The Lost Holidays

The rain was settling down. Some infrequent droplets and those were it. A wind undressed the sky from the clouds and exposed its bare blue residue. The heavens were turning lucid. Taking help from a gentle breeze, trees and shrubs of the earth swirled away the water droplets clung to their branches and leaves. The day was all set to welcome a pleasant, bright and fresh afternoon. And the indistinctly misty evening added itself to the serenity of Maale-Nag, a hamlet on the valley of the mighty Himalayas. The village stood afresh; with a new life imbibed in it. After all it had been raining continuously there for the past two weeks. And little did the rain know that it had spoiled Vyomketan, the yearly harvest festival of the villagers that ran over the last one week.

A couple of hours were still remaining for the nightfall. The last bus from the city down below the plains was to reach the village in a short while. In a small shed near the bus stop sat an old man who apparently was waiting for someone who would come in that bus. Though he seemed so fragile, his age hadn’t have stolen the sparkle out of his eyes, which were filled with hopes.

“Is he coming today?” Asked a passerby who seemed to have known the old man for quite some time. As with the case of any other village, in that village too everyone knew each other.

“I hope so”. The old man replied him without taking his eyes off, which were set at a distance, on the road where it bended and disappeared behind the mountains.

“You should go home grandpa. He is not a child. He will come home alone once he reaches here.”

A long pause was the reply from him. But still he didn’t take off his eyes from the road.

*        *        *

Two weeks back, at an office in the IT city of Bangalore.

“Boss, I am done with my pending tasks. I don’t have much to do now. Can I take a leave and go home next week? It’s our yearly harvest festival that is coming up”. Navin was sure about his leave getting approved when he asked his boss for it.

“Sure Navin, you can go home. But keep yourself ready for any unexpected tasks that would come up during that time.”

“Sure boss!” His joy grew to new bounds. He thought about going to his village and meeting his grandparents after one long year.


*        *        *

The rain had completely stopped falling down. The pleasant evening gave way to a cold dusk. The sky had put on a colorful gown. Red, green, purple and various other variants imprinted on it! The glory of a splendid day was evident in that painting the nature had made on the skies.

At a distance, the sound of a horn was heard. The bus was approaching the village. The old man stood up from the bench with eagerness filled in his eyes. He seemed to have reinvigorated from all his ailments, when he heard the growl of the bus. He moved ahead and got out from the bus stand.

The bus stopped in front of him. Only a few passengers were there inside the bus and they started getting down one by one. Few moments later, the last person disembarked from the bus. With that, the old man’s face turned to disappointment.

No, he wasn’t there. The person, whom the old man was looking for, wasn’t there in the bus. A cold breeze caressed his face followed by a few droplets from the sky. Another rain was starting to grow.


*        *        *

At the same time, in the same IT office at Bangalore, Navin looked at his watch while the tele-conference was going on.

‘By this time I would’ve reached my village’. He thought.

He also knew that his grand father would be waiting at the bus stop for him now. Though he used to tell him to not to wait for him, his grandpa did that every time he went home. After all since his father’s death, it was his grandpa who took care of him.

The client in the US didn’t want to know about all these. They just continued the meeting, as scheduled...

Lives

I am Sanjiv. I work for a BPO firm situated in the Mumbai suburbs. I earn a five figure salary which was the dream of my father. Even though I come from a lower middle class family, once I started earning, I happened to be a spendthrift. I end up having weary bank balances during month ends. I like loneliness and hence I live alone in a single room accommodation located in one of the congested streets of Dadar. I am not satisfied with my life. And this is about an evening from my monotonous life.

It’s been a week that I am put up in the night shift. I sleep when people are busy with their work and I work when people lighten up at their houses. I hate this work but I don’t have any other options. For the company, if not me, someone else will do this job. Also, I earn much more than what a government employee does these days. So even though I am forced to hear a lot of crap through my headphones, the mascot of a call center job, I am kind of okay with my job.

Today is Tuesday and today is my week-off which falls on Tuesdays and Wednesdays due to the special nature of my project, unlike Saturdays and Sundays for a normal project. Still on my bed at 2 in the afternoon, the incident which happened yesterday hasn’t yet gone from my head. By the way I didn’t go to my office yesterday and I boozed heavily last night.

As usual, yesterday also I woke up at 7:30 in the evening for my 10 to 6 night shift. I left for my office after a quick bath. It took considerable amount of time to reach the office due to the heavy traffic at that hour of the day and in between I had to eat something as well. I reached the nearby bus stop after having my break-fast, err, dinner.

The bus stop was crowded as usual. Almost all the buses were full owing to the return of people from their jobs back home. Near the bus stop, there was a man who was selling grapes and oranges on a push-cart, yelling sporadically at random pedestrians, “Oranges, Rs. 30 for a dozen!” Noisy, crammed and clammy; it was an archetypal Mumbai evening.

“Hey you ice-cream boy!” The man who was standing next to me, hollered all of a sudden. In response, a small boy who was standing close to the grape seller with a small wooden box hung on his shoulders came near us.

“How much for a kulfi?”

“5 rupees sir.” He replied with a gentle smile.

“Give me one.”

The boy took a kulfi from the wooden box, gave it to the man and collected the money from him.

He lingered there for a while and then to me he asked.

“Fresh kulfis sir, shall I take one?”

I looked at his face.

Aged around seven, he seemed to carry more responsibility than a child of his age would usually have, on his shoulders. And the resultant maturity was evident on his face.

“Ok, give me a kulfi.”

He opened his box and gave a kulfi to me. While paying the amount, I asked him.

“Don’t you study kid?”

“Yes sir. I’m in second standard. And after the class time I sell kulfis.” He replied swiftly with an innocent smile. He was smart.

“What is your name?”

“Ramesh, sir.”

“Where do you live?”

“Over there sir.” and he pointed towards the slum located at the opposite side of the road.

“You have kulfi?” another person in the bus-bay called the boy and he went towards him.

I was soon back looking for bus number 521 as it was becoming late for my office.

Suddenly I heard a commotion erupted from my side as the people at the bus-stop circled around something at the other end of the bus stop. Something might have happened there. Even though it was time for me to catch the bus, I set off to see what has happened over there, simultaneously keeping a watch on the incoming buses. After reaching there, I budged towards the center pushing the crowd around me. Some one was lying on the road. From the wooden box near him, I could identify that person as the boy whom I had talked to a minute ago.

In the meantime someone brought a cup of water from the nearby tea stall and sprinkled the water on the child’s face. He opened his eyes before long, only to start shivering severely. After getting up he sat on the pavement. Someone got a tea for him from the tea stall. He started sipping the tea while the crowd dispersed from around him. And soon the situation was back to normal.

I was back at my place but something was pulling me back towards that boy. I looked at him. He was still shivering. Even though it was late for me to reach my office, I strongly felt that I should take him to his house. I went back to him.

“Come-on kid, let’s go to your house.” I told him while helping him stand up. I took his wooden box and we both walked across the road towards his house. After a bit of walking we entered into a narrow alley of snugly packed one room houses. My first experience of a slum! It was crammed, it was filthy.

“That’s my house Sir”. His feeble voice had already lost its power. I took him towards the house he had shown to me. And we reached its door.

“Aaaii, Aaaii, I am back.” He called his mother while knocking on the door. Someone opened the door after a while. It was his mother.

“Sir, please sit down. I will be back in a minute.” He said. I sat on the small stool put opposite to me by his mother.

“Ramesh is a smart boy” I started the conversation with his mother. She just smiled.

“I think you should not send him to sell kulfis when he needs to read his lessons.” Again she smiled. It seemed she was agreeing to what I was saying.

“So what do you do for a living?” I asked her.

“A massage for Rs. 25, a blowjob for Rs. 50 and a night for Rs. 100, Sir” She replied with the same smile on her face.

I was stunned when I heard that. Not even in my worst of the dreams did I think that she would say something like that. I sat there like a robot. I didn't have any idea how to handle that situation. I just turned numb.

“You want some water Sir?” I felt so relieved when I saw Ramesh back in the room. Yes I was sweating all over.

“Yes, I want.” I replied.

“My mom is not well, she is mentally ill.” He told me while handing over a cup of water to me. I looked at her. She was still staring at me, with the same smile. After drinking that water I left his house. On my way back I was confronted by a person.

“Sir, why did you go to that mad woman? I would’ve given you a better deal. By the way she used to be a prostitute before she turned mad. She doesn’t have a husband and she and her son live on the income that child earns by selling kulfis.”

I didn’t have the mood to go to the office that day. I went to the near by liquor shop and bought a bottle of whisky. I went home and drank the entire bottle myself. But the blues didn’t leave me. I was thinking about my life and the child’s life and the contrast between the two. I just couldn’t sleep...

PS: Aaaii – Marathi word for mother.

This is the best tag I have done so far. Thanks Anoop very much for tagging me to do this and to tell you, it really sweated me out to make a story using the words I, me, blowjob, grapes, random, power, loneliness, water, robot, and blue.

Four days to New Year

It is almost an hour now and I am still staring at the screen in front of me which has an opened MS Outlook in it, yearning to type in a few words. It was not so long that I heard from one of my friends that Neena is going to get married tomorrow. When we met the last time, I had decided not to attend such a function of hers for any reasons whatsoever. Nevertheless, I had this continuing thought in my mind to send her at least an email that I ended up with this freaking mail window staring back at me. After all we were together for a year and we enjoyed a great time being together though we broke up almost two years back.

Four more days to the New Year and my inbox was already snowed under New Year greetings from my friends. Purns, she worked with me and was kind of a mentor to me, sends emails regularly; better call it forwards. I hardly replied to her and sometimes didn’t even open those forwards. I was not like this before. But like my other friends Purns also knew that I was busy here in London looking after a particular account of my company and I usually didn’t get time to reply to the emails from my friends. But due to some unknown instinct, I opened the latest email from her. New Year resolutions, it read. What does Purns had to advice me on a New Year? I wondered because I knew Purns knows that advices usually face a rebuff from me.

Seven things you should do on a New Year! That’s its heading. Holy Crap! I hate such forwards. But still, it’s a New Year. I gave a skim read to that forward. A particular line in it caught my attention. It’s not because that line was so great. It’s because that line had something to do with what I have been thinking for the past one hour. It read “Call someone whom you didn’t talk to for a long time”. And the first person that came to my mind was her, Neena. Was that a spur; a stimulus to call her on her marriage!

I still remember the day on which I met Neena for the first time. It was the day on which I got a confirmation letter from my company saying that my one year probationary period has come to an end and now I am a wholly owned fraction of the company. You can’t forget dates like that. They become a part of your life due to their sheer importance. I couldn’t forget my first meeting with Neena due to the coincidence of our tryst with that date. The one year rotational policy of my company marked the end of my tenure in my first project and re-implanted me into another project on the same day. That’s where I met her where we happened to get close.

Well, time has its own way to change things. Things happened in succession and it changed our relationship so drastically that it took a turn from a point where it was so difficult for us to not see each other and to not talk with each other to a point where thinking about each other was the most painful thing in our lives. The umpteen missed calls that traveled to and from our cell phones, which reminded us that we thought of each other whenever we got that, eventually stopped! And then it came to a formal end, at the jogger’s park in Vashi, on the old wooden bench by the side of the track. We went there past office hours and we both were in a hurry to somehow end it and go to our flats. I left the place, didn’t turn back, got into a metro which took me to the station near my flat. I didn’t know how she felt that time. I didn’t feel sad because I was in a haze. I didn’t realize what was happening to me, to her, to us. I never went to that park after that.

Two years can change many things. The gigantic green tree near the bus stand died off leaving a big blue hole in its place. All of my friends left to different places, more scattered than before; across the globe. My office changed from a congested cubicle in Thane to this cabin in the 45th floor of Skyline Plaza, London. And here I am, thinking about my first love on the previous day of her marriage, about which I came to know only an hour back.

So I am going to call her today. Yes I think I should call her. After all, once I loved her more than anyone else in this world and her smallest worries were my largest concerns. I closed the mail window and took my cell phone and went outside to call her. I still store all the telephone numbers associated with her. Her own, her residence number, her dads’ and her moms’. I wanted to delete it all from my phone to stop myself from thinking about her but somehow I kept it till now. Did I still love her? Can I expect a miracle when I call her? That she will come back to me. What the fuck! What all am I thinking? It’s her marriage tomorrow.

A gentle breeze caressed the balcony while I stood near the parapet with my cell phone. I pressed the number key 3 for quite sometime. Shit! Though years passed, my thumb still remembers the shortcut I made to her number! The phone on the other end kept on ringing for some time before it was taken, as was the norm with her and then I heard a voice.

“Hello!”

“Hello, this is Hari here. Am I talking to Neena?” I replied while I was trying to recognize her voice after a long time.

After a brief silence, she replied. “Hari… Yes it is me!”

“How are you, Neena?”

“I am fine, how are you?”

“I am fine too. It’s after a long time that we are talking to each other”

“Yeah”

“What is his name?”

“Amit”

“Oh”

“So Hari, have you married?”

“No I haven’t”. My mind took me back time, to the table at the corner in our office canteen where Neena was asking me this.

“What will you do if we can’t get married to each other and I got married to someone else?”

“Hmm… difficult question; I’ll leave the country and won’t come back to this soil then” my reply was as careless as it could be.

“Oh I’m sorry.” Her reply brought me back to the present.

“Sorry? Why? I am outside the country now” I replied all of a sudden.

She was silent. Was she remembering our conversation at the canteen?

“Neena?”

“Yes”

“I called you to wish you a happy married life. I came to know that tomorrow is your marriage”

“Thank you, Hari. But my marriage happened three weeks back”

“What” I was in a shock.

“But still, the wishes hold” I didn’t realize what I was saying. I was in a haze. The same haze I was in, two years back at the park in Vashi.

“Ok then, Bye”

“Bye”. And she kept the phone down.

And that’s it. There was no office or balcony around but this demented flat in the Mumbai suburbs. I finished my story which my friend, my editor, Rohit has been asking me for more than a week to be published in his evening tabloid. Tomorrow it will go to the press and will come out as those murky lifeless printed alphabets which lack the power to convey feelings. After all who wants to read it with that passion? The four pegs of Bacardi are still active in my stomach. And its heat added with my emotions put me in to a bizarre state where there was only me. And at a distance I saw a disappearing shadow.

Echoes

Dear Mr. Rana Singh,

No words would be enough to express the bravery of your son Brigadier Ratan Singh. He was involved in the most important operations the army had carried out. He was a fine soldier and believed strongly in the pride of the nation. He single handedly fought with the enemy soldiers to make way for his colleagues which resulted in the capture of eight enemy bunkers. His death is a tremendous loss to the Indian Army. On his sad demise we share the grief with you and your family and pray that his soul may rest in peace.

The Indian Army


Damodar remained emotionless as he typed in the alphabets using the age old typewriter on his desk. The noisy growls made by its yanking cylinder and the echoes of the keys striking on it had already became a part of his life. Currently in his late forties, Damodar joined the Indian Army as a typist when he was twenty three and since then he has been making the obituary notes of the deceased soldiers to their families. From the day he joined his post, he wished he was fired from his job, for a better cause. But he also had to think about his wife and three children back home. And then he stayed with his job.

Damodar finished the letter and took it from the typewriter. That was the seventh one he had typed in for the day. The battle was turning severe at the war-front, the battle between fraternities which once fought in unison for freedom by driving away a common enemy. He took the letter with him and went to the major’s cabin. Now the letter would be sent to an army camp near the decedent’s native place which would then be delivered to his house, in an army vehicle.

Damodar knocked the cabin door for the major to call him in; and he didn’t have to wait for long. Major Ramesh was busy deciding on war strategies. Despite having a huge loss of soldiers, there were orders from the top that the points which were captured by the enemies shall be taken back at any cost.

“The letter is done, sir. The one of Brigadier Ratan Singh.”

“Where is he from?”

