Names

Everything was okay till he mentioned his name.

As they lay on a tired bed on an early morning of frenzied passion - her face on his chest looking window-wards, he almost lost in the mists of sleep - she spoke as if in a dream, or so it seemed to him, "Samar, where do we go from here?"
"Anand. Anand it is."

They say madness is a manifestation of the unconscious. Freud called the unconscious a monster, an evil within us. It didn't matter if Anand agreed or not. It also didn't matter if Jung had corrected the theory or not. Anand had let off to slip something so trivial yet so devilish that his conscious had ever feared to confront.

"I don't know why marriage is so important for sex. Vice versa and that's fact. Marriage is man's one stop solution for his need of companionship. It should be above sex. Sex, outside of marriage, is a state of mind. A shallow one. I think if you are being cared for, are understood and you know . . . I don't think one should dissolve a marriage solely on sexual grounds. But then, you can't just ignore your libido forever too. "
"Hmm."

Boy, was he charming and confusing, in a charming kind of way.
It isn't difficult to get a lady, a married lady, to bed. You should be enticing and young, younger than her and talk and talk and talk. These, coincidentally are also a few things which get lost in the process of growing up in a marriage. Did I mention name?

Names don't really matter. Unless you are lying about it. And if you are, oh, don't let your unconscious play with your tongue. Anand was Samar to her till then. He was a bastard after that. For him, she was good.

P.S: This is fiction. THIS IS FICTION.

Pipe dreams !

He slept with a Ray and a Proferes and a 5200 under his chest and dreams of his younger self drinking the 8 1/2 potion from a witch and coming out of a castle, a great director.

Cricket !

THERE IS a certain element of nostalgia associated with watching an old cricket match. The scorecard with the names of men who seem like old friends who disappeared into an oblivion without a farewell, the voice of commentators who taught you the basics of the game which you so loved, even a certain indescribable quality of the crowd which all defined a cricket match of your childhood. Its like watching an old favorite movie. You know the story and the dialogue. You even remember the parts where you got the bumps when you watched it the first time - 7, 8, 10 years back and still watch it with an air of suspense and awe.

You look at people whose future you already know - a captain who would be a nobody in a few years, a prodigy who remained untouched after eversomany matches, the commentators who became coaches and the coaches who went on awfully big adventures. Its fascinating, emotional even. Because when you watch these matches, along with all your good old friends; the people whom you 'grew up with', you also see the kid you were some years back. You are his future and you are not sure if you are what he dreamt of when he daydreamed during those matches. You feel an urge to walk back a few years and hug that little kid and apologize to him for not looking after his dreams as you were supposed to and you hope he forgives you and even says a few good things about you and at the back of your mind you know he will. He was not so bad.

There are moments in your life which you always want to hold onto. Moments, so special, they seem to define in a single instant all the joy that is there in your life. Times, at which when you look back, they seem to be posters of your favorite classic movie. And a song to associate with them. Memories so beautiful, your heart aches.

Mundane activities gain special meaning just because it was shared by someone close to you. The most ordinary seems extraordinary just because you know someone had felt the same way about it. You feel good to be alive. The air around you seems so fresh, you overbreathe. Life, at times, does seem beautiful even with all its imperfections. Or maybe, the imperfections make it seem more beautiful. Such an irony. You live for the future but the past, your memories, gives your life all its meaning.

The Great Gig in the Sky

A lady in a white dress floating like a silk ribbon in an infinite silver-white gray-black sky, stretching across its vastness, holding onto nothing. A man in black shades standing in an ashened earth, looking at the sky, at the ribbon, the lady. This is the image I get every time I hear TGGITS. Effigies of anxiousness, of loneliness, of hurt and of all that I set to achieve and I could not, of death keep flashing before me like nasty ogres.
It’s like seeing your own dead self. How would it feel? To see yourselves dying. Lonely, underachieved, holding onto life, which is past you. Chilling. The lady is me. And the man is me too. Right now, I am afraid to face death and so I can’t face life. Explains why he is wearing black shades.

A familiar cry of the engine. Road lay down itself for you like a slave, like a whore. Use and They shall abuse. Trees pass by like strokes of a painter’s brush. Faceless beings like specks of dirt on a white canvas. The shadow of you on a thick cloud of exhaust breathed out from your latest pursuit. Forth ho, before you are lost.

A crooked scooter waiting for his master. A murdered [1] truck, his master lost. Many beads of red on its face. Free and happy and dead. Woman riding the pillion. Hip drawn back, chest ahead. Cheek resting on a cushion. Rider resting on a softer one. Cog up, move ahead. What you see is what you don’t get.

A proud dog barks. A prouder one sleeps, in a pool of sauce. Liver out, eyes in. Red, hot bitch. Highway to another (spell-check: a nether) world.


[1]: Murdered by whom, one might ask. Mr. McFate of course, who else?

I stood at the balcony sipping a cup of coffee , looking at a child playing with her plastic football. The unfinished concrete floor she was trotting on barely seemed to bite her naked feet. Or even if it did, she din't seem to care. Every moment she spent seemed to be moments of unadultered joy, of consummate innocence. One second Time seemed to fly by, another second i looked at her and Time seemed to stop by and join me in the audience , to watch something as pure as that. Maybe the floor was watching too and enjoying the touch of her cushy feet and in the indulgence had forgotten it's prick.
Her grandfather was watering the plants in a small garden surrounding the apartment. The gush of water, from whatever space was left between his thumb and the tip of the pipe, seemed to be as welcome for the plants as for the water escaping the pipe. He seemed to establish some sort of connection with the plants through the water, a smile that would'nt leave his face. A smile which suggested contentment at the way life treated him. At the way all the events leading to his retirement lined up to salute him. The smile of an old man content with life can easily be confused with the smile of one prepared for the eventual, I thought. What could possibly defeat such a man? The smile had to be there.
The water trickled down from the leaves to the concrete floor and formed a neat stream. The sun glistened its edges and it moved lazily, sometimes hither sometimes thither, like a man with no particular deadline to meet. It moved, melanizing the floor along its path. And as it moved further, it broke off into two parallel streams. The streams seemed to look longingly at each other like they never wished to be separated. They never imagined that they could even have a separate existence. They had never bothered to make one out from the other. Even the floor seemed to cry for them and the tears seemed to be the streams themselves.
But then something happened. Maybe it was the wind. Maybe a slight slope. Or maybe, just maybe it was their longing. They were no longer parallel. They meandered towards each other.And as they neared, one stream for once showed a sense of urgency. The other reciprocated and the next second they moved along lazily again, as one. Again as two bodies, one soul. A sweet pang in my chest. The nature seemed to smile at the stream. The Sun shined ever so mildly, not wanting to dry them off and the floor did his best by nudging them through a slope as if sending them for a honeymoon.