land; one travels through life in all its myriad glory. Home is where heaven is, but India tells us that there are many paradises. One each for every state of life where one attains the highest with respect to one’s inner self. The more one moves ahead, the more one connects with the innermost. And quite like in dream, it does not matter what one does in a India. For, it is India, which does things to us.
And as one travels deep across India, all one hopes is of being a good traveler. All one hopes is of letting India travel deep down the heart
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My Anger, My Being
Albert Pinto, that quintessential angry young man, is my hero. Not because he could not help but get angry at things. But because he did accept and stand by his anger.
But then, I’m told that he is not such a good hero to have.
It is not fashionable to be angry. Nice people don’t get angry. Oops! Please forgive my language. Nice people never lose their composure, is what I had meant to say. It is not classy to raise your decibel, even if you are speaking the most dignified language. Nice people, after all, are not just about thoughts; they are a whole-lot about conduct too.
In fact, nicety is increasingly becoming only about conduct and appearance. Or maybe we can stretch the envelope to call it political correctness of one’s disposition. Wow! Now that really was put nicely.
Game for getting angry at a social gathering or with a loved one, anyone? I must be kidding. Who wants to be with a wimp? Everyone wants to be with people who keep smiling, everything withstanding.
And as they would say, what is wrong with me? Why do I get so angry? Why do I get so angry so often?
Because I believe that things can be changed. And because I don’t believe that one has to learn to take things in the stride of life. Or that some things, after all, can’t be helped. That one should not lose one’s cool under any circumstances. So what if we know that the teapot that the hostess is bragging as an unbreakable one can be broken in one single throw away from the table. Albert Pinto did that. I would want to do that. Of course, in spite of not being a nice man, I would pay for the damages. In any case, I would have to pay in the form of losing a few ‘nice’ people.
But that is not what the crusade is all about. It is about being what one is. Being one’s own self definitely does not mean breaking teapots at others’ homes. That is a metaphor for the freedom to express one’s emotions in a manner that is the most natural self. A manner, which is invariably buried under multiple draping of proper social etiquette. Or maybe the man’s oldest adage-friend, If you can’t beat them, join them. There is no dearth of statements, phrases, beliefs and judgments that prescribes composure – in spite of everything.
But of course, why should there be any dearth when the majority either believes it, is made to believe it or just plain lacks the guts to speak against it. I’m never dressed to kill. I don’t want to either. But at times I am expected to dress, as they say, well. And it makes me angry. I’m not showing you anything that you would anyway imagine if you like me.
Of course, you don’t like me. So you don’t like what you see. So what if I’m wearing some of the best brands in the world, the concern is whether the brand is suitable for the occasion. Yes, that makes me angry too.
Over to you to hate me for my low-society diatribe. But what the heck! I’m not here to be popular with you; I’m here to be a friend. I’m told. They unfailingly put their views across in such a manner that it does not hurt the feelings of anyone. Kisi ki bhawnaaon ko thhes nahin pahoonchni chaahiye, you see.