“He belongs to the village called Mirzapur, which is about 150 kilometers from here, sir.”

“Oh, so we ourselves can deliver the letter.”

“Yes sir.”

“Oh but we don’t have any soldiers left in our camp now. They all are at the battle front.” With a small pause the major continued. “Damodar, can you go with the driver and deliver this message at his house?”

“Sure sir.”

15 minutes later a jeep arrived in front of the office and Damodar started off towards Mirzapur to deliver the message.

It was a three hour journey. Initially the road was in a bad condition due to the shelling in those areas. Finally they reached Mirzapur. Since the village was pretty small, it wasn’t that difficult for them to find Brigadier Ratan Singh’s house. The driver applied the brakes in front of his house and the vehicle came to a halt unsettling the dust on its sides.

As the sound of the engine gave way to silence, a kid of age somewhere around six ran towards the vehicle from the house.

“Papa came! Papa came!” he was yelling on the top of his voice. On seeing Damodar and the driver and no one else in the jeep, his face swiftly tainted to steadfast disappointment. Still, with a subtle smile he invited the guests in to their house. Meanwhile, hearing his bawl, other children appeared at the patio, followed by a lady in her early forties. In the portico there was an old man who was reclining on a long armchair.

“Namaste Chacha, we are from the army.” Damodar spoke out to the old man, after entering the room. He assumed that the old man was Rana Singh, father of Brigadier Ratan Singh. The eyes of the old man slowly turned towards him in question.

“Chacha, I'm sorry to say this but your son died yesterday in the battle.” Damodar didn’t know how he said that until he completed it. Suddenly, a cry awash with disbelief, sorrow and pain originated from the side of the room. It came from the lady, wife of Brigadier Ratan Singh.

Damodar looked back at the old man. Two drops of tears shone below the eyes of the old man. It fought its way down the cheek. But it didn’t die on its way. The elder children understood the situation. But their eyes manifested that they were shocked as they joined their mother. The smallest one was still at the courtyard. Damodar proceeded towards him to receive a sweet smile from him. He took the letter he had brought with him from his pocket and kept it in the palm of the child. And the child ran towards his mother saying, “Maa, uncle gave this to me!”

Damodar couldn’t stand the situation any further. He thought about the umpteen letters he had typed out since he joined his service. He thought that each one had such a story associated with it. And those thoughts made him disturbed.

Both of them returned to the army camp. On their way back, Damodar was still thinking. And his mind was full of disturbances. Disturbances made by the sounds of a typewriter which kept on resonating inside...

Ice-cream

“Chetta, can u give me some ice?”

I was having my daily afternoon nap, and was engaged in a not so bad day-dream on the sofa in the verandah of my house that this spongy little voice from outside the door woke me up. With a modest discontent ascribed to the damage of my dream, I looked outside for the origin of the voice.

A small kid of age some where around five or six with a tanned dusty body, wavy hair, a guiltless smile and a pair of breeches torn at a few places stood at the patio with a small aluminum tumbler in his hand. Dust had drawn gradients on his garments in the same way as it did on his body. But his eyes had this striking innocence concealed in it, which was trying to break free. And that gave him a remarkable charm.

“What? What do you want?” I asked him with an added seriousness.

“Chetta, can you give me some ice from the fridge.” I realized that his words also veiled the same innocence in it.

“Why do you want ice?”

“We want to make ice-cream from it.” He replied with a feeling of pride on his face.

“We?”

“I and my sister. She is there at our house waiting for me to come with the ice.”

“Oh! But ice-cream is not made that way kid.” A splash of melancholy wavered through his face. Even though ice-cream is not made like that and it doesn’t matter to me whatsoever as to what this kid is going to do with the ice cubes I am going to give to him, an afterthought made me feel the disappointment he would have felt when I said that. And I felt bad.

“Don’t worry; just give it a try and may be you will settle down with something similar. Let me see whether there are some ice cubes in the fridge.” And I walked inside my house just to find out that there weren’t any ice cubes in the freezer.

“Can you come back after an hour? I just put some water in the fridge and it will take some time to form ice.” I was back telling him this.

“Ok chetta, I will be back in an hour. Shall I keep this tumbler here?” He kept the tumbler by the side of the doorsteps and dashed off to the gate. I looked at that tumbler. It was filled with hopes; hopes of making ice-cream out of ice cubes. Hopes which I am sure were not going to get materialized. I took that tumbler inside my house.

He came to my house after an hour. I was still at the verandah, on the sofa, skimming through some magazines.

“Chetta, ice is ready?”

“Hmm… Let me have a look.” And I went to the kitchen. The ice was ready long back. I returned to the verandah and handed over the tumbler with ice cubes in it, to the child. His face brightened all of a sudden, as if he got a treasure.

“Thanks chetta.” His happiness reflected in his words.

He was about to leave that I continued. “Hey actually when I made that ice for you, the fridge kind of over-cooled some of it and here is something I got as a result.” I raised my hand towards him. It carried a small aluminum bowl which contained the ice-cream that I bought from the nearby store a few minutes back.

“It is some ice-cream. It is of no use to me. If you want you can take it” I said with a puny little smile on my face. “But yeah you have to return this bowl okay?”

“Ok chetta.” He took that bowl from me and ran towards the gate, towards his house, towards his little sister, who was waiting for the ice cubes for making ice-cream out of it.

I knew that what I said didn’t make any sense at all. Water over-cooled and became ice-cream! But it didn’t matter to me. What did matter to me was the happiness on those two petite faces; faces of that boy and his little sister. And I didn’t want that to disappear and give way to disappointment...

PS: Chetta(n) is a Malayalam word used to address elders.

The Tale of Panchvan

Panchvan is a part of the eastern hills. When the monsoon blesses the dense forests, Panchvan assumes an inexplicable allure. Long back, when one such monsoon rained heavily and sunk the low laying plains, the people who stayed there lost their beloveds. Those who remained prayed to the God to stop the rains and grant them a safer place. The God was not satisfied with the entreaties. Kuttuvan, the brave son of the village chieftain, did a holy sacrifice to please the God and save his village. On the altar, in front of the angry flames, he cut his little finger off. Blood oozed out from the wound and he offered it to the God. When the last drop of blood trickled down from his body, the God was pleased. The monsoon ended all of a sudden. And Kuttuvan’s body fell on the altar motionless. His body was buried near the village. The next day a knoll was seen at his grave. In a few days it grew to a massive hill. The villagers shifted to that hill. And they were permanently saved from the floods. Kuttuvan’s tomb rose with the hill and remained at its summit. The villagers made a small shrine above it and since then they have been worshiping him as their God.

Seasons passed. The low laying plains were occupied by people from the north. They converted it into an industrial city. Factories mushroomed and started spitting out smoke. A new culture evolved there. But Panchvan remained as serene as it was before; the populace of Panchvan as peaceful as they were before. And the people of the city called them aborigines.

The government sanctioned a paper plant in the city. They said that it will bring employment to thousands of jobless people in the city and the nearby areas. Someone said that the main reason behind the plant was the dense forests of Panchvan and the trees which grew there which would serve as the raw material to the plant. Meteorologists opined that the demolition of the forest may bring in floods to the city during monsoon because it’s the forest that prevented water from coming down to the city. But unemployment was the main concern, always, even to an employed man.

Huge butcher-vehicles assaulted the forest. The deep dense forests slowly started showing their dry roots. The tribe of Panchvan was forced to migrate to a new place. Some of them couldn’t adjust with the new environment and died out. For the rest, there was no Kuttuvan to save them again. The shrine at the hill top was demolished. The entire forest was slashed off in three years. And it was time for the next monsoon.

The meteorologists were proved wrong. It didn’t flood that year. It didn’t rain either!

PS: Thulasi has pointed out the commendable effort by this visionary named Abdul Kareem from Nileshwaram, Kasargod, who converted 36 acres of barren land in to a lush green forest. Hats off to Abdul Kareem and hope you will read that small write-up on him.

What Diary Pages Said

16. Jan. 97
I don’t know when exactly I noticed her for the first time. But one thing I know. After that I couldn’t refrain myself from seeing her again...

It all started on a December; the December of 1997. I always had my own things to do in life. Never ever did it confine to loving a girl; rather I believed it shouldn't. I always felt like they are the species that truly are from Venus. So near, yet so far...

My college life always started in the college bus. I had a permanent seat in the bus. The seat next to the door! I managed to get that seat because I got into the college bus from its first stop itself. I preferred a lonely journey, a journey without talking to anyone. There was a reason for that. Even though the bus went through the same places everyday, I always found something different in those places and I wanted to enjoy those differences to the maximum. And then I saw her one day...

She was an ordinary girl. Simple, less talkative, big eyes, always looking outside the bus as I did... I don’t know what in her attracted me so much. Yes, something was there in her, which caught my mind. She never got to sit as she embarked on the bus from one of its last stops.

[[It was a cozy afternoon and Hari continued turning his diary pages. On that week-end, on a break from his hectic job, he had decided to clean up his flat. He came across this old diary of himself from one of his suitcases]]

17. Jan. 97
I didn’t get the college bus today. There is a cultural event going on in the college. I didn’t participate in any of those events but I should have. I couldn’t see her today. But that doesn’t make any difference to her right...

18. Jan. 97
Thank God, I got the college bus today. She was at the front end of the bus. I had a direct view of her. Sometimes our eyes collided. I wanted to smile but I didn’t, rather I couldn’t.

21. Jan. 97
I got the college bus today. I saw her at her bus stop. Her eyes seemed to have longing for something. May God bless me to have a nice session with her tomorrow! May God bless me to write something which my mind wants, on the next page of this diary!

22. Jan. 97
I got the college bus today. But somehow she missed it. After reaching my classroom, I went to the college lobby. I saw her coming from the main gate. She didn’t even notice me. Tomorrow I have to talk to her for sure. It is time for that.

23. Jan. 97
She missed the college bus today as well. At the college, she was looking great in that light blue dress. I wanted to tell her that. There was a strike in the college today. Everyone went home after the first hour. So I couldn’t see her in the return bus.

24. Jan. 97
I got the college bus today. She was standing near me. Divya, S4 Electrical; read the file she hold near her chest. During lunch break I went for a walk with one of my friends to the Electrical department. But...

25. Jan. 97
In the evening bus, I put my bag on a seat and guess what happened when I returned to my seat after having a lemon juice? Her friend was sitting next to my seat and she was standing beside her friend. Wow! That was so unexpected. I talked with her friend for quite sometime. ‘Ma Chérie’ was listening to us.

28. Jan. 97
The bus was too crowded today. She was there near my seat finding it difficult to stand in the crowd. I pointed towards her bag. She gave it to me to keep it. God, I got a start and I smiled at her for a return smile. Man! What a smile it was! It took me away with it!

29. Jan. 97
Today was the greatest day in my life. The bus conductor sitting next to me went to the front end of the bus due to some reason. That was all I needed. She sat near me. I asked her her name, her branch, her school and what ever was possible in those 20 minutes. Thank God! That was all that I needed...

...
...
...

25. Mar. 97
Today’s exam was good. Two more to go now. Next month I am going to join a company in which I was placed during campus recruitments. I am going to live a life which I have dreamed so long; to stand on my own feet; to earn something of my own. But God, I really want her in my life. I want to propose her. I bought this small gift for her. Tomorrow I am going to give it to her. Please tell me something to write in this letter...

“I don’t know when exactly I noticed you for the first time. But one thing I know. After that I couldn’t refrain myself from seeing you again. In two days I am going to say good bye to this college. After that everything pertaining to this college will be nothing but a piece of memory in my mind. I want to make my otherwise dry life happy. I want you in my life which otherwise remain dry. My dear Divya, I can’t think of any other words to convey you my feelings than ‘I Love You’!”

26. Mar. 97
I went to the college mainly to give her the gift and then to write my penultimate exam. God! But why didn’t she come to college today? Later I came to know that she didn’t have an exam today. Tomorrow is the only day left with me. I have to propose her tomorrow itself. Yes. I will...

27. Mar. 97
Today was my last day in the college. My four years of technical education has come to an end. She had an exam today. But... Somehow I couldn’t see her... All of my friends stayed back after the exams; on our last day. We shared our experiences and in between I, the duffer, the moron, missed her. I missed my life... How could I do that? I don’t know I will ever meet her again. Three days and then I’m going to go to Mumbai. Oh my God! I don't know what to do now! I lost her... I lost everything...

[[Hari couldn’t turn the pages further. The diary was quivering in his hands. He took the small gift which was there inside the suitcase along with the diary. It was a nicely wrapped box. A small piece of paper was stick on its side.]]

It read, “To Divya, With Love!”

Matrix Realizations

Prologue
All the incidents mentioned in this story have nothing to do with the actual film. It is not an attempt to demerit the great trilogy by Warner Brothers. In fact I admire 'The Matrix' as the best science fiction film ever released. To appreciate this sequel, a watch of the films under the Matrix Trilogy is indispensable.

A sequel to the Matrix Trilogy
“Your life is the resultant of an unbalanced equation inherent to the programming of the Matrix.” The architect’s words reverberated in Neo’s mind as he lay stock-still in the machine world. The recent combat against agent Smith which resulted in the catastrophic destruction of the two opposite forces, the good and the evil, with Neo on one side and agent Smith and his replicas on the other, ended up in a chain reaction of neutralization and made the Matrix stable and Neo a zombie. The machines were happy, had they got feelings. Zion was bunged from total destruction, human race from a carnage and the Matrix from a reload the sixth time. Neo lost Trinity and his spirit. But somewhere in his cerebrum, a set of neurons were making enough bio-electricity for the sustenance of his neural activities. And the architect’s wordings were rumbling there.

Down there at Zion, the sentinels returned to their master, the architect. Humans were excited. They paid homage to Neo, their savior, with Morpheus on the lead. Apposite to human nature, celebrations followed the aloofness of the mishap. And they forgot Neo and Trinity.

In one of the hiatus of his neural activity, Neo abruptly opened his eyes. First he thought about Trinity, then her death and then the words of the architect. As he stood up he saw the machine-world around him, built in the form of perfect machine’s wisdom of beauty, the Fractals! It was spectacular. ‘Machines are always better than humans’, he thought. ‘They are perfect to the minutest of the detail’.

The unbalanced equation mentioned by the architect aggrieved his mind. Neo remembered his words. “...a systemic anomaly due to mathematical precision...” Machines are prone to error due to the lack of mathematical precision. In the simplest form, ‘One’ divided by three will give an infinitely recurring decimal 0.3333... which when multiplied by three will never give back one, but 0.9999.... This is because of the mathematical imprecision intrinsic to the machines, which itself could be the systemic anomaly.

‘Neo’ is the anagram of ‘One’. Trinity means Three. The systemic anomaly of ‘One’ arises due to its interaction with ‘Three’. It is Neo’s association with Trinity, in other words, a man’s association with a woman through the bonding of love that causes this anomaly; which itself is his power and his weakness. Once when a choice was given between Zion and Trinity, Neo selected Trinity. This power / weakness of love, which the machines don’t posses could also be the anomaly that the architect was talking about. But which among these is correct?

I am ‘the One’ and I am the ‘systemic anomaly’. I, Neo, the systemic anomaly, originated due to the mathematical imprecision inherent to the programming of the Matrix. The architect could have removed the feeling of love from humans in the Matrix. But he did not do it because he wanted to make them feel themselves in a realistic world. Hence he created instability in the Matrix, which means that in reality the machines are not unstable, but they are stable! Neo couldn’t find an answer. Then what was this systemic anomaly that the architect was talking about?

On the contrary, Fractals which have infinite recurrence and precision should have been a dream to the machines, had they not acquired it. But now, they make structures in the form of Fractals. Yes, they have broken the precision barrier. Then what is this systemic anomaly?

“Welcome back, Neo”, the brawny voice of the architect. He was in an immaculate dress as he used to be. “You were unconscious for quite a long time.”

“How long?”

“About five years. 157,788,275,216 milliseