Rendezvous at Azad Park

To be frank, I don’t care about these religious galas where they put up grand palace like pandals with multiple blaring loudspeakers and each of them letting out a different bhajan (so the end result being a jumble of noise and nothing else) and hoards of people who mostly come just for the heck of it and no religious feelings whatsoever. I really don’t understand the purpose of such extravagance. They say it’s to please the gods. I say the way they sing bhajans is no less than torturing them (and the people who live around such pandals). And many of the bhajans they sing are parodies of Bollywood item numbers. So pious! To me it’s just ‘making a show’ out of their so called oh-how-great-and-religious-we-are attitude.

 So, when my mom asked me to get ready for the Durga Puja happening at the nearby park (meant for children to play) I was definitely irritated. I did not want to go. Such places bore me a lot. But I know there is no way I can fight over it with mom. She with a combination of bewildering arguments and emotional fuss will always have the last laugh. So I cut short the useless argument with mom and opened my cupboard to find out what to wear. Mom had strictly ordered me to wear something ‘suitable for Puja’.

I reach there with my family and I am immediately taken aback by the sheer crowd present there, some sitting, mostly standing and swaying their hands and heads in such a way as if it is a rock performance going onstage and not really bhajans. It wasn’t even 5 minutes I reached here and I was already bored. It seemed I was the only one who was not chilling out there. To make things worse there was no place to sit and we stood at the back corner of the pandal like discards. Mum was already stretching her neck to look over the crowd to see the stage and clapping her hands simultaneously. I decided to slip from there and go to a much less suffocating area. I tell my mum to give me a missed call when it was time to leave. (Which was not going to happen anytime soon). She did not even seem to notice. I made my way out of the crowd like a warrior and took me nearly 10 minutes to get to the comparatively sparsely crowded outskirts of the pandal where numerous Chaat-wallahs, tikki-wallahs, momo-wallahs etc where enjoying their brisk business today.

I was feeling a little hungry myself and decided to have a plate of momos. I started moving towards the momos-cart and I had just put my hand inside my back pocket when I saw her.

She struck me like a lightning. She was the most striking face I ever saw. I skipped my heart beat the instant I saw her. She was pure radiance. Her face trickled with joy. It was the most serene smile I ever saw. She looked absolutely gorgeous in the yellow lights of the pandal. I just kept looking at her. It felt as if I was suddenly cut off from the clamour of the pandal and pushed into a strange tranquillity and she stood in a spotlight that only I could see. Time felt frozen. Her minutely plump face gave her face such an incredible childish innocence. Her nose seemed like a work of art. Her hair moved with a magical air. And her eyes, it was her eyes that struck me with the cupid’s arrow. Those were the most delightful pair of eyes. They were so vivid. And there was so much warmth and a look of reassurance in those big beautiful brown eyes, I felt hypnotised. It was a kind of spectacle that I had never seen before.

Then suddenly she looked at looked at me.  And the entire dreamy world around me came crashing down and brought me back to earth, not because her look was fierce or something, in fact it was a very childlike look that she gave me, but because I was totally blown away by her look. Her direct look on my face made me regain my consciousness. She gave me an amused smile. Then I realized that I had been standing there with my hand in back pocket for a while. Gosh, I was embarrassed. I stood there like stupid staring her with my hands pressed against my bum. And the worst part was, she noticed it. One unwritten rule with boys is that, it’s ok to stare at a girl as long as you want, till she catches you. And she did. What could have been more humiliating? I managed smiling back to her. But she turned her face away. I felt a tinge of anger at that.

I started walking towards the momos-cart as if nothing had happened. But something had already happened inside me. The tinge of anger I felt had vanished the instant it had come. I wasn’t able to resist looking back at her. But felt highly intimidated. I made some two to three steps more when I thought, ‘Come on, what’s the big deal about looking at her?’ I turned my head back once again hoping she isn’t looking at me. I saw her. She was still sitting on the park bench with her friend whom I hadn’t noticed till now. Her friend looked rather ordinary. Don’t know if it’s a valid observation but why is a pretty girl always accompanied by a not-so-pretty friend. Anyway, both were laughing about something. Something about their laugh made me feel they were laughing talking about me. Strangely enough, I regretted her not looking at me. Now I hoped she had looked at me. After the impact that her look had on me, I felt a little disheartened that I should be so insignificant to her. Maybe I was just another irrelevant fellow among her countless admirers.

Hungry just a while back, I asked for a plate of veg. momos half-heartedly and handed over the money to the momo-seller. I was waiting for my plate when I gave a quick head jerk back at her. And I caught her walking away. And within a moment I found my legs walking towards her direction and it took me a second to realize that I was following her. I was paying no heed to the momos guy who was shouting behind asking me to take away my plate of momos. For the first time in my life, I was stalking a girl. I realized that the influence she had on me with that one look was more than I imagined. They stopped at the park entrance and were buying ice cream from a vendor. I stood looking at them from a distance behind a shrub. Just when I thought it was a safe place to keep looking, her friend caught me. She said something in the ears of Miss Brown Eyes and they both burst out giggling. Relieved that at least they were not alarmed by me looking at them, this time I gave them a careful measured smile. To my further relief, they responded with some more giggling. But my eyes were fixed upon just her, Miss Brown Eyes, that’s what I had decided to call her. I wondered should I be going to her and talk. But then I saw her picking up her mobile phone and talking to somebody and the next second they were both moving towards the pandal. For once, I was really excited to go back there. I was about a 100 feet behind them and pretty sure she knew I was following her. I hoped to get a look back. But they were already inside the pandal and both moved separate directions into the crowd. Maybe to join their respective families, I thought. But who cares about her friend, I moved into the crowd, in the direction Miss Brown Eyes went. The crowd had grown even more and I thought these people are killing all the romance I was feeling. I tried stretching my neck and then my toes to locate her, but I couldn’t find her among the swarms of people. I stood there hoping to see her. I was the only one who seemed uninterested in the proceedings on stage and people were looking me with looks that said ‘you creepy atheist’. I was growing restless. I had turned casually towards my right when I saw her standing at a distance amidst the crowd. Not Miss Brown Eyes but her friend. She wasn’t looking at me. But I saw her smiling, a rather mischievous looking smile. Then I realized she was smiling at somebody before her in the crowd. I pulled my neck slightly to see that she was smiling looking at Miss Brown Eyes stuck between the crowds herself. And they were both smiling at each other and honestly they looked quite stupid doing that. I thought they had not noticed me. They were still smiling at each other making eye movements now, as if they were talking to each other through eyes (Girls I had heard are good at it). But once again, my eyes were fixed just upon Miss Brown Eyes. Then Miss Brown Eyes made a hand gesture and soon they were both making their way out of the crowds. I faintly imagined were they playing with me. As I emerged out of the crowd myself I saw Miss Brown Eyes and her friend standing a few yards away seeming to be waiting for somebody. I noticed Miss Brown Eyes smiling in some kind of amusement. God, she looked amazing. Her friend had a rather nervous smile. It would have been so much better if this pesky friend of her wasn’t present at all. I was pretty confident now that they were waiting for me to approach. But I had my apprehensions for sure. It was a little more than half an hour that I had seen her and she was making it appear that her doors are already open for me. I felt somewhat sexy thinking that. Of course Abhay, you are one big stud. Girls just need one look to fall for you. I was saying to myself in my mind. All that feeling that I was irrelevant for her felt like a feeling of ancient times. They were still standing there doing seemingly nothing.

Then I heard a voice. It was loud childish voice screaming at the top of the lungs, ‘Suhanaaaaaa Didiiiiiii‘. I turned my head back and saw a chubby, stubborn looking kid, about 10 years old I guess, looking at them. Then I saw Miss Brown Eyes, she was looking at him too. Evidently, the boy had called her name out. I assumed the boy wasn’t going near to them because he wasn’t wearing any footwear. He stood at the edge, where the pandal carpet ended. I saw Miss Brown Eyes talking to her friend. There appeared to be some kind of convincing and persuasion going on between them. But I wasn’t able to make out who was persuading who and for what. The boy was clearly frowning to have no response from her elder sister even after she noticed him. He screamed once again, ‘Suhaanaaaaaa Didiiiiii’. This time a little scornfully. Miss Brown Eyes started moving towards the kid and bent before him to match his height. Her left knee almost touched the ground. And this was the first time that I was noticing her attire. She wore a light pink kurti over simple denims. But the simplicity of her clothes somehow heightened her attractiveness. It gave her a delicate irresistible touch. I was going weak on my knees. Suhana. Now I knew her name. Suhana. What a lovely name it was. All the while I was hoping subconsciously that she had a name that did justice to her. Not something like Pushpa or Sunita.  Suhana. The name did justice to her as she did justice to her name. Suhana. Suhana. The name was reverberating in my mind.

I saw her talking to the kid cheerfully with animated hand movements. The boy kept nodding obediently while giving looks to the other girl, her friend, once in a while. Even I had been looking at her friend occasionally so that the other girl doesn’t feel odd or something. Within a few moments I saw the boy walking back to the pandal, quite half-heartedly I thought. Suhana was once again with her friend now. There was loud naughty giggling between them.

Alright, I made up my mind; I am going to her, enough of waiting. The confidence I felt in the moment I decided to go to her instantly turned into anxiety the moment I made my first step towards her. But I had already made up my mind, ‘I am going to talk to her’. I noticed that she was aware I was approaching her. And she appeared okay with it. And this was relaxing me a great deal. I tried to put a sexy strut as I walked to her but I knew I was failing miserably. I was nearing closer to her. Some part of my brain was hoping that it was not a prank. The way she appeared encouraging to fact of me coming near her given that it was just a while back that she saw me, confused me a little. Why was she making herself so available? I was having slight doubts about her character. Come on!! I shook my head, not really, bit inside my mind. All this was perfectly fine. She might have found me interesting, so even she was taking a chance. What is wrong with that? I might have been just a few feet before her when i felt a heavy hand on my shoulders. I was startled to death. I heard the girls giggling. Honestly, they giggled too much. But I was terrorized. I hoped it was not her boyfriend or father. I turned my head. I saw a lady with a shabby makeup and a suspicious look staring at me with a questioning glance. I stood looking at her blankly. It was only after I got a slap from her that I realized that it was my mom standing in front of me.

‘Where were you all this while? I didn’t see you in the pandal even for a minute.’

‘But I was there for way more than a minute.’ But I realized I said it in such a low voice that I wasn’t really speaking but just mumbling. Mom gave me a confused look and said in her typically stern voice,                                                                                                                                                                 ‘What is the matter with you!! And don’t put up that innocent face. I know you better than that. Come, it’s time to go.’

‘This soon?’ This time I said the two words as clear as it can get. Mom was quite shocked to hear that. I hopelessly hoped mom would change her mind and stay back a little longer. On any other day she would have been glued to this place. I was let-down when she said, ‘No, we are late. We need to go.’ She said it so coldly and without even the slightest acknowledgment to my surprise at going so soon (given that I normally would do die to leave this place), that I was a little irritated, and more so because she had to come just when I was about to talk to Miss Brown Eyes. Suhana. What perfect timing!? I looked back and saw she was smiling and now looking straight at me, but I could also see from her lips a tinge of disappointment. I liked her being disappointed but I was greatly frustrated myself that I cannot go to her now. Not with my mom just at my back. Sadness grew within me. Before moving towards our car, I gave her one last look, and she still smiled. It was so hard to shift my glance from her face. It looked divine. Before opening the car door I looked at her friend, mainly out of courtesy, and was surprised to see a very pleasing smile from her too.

I took my place in the driver’s seat and with a deep sigh I thought I was definitely going to meet her again.

That night, even at home, lying on my bed, the thoughts about Suhana were haunting me. Earlier during dinner time I had been eating my dinner completely lost in her thoughts. I wasn’t really eating.  My hands were performing the task of grabbing the food from the plate and my mouth was doing the task of chewing and swallowing, which was it. But my mind was still reliving the first look of her that I caught. It did not matter that my favourite sarso ka saag was in front of me. I faintly remembered mom saying to dad that she is never going to take me to a religious event again if I am to become crazy like this. I had not reacted anything when mom had said that. But now lying on my bed, staring at the ceiling, I was smiling thinking about that. All my life I had made fun of the phenomena of ‘lost in her thoughts’, ‘crazy in love’, ‘sleepless nights’, ‘deep romantic sighs’. But I found myself laughing when I thought all this was happening with me.

 A week passed since that day. And I had not been able to meet her. For some reason I had decided that I am not going to tell my friends about this for the time being. Somewhere I had felt this was too personal and special a feeling, to be shared with anyone else. It had to be relished by me only. But the bigger reason had been they would have made me the butt of all jokes if I told them. But the week had been highly disheartening. I couldn’t even catch a one small glance of her. I had no lead where to find her. Every day I had been taking out my bike, in the mornings and evenings, and drive aimlessly around the neighbourhood, hoping to come across her. I had searched Facebook but got no relevant results. Every evening I spent close to two hours, in the park where I first saw her, but could never hit upon her. I had panicked wondering if she belonged to the locality or not. I was starting to lose all hope when I saw her, and that too right from my home. I was having my evening coffee in my balcony when I saw her moving along the street (with her friend again). I was stumped and exhilarated. I cannot lose her this time. I frantically started searching for my bike keys. It took me more time than usual to find the keys because of the impatience attack. They were lying inside my shoes. I ran towards slamming the front door shut behind me towards the parking area. I really didn’t care that I was in my trunks. I jumped onto my bike and within no time I was behind them, following them slowly. I knew there was no chance of losing her this time but still did not want to take any. I followed her for about 5minutes when I saw her entering a small building. ADARSH COACHING CENTRE. Adarsh coaching centre.  The three words rang a bell inside me and I knew why. My heart was smiling and turned my bike back towards home. As I drove, I thought, Shriya, I need your help.

At night at home, I dialled Shriya’s number. Shriya was my classmate at school. She wasn’t particularly a very good friend but I always suspected she thought of me as one. And frankly, I always called her up only when I needed her. But she did not seem to mind that ever. So even today when I was calling her up, it was for a reason. Shriya, I knew studied at the Adarsh Coaching Centre. And the last I knew, she went there the same time I saw Suhana entering the building. She picked up the phone immediately, possibly excited at me calling her. And she gave me the most enthusiastic ‘hi’ ever. ‘Hieeeeeeeeeeee !!!’

‘Hi Shriya,’

‘I can’t believe you called me.’

Even I can’t, I said in my mind, but I laughed and said ‘How are you Shriya?’

‘Oh, I am just fine.’

‘Hey Shriya, You still study at Adarsh right?’

‘Yeah I do.  But why ask?’

‘I wanted to inquire about somebody studying there.’

‘Don’t tell me you are going to ask me about Suhana’ she gave a naughty chuckle.

I was totally taken aback. How did she know about whom I was going to talk about? Suhana must have hinted about me to Shriya. Gosh, I was excited.

I asked her barely able to hide my excitement. ’Hey! How do you know that?’

She gave me one big throaty laugh. I had no patience to endure useless laughs right now. She said, ’Before I answer let me ask you something. Do you feel anything for Suhana?’

I held my phone completely puzzled. The girl was bang on with her questions. I feel everything for Suhana. But I did not say that to Shriya, of course. And anyway it wasn’t necessary now, I felt.

‘Hmm. Maybe a little’ I said that with a weird chuckle.’ That was perhaps the biggest understatement I ever uttered. But Shriya needed only that. She turned into a monstrous laugh. I was wondering whether it was a mocking laugh or a laugh of discovering something long pending.

Hardly able to control herself Shriya finally said,

‘Oh my God! Suhana is going to be so happy. She had been so smitten by you from such a long time. She would have never thought in her wildest dreams that you would come yourself finding her. This is unbelievable. She would...’

Shriya kept on speaking. But I was already somewhere else. All this seemed too good to be true. It was like the perfect dream where everything happened as expected, perhaps, even better than expected, than hoped. I felt like the luckiest person on earth. There she was a girl who I fell for in my first look and she had been looking out for me all the while. How much more splendid it can be? It was like the sudden winning of a lottery, without notice, without any indication. All this felt so surreal. Mine was the most straightforward love story ever. I felt blessed.

Shriya was still blabbering with excitement, ’....Suhana won’t believe it. She will cry out of joy.... Hey are you there?’

‘Yeah I am. I am quite surprised and glad to hear all this. But how do you know all this?’

‘Everybody in our coaching batch knows about this. It’s such a gossip in our classroom. She had told her friends how she feels about you. And she is completely obsessed with you. But she is kind of shy. That is the reason she never approached you herself. But she has been planning to. She told us that you had been looking at her at the Durga Puja. She didn’t sleep that night out of the thrill.’

I was exhilarated. But I asked, ‘Wow. This is fantastic. This is so cool. But tell me something. How does she know me?’

‘Oh she always complains about that. She had first seen you at the sports center practicing basketball. She was infatuated the moment thereafter. She made her excuses of badminton practise sessions to catch a glimpse of you at the sports center. And she always complained you never caught her sight. She is a pretty girl to be ignored. And hey, you have to give me some credit. I stuffed her up with things like how great a person you are, how funny you are and all. You know what I mean.’ She gave a giggle to end her statement. What’s up with girls and giggles?

I was suddenly feeling important. I felt, all the while I had been underestimating myself. I was way too hot than I imagined. I was way too attractive than I thought. And to get a girl like Suhana attracted towards me was by no means a small feat. I had suspected that she was interested in me that night of Durga Puja. How right I was. I wasn’t able to hold back my eagerness. I wanted to meet her immediately. I was blushing immensely when I asked her

‘Hey. I want to meet her. Can you setup a meeting?’

‘Of course I can. She will be ready to meet you any time. She will be ready to meet you even now. She is so keen for that one date with you. She has been waiting for more than a year.’

‘It seems her wait is over. Can you arrange a meet up tomorrow?’

‘Most definitely yes! Wait, I will tell her about this and call you back. Okay?’

‘Well, yeah.’

‘Don’t worry. I know you guys are going to meet tomorrow.’

I was waiting for her next call. I was thrilled immeasurably. I couldn’t recall when I had been so thrilled the last time. Maybe, never. Being on the cloud nine, I knew now how it felt. This was a reward I never saw coming. I was waiting for the call back from Shriya and the wait felt like a never ending wait. I had developed a liking for Shriya. I held my mobile phone in my hands waiting for the ring. And it rang.

I waited for one round of ring before picking it up. I heard Shriya’ voice

‘Oh Abhay! She was so ecstatic. She wouldn’t believe me. She just wouldn’t believe me. She made me swear a thousand times before she believed me. She was finding it so difficult to manage her elation. She was crying out of joy. Oh how happy she sounded......She will meet you tomorrow. At the Azad Park, where you saw her for the first time, at 5 in the evening. It’s okay with you right?’

‘Of course, tell her I will be there when she comes.’

We exchanged few more pleasantries over phone before hanging up. Suddenly I was feeling nervous. I was going to meet her finally. After 8 days of uncertainty. The wait certainly felt long. And I wanted to do justice to the wait by making the meet as memorable as it can get. All of a sudden I was getting fussed up over petty things like what I should be wearing, what should I be saying to her, what should be my hairstyle, should I sport a stubble or not, should I dress casually or sporty, what fragrance should I be wearing. I wanted to create a lasting impression of our first date. And I was all over the place thinking hard for that. It was late when I finally slept. Not because I was feeling sleepy but because I thought I should be sleeping. I wanted to showcase to her my best form.

I was finally going to meet her today. All day long I was pacing here and there out of sheer impatience. 5 o’ clock seemed like a distant time. All my usual favourite pastimes were failing to help me get over the eagerness to meet her. I was looking at the clock every 15 minutes as a convict waits for his release. Mom had been repeatedly asking, ‘What’s keeping you so worked up.’ I excused her questions by mumbling something that did not make much sense. By the time it was 3 I was working on my opening lines to her. So, finally we meet. Naah, that sounded too formal. So I suppose you know why we are here. Nope, that sounded like an underground criminal business. I left my experiments with opening lines after a few more futile attempts. I thought, let it better come spontaneously. When it was 4.30 I could not wait any longer and biked my way to the meeting venue. I sat on the same bench where I had first seen her sitting. The sun was still shining but it was calm late October evening sun. It lent certain cheerfulness to the park and the children who were playing there. 25 more minutes to go. I started re-imagining the night she first hit me. Oh, I could never forget my first sight on her. Those who say, love at first sight does not exist, are those who never had the luck to feel it. I had felt it. And now I believed that such a thing does exist.

It was 5. I turned my head towards the park entrance. There was no sight of her. She is on her way, I thought. But I was feeling a little uneasy. 5 minutes had passed since 5 pm and my head was fixed upon the entrance now. I had already started getting concerned when I finally saw her entering through the park gate.  I imagined flowers being showered upon her for one split second. She looked so heavenly. She wore blue casual top and black jeans. And she walked as if she ruled the world. Of course she did. She had an easy smile on her face. I stood up and started walking towards her. Once again I had not noticed her same friend that was just behind her. She carried a strangely mysterious smile. Who was she, her bodyguard or something? I hoped she would not be nosy when Suhana and I will get into relationship. We were now approaching each other. My heart was racing as I made my steps. I was trying to walk as gentlemanly as possible. And there we were facing each other. I kept looking at her, studying her face, her nose, her chin, and her eyebrows and appreciating the delicate precision by which they were made. But for some reason the joy in her face seemed abruptly lost. She was looking quite puzzled and questioning. As if I should have asked her permission before looking at her face. I was taken aback. I had felt the liberty to explore her face. She managed a smile and turned her head towards her friend. Her friend carried the same expression as Suhana but with a little more intensity. Her friend’s eyes seemed insisting something. I smiled to her and she appeared blushing a little. I was a little confused myself. I could not make out what her and her friend’s look suggested. I looked into Suhana’s face again and her eyes seemed to say, ‘So?’ I was not seeing the kind of enthusiasm I was expecting. But I spoke the first words looking at Suhana. ‘Let’s take a walk around the park.’

Suhana appeared amused and at the same time bewildered. She looked at her friend who looked back at her with a vacant expression. Then she looked at me inquiringly. Why was her friend giving me looks as if I had committed a crime? But Suhana was no better. Suhana replied, ‘Well. I’m not sure. What about her?’ Suhana asked pointing at her friend. I was annoyed a little that she should be so concerned about her friend even at this moment. Why did she have to bring her friend in the first place? But I answered meekly, ‘I guess, she can wait for a little while.’ I looked at her friend. She looked uncertain but nodded smiling.

Suhana looked at her friend doubtfully but her friend nodded in a way that said go ahead. Suhana said looking at me, ‘Alright. Let’s take a walk.’ I was annoyed that she had to take permission of her friend for even a walk.

Her friend sat on a nearby bench as me and Suhana started walking along the footpath along the park boundary. Suhana was the first one to speak this time. ‘So is there anything you want to know.’

I was dazed. She didn’t seem even close to the Suhana that Shriya had told me about last night. I was having a sinking feeling inside my heart. I asked her boldly, ‘What’s wrong Suhana.’ The moment I finished the sentence she looked at me wide eyed. She said with louder voice,

‘What do you mean Suhana? I am not Suhana.’

‘What???’

‘I am not Suhana. She is.’ She pointed at her friend sitting at the park bench.

‘What??’

‘What is the matter with you? Are you joking or what? You came here to meet her right?’

‘I.....I came...’

‘What Abhay?’

‘I came to see you.’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘I came to see you. You are not Suhana?’

‘God, No. You are impossible. How could you think that I am Suhana?’

‘I...I..that night when that kid called out Suhaanaa Didi..you were the one who went upto him..no..?’

‘Oh God. You got it all wrong. He had been calling her only. I thought you were coming to her. So I went to him, made up an excuse and told him that her sister would be coming in a while. He never argues with me. So I went to him.’

‘But..but..you were looking at me. I was looking at you all the while.’

‘What? You were looking at me? We both thought you were looking at her. We were both looking at you. And I was smiling for her sake. Not for you. God, this is incredulous.’

‘Tell me you are joking.’

‘Why would I be joking? Oh poor Suhana.’

‘Uh...What is your name?’

‘I am Gita.’

I was completely blank by now. I asked her daringly.

‘You have a boyfriend?’

‘You are trying to hit on me!! Stretch your neck and look behind the entrance gates.’

 A tall hunky muscular boy was sitting on a bike. He had a stern expression.

She continued,’ Saw him? Well that is my boyfriend.’

I turned my back and started walking. I could hear her calling my name out but I did not turn back. I leapt across the park fence, sat on my bike and turned the keys. It was only after I reached home that I started crying.

Face Off

Sneha woke up early for a Sunday. She woke up at 11 am. After giving in to the temptation of lying inside the warm quilt for 5 more minutes she threw the quilt aside. Smudging her eyes she groped the floor with her legs to find her slippers. Yawning like a monster she moved to the mirror for the routine morning scan of herself. She gasped. No she hadn’t got a pimple. She was stunned because she thought she was looking stunning. Her face was looking radiant after a great sleep. Her hair which was in disarray, looked beautifully messy. And somehow something inexplicable was making her seem just lovely. This was what she called accidental beauty.

She cannot waste any time doing morning formalities. She wanted her photograph clicked right away. She would upload it on Facebook and it will become such a sensation. So she thought. She walked to the other room where the camera was kept. She avoided running lest she could risk ruining the naturally formed hairstyle. She opened the drawer, No!! The camera was not there. She screamed at the top of her lungs, ‘Mom, where the hell is the camera!’ She got no response. She stomped to the other room and looked frantically where she thought she could find the cam. Nope, she could not find the camera anywhere. She screamed again, “Mom, where is the camera!!” This time she heard mom’s voice from the kitchen,”Why do need the camera for?”

“Just tell me where it is?”

“Look where it is normally kept”

Sneha knew Mom didn’t have any clue where the camera is. Hopelessly she went back to check the same drawer where she had checked for the cam initially. She tossed around the contents of the drawer madly till she found the camera hidden under a pile of paper. She took it out and thought about clicking a picture herself. Nope, she will not be able to get the desired look that way. She went to mom in the kitchen. On the way, she checked herself in the mirror. Yeah, she looked divine.

‘Mom, will you please click a couple of pictures of mine.’

‘Can’t you see I am cooking? I don’t have time for your whims right now.’

Irritated, Sneha went out of the kitchen to find Dad. She found her dad getting ready in front of the dressing table. She asked, ‘’Dad, I want some pictures clicked, will you come out to the balcony?”

She hadn’t yet finished when her Dad’s mobile phone started ringing and she heard him muttering hurriedly over the phone. When he hung up, he said , ”Sorry dear, I am already late for the club meeting. I have to leave right away. Ask your brother.” And she saw him going out of the room.

Irritated more than before, she went to her brother’s room with the camera in her hand. She found her brother snoring inside his blanket. She poked him. He didn’t move. She looked at her dog lying under the bed. No, Lee won’t be able to help her. She poked his brother harder. He just groaned and shifted his posture. She went near his ears and shouted, ‘WAKE UP!!’ He woke up at once and yelled, “What do you want!!”

“Please click some photographs of mine. Please please please”

“You woke me up for this. Are you nuts?”

“Please” She tried to sound as polite as possible. She knew she could have her way with her brother if not others.

He woke up looking grumpy. He snatched the camera from her and asked ‘What do you want me to do?’ She loved her brother.

She took her brother to the balcony and ordered him to stand at a particular spot. She instructed that she will make various poses and all he has to do is click her picture in each one of them. And there she began, making lush poses and her brother awkwardly capturing them. After clicking around ten pictures her brother lost his patience and gave her back the camera and went inside the house. She excitedly opened the pictures she just got clicked. She went through all of them with a vague expression. She twitched her face. Tick tick tick. She deleted all the pictures, moved inside and went to brush her teeth.

Mirror and camera rarely are friends with each other.

  

At a loss for words

When your heart swells,

A tale of pride it tells,

Emotions higher than your words allow to express

Flow in you and they wrap your heart up in a warm caress..

Caught spellbound by an emotion so strong

When you know that nothing in the world can go wrong

The moment of an emotional high

It gives your heart wings to fly 

When you fumble for words to let someone else know

‘cause words crawl when emotions flow.

You just keep it all wrapped up inside with a sigh

Hoping to find the right words which might suit this high

Be it good , be it bad

What makes this all so sad

Is that you have conceal it all in

When you’re just way too excited to from within

These are the moments when you think

Your emotions are overflowing from the brink

You just fumble for words, grope for sentences

But words lose every time and emotions overshadow words’ chances. 

TypeCasting Couch

They say ‘Never judge a book by its cover.’ But in this era of snap judgement sadly it’s the superficial that matters the most. A red stain on shirt can lead a suspicious wife to believe that her husband has an affair. A guy laments possessing only a 6 pack and not an eight pack and panics if he will ever be able to impress girls. A man with a long mane is considered frivolous in professional sphere. The ideal man is tall dark and handsome and not caring, understanding and funny. Blonde is moron. Sardar is idiot. A person with a long beard and a skull cap is a terrorist. Justin Bieber is gay. Why are we always in a hurry to declare somebody as something just because of a certain way he/she looks, appears, behaves or dresses? Why do we give appearance more importance than substance? Why is a person’s personality judged according to some pre-conceived and mostly baseless notions? Why have we thrown away the concept of individuality and started stereotyping people into clichéd categories. Are we too busy to inspect before coming to a verdict? Probably. Am I taking this whole stereotyping of people business way too seriously? Most probably. In our country there is no person who has not been stereotyped in some time of his life. Nobody can escape from it because stereotypes exist of every sort: Religion, region, caste, race, profession, clothing, mannerism, language, money-worth and so on. So when a man stereotypes someone else, he takes a subconscious pleasure in it, because he has been on the receiving end himself. Most of the time a man does not even realize when he is stereotyping but subliminally he is taking his vengeance for the all the pigeonholing he has been subjected to himself. It’s a tit for tat scenario. Once again is there no time for inspecting what the person really is before bracketing him? Not necessarily. The reigning but hidden thought is: When the other person did not take any time to inspect before coming to conclusion why should I take the pain to analyze him? This might explain day to day stereotyping. But this does not explain everything. When it comes to certain things, a man’s mind is more or less like a non-rewritable disc. Initially the disc is blank, so whatever rudimentary and crude concepts it stores in the beginning, remains embedded inside his mind. And it’s a hell lot difficult to change the already established notions of the mind. And a man’s mind is insecure. He thinks stereotyping is the safest bet and a shortcut to knowing somebody and assuring that the person concerned is harmless. So in a way, though stereotyping is unpleasant, it’s a basic human tendency. We cannot be really blamed for what we are. And nobody can claim that he has never stereotyped anybody. NOBODY. But then I don’t deny there are people who stereotype out of sheer malice. Such people are mainly frustrated, non descript souls. But all said harmless stereotyping can be really fun.

My 16 point exam saga

1. You don’t get the mood to study during the PLs…(amidst all the holiday planning…so you rely on the 12th hour preparation.)
2. 2 days before the exam, you can’t find your Academic calender.(never figured in ur list of important things)
3. When you actually locate it, you realize that you don’t have material for half the subjects. (great!!)
4. You get into a frenzy of panic and take deep breaths.
5. You call up your friend. (for some way out)
6. The friend is herself freaked out and you end up consoling her, feeling a hell lot better.
7. After hanging up, you forget the whole purpose of the call…
8. After gathering all the relevant material, you look into the pages and wonder how and where to begin with.
9. You skip a few topics. [Given the hectic schedule of panicking and mugging].
10.The very same topics appear in the paper that too in the detail section.
11. You walk out of the hall thinking hard and going blank alternatively. 
12.You runaway from the scene when your friends and classmates do a post-mortem of the question paper. who wants to remember it anyway???
13. You resolve firmly that u will do well in the next exams.(which never happens)
14. You try to enjoy but the thought of result lingers.
15.When the results do come out …and you realise the whole trouble was not worth it. You fare Ok in the paper you thought you screwed up in and get mediocre marks in the exams.
16. You use divine words to describe the soul who checked your papers as well as the university…

And a passion gets killed...

Danish was a musical prodigy. He had this talent of composing music in minutes. Give him any set of lyrics and he will have the complete tune and orchestration in his mind after half an hour. He was what I called ridiculously talented. So when he got a call from Berklee College of music extending an invitation to enrol in their undergraduate programme, he was ecstatic. But his elation did not last for too long because he was unfortunately born to the 'typical Indian parents'. They were completely against his going abroad to pursue something as ‘bizarre’ as music. He protested, he cried but his cries went to deaf ears. They beat him, blackmailed him and admonished him. In the next month he was packing his bags for an obscure engineering college because his parents thought engineering was where prudence lied.

This is something that has been widely discussed everywhere that how Indian parents don’t let their children pursue their dreams and instead push them to chase some fields which they consider ‘good'. So I’m not going to write another passage over it. I have only one thing to say: Any nation is driven by the passions of the youth. And what I’ve noticed in our country is: We do what we are good at for free, and we are paid for what we are not good at.  Till this change, India will continue having a growth which is stunted.

The absurdity called moral and evil: An idea

I find this whole idea of good and evil pretty amusing. This is the vaguest classification ever known to mankind. There is nothing called good or evil in this world. Everything is purely contextual. What may be good for some might be evil for others. What might be evil for some might be good for others. So what is the benchmark? Evil is defined as anything which is morally objectionable. Whose morals? Whose objection? Whose rules are to be followed? Who made the rules that set apart good and evil? Who made these arbitrary tenet that certain things are right and certain things are wrong. But nobody has a clue on what basis good and evil has been defined. Some say good has been defined as something favourable to the sustenance of the society. In other words a man’s self interest has to be traded off for the interests of the society. A man instead of living for himself is forced to live for the so-called benefits of the society. Everything that we see around the world today is because of man’s inherent nature of self-interest. Till somebody is not being destructive, everything should be acceptable. But still we are taught from childhood that selflessness is a virtue. Why? Selflessness amounts to the cruellest form of depravity. My strong view is that the laws that define good and moral are made by weak people who are insecure that they will be overpowered by the virtues of self-interest of mightier people. There is nothing called inherent goodness of man. Everything is programmed into the mind by the incessant teachings right from the day he/she is born. Everybody is just playing a role of a so called ‘good human’ even when his insides are churning. There is nothing called evil. It’s anything that does not conform to the random idea of moral. It’s a myth that society needs a code. As the joker says in movie ‘The Dark Knight’-When the chips are down, these civilized people will eat each other. If you really need a definition for morality,then there can be only one rule. There is no morality above man’s self interest.

Cross-legged beside the highway

I could taste blood in my mouth. My knees were severely bruised. My shirt sleeve was torn off. The heat of the slap on my face could still be felt. I was sitting cross legged just next to National Highway 1. I had been travelling on Haryana Roadways bus on my way to Delhi from Chandigarh. The bus had been stopped somewhere before Panipat to let the ticket checkers in. I had been casually standing at the back of the bus alley listening to music on my earphones when a bald foul looking man poked me from the back. He asked me to show him my ticket. Very indifferently I took out my bus pass and handed it over to him. He looked at it for a second and then suddenly grabbed my earphones and threw it somewhere towards the front. I was aghast. I was about to grab his collar when he screamed at his loudest voice with his heavy Haryanvi accent,”Do you think we are fools!!” And then as if announcing to everybody he yelled again, “This gentleman thought he could fool Roadways by carrying an expired Bus pass all the way to Delhi!!” And then he thrust my pass much too close to my face. I hadn’t realized that my Bus pass had expired 15 days back.

I said, ‘I didn’t know that my bus pass had expired.’

“Now you know. Take out 1000 Rupee fine”

“I don’t have 1000 rupees right now, but I....”

That had been just the response he needed. And I felt a heavy slap on my face. I felt my face numb with the impact of the slap. But I had lost my temper myself. I raised my hand and punched his nose. But suddenly somebody hit me from the back and grabbed my hair from behind and made me lie on the narrow alley of the bus. And the bald guy then kicked me on my crotch. And somebody else stomped me on my face. I was almost unconscious. The bald guy and the guy who hit me from my back picked me up and threw me out of the bus. I was lying in pain when I heard the bus go away. It had taken me 10 minutes to regain myself fully.

Now I was sitting beside the road watching vehicles go past. I felt like crying but I did not. I knew I should have taken care if the bus pass was valid. But what they did was completely unreasonable. They didn’t give me any chance to explain and resorted to violence without even the slightest provocation. I was brimming with anger. I wanted to teach them a lesson. I took out my phone and dialled Tauji’s number. Tauji was a senior officer at the Haryana roadways. I told him everything that happened to me. I came to know he was at Panipat. He consoled me and said that he will immediately go with his boys to Panipat Bus Stand and wait for the bus. He asked where I was. I lied to him that I was at a dhabha sipping chai. I hung up the phone. But I didn’t move from that place. I was feeling a strange comfort sitting there in that obscure place somewhere in Haryana between some sugarcane fields and a highway. Half an hour later I got a call from Tauji, ”There is a problem. I will get back to you.” and he hung up the phone immediately. I was concerned what had happened. But I didn’t call back. Nervously I was rotating my phone in my hands. After 20 minutes I got a call again, this time from an unknown phone number. Somebody from Tauji’s office had called me. Tauji and two others had been arrested. They had badly beaten up the bald man with the foul face. The man was dead. I had held it back, but now I couldn’t stop crying.

Time machine to the present

Time travel has intrigued man from a very long time. What will happen if we go to the past? Will we land in a parallel universe? Will we be able to alter events to change the reality? Or what will happen if we go to the future? These questions have given many thinkers food for thought.  Will we ever be able to make a time machine!!? I can’t answer that. How about a time machine that will take as back to the present? Because it’s pretty evident that we are in a desperate urgency of a device that will make us come back to our reality, our present. I will call it the NowMachine.

We don’t live in the present anymore, do we? We are either moaning about what happened in the past or anxious about what will happen in the future. We are either regretting things that we did or are restless about things we should do in the future. We have become slaves of the past and future. We have made the present, a hook to hang the baggage of past and a platform to put the weight of the future. We are either still at loggerheads because of what happened a few years back or are concerned if the world will end on 2012. We think ‘present’ is just a ‘0’ in the number line of time with past and future extending till infinity. We don’t realize that even present offers us infinite possibilities. Enter the NowMachine.

NowMachine will take us back to the moment we are currently living in. It will take us to a present which has no past and no future. NowMachine will make us realize there is so much that present offers. One push to the lever and all the future and past just zaps away. Worried about exam results? Enter the NowMachine. Lost a job? Enter the NowMachine. Break up? NowMachine. Terminally ill? NowMachine. NowMachine would become a revolutionizing device!! But wait a minute; don’t we all have a NowMachine at our possession already?

SREERAG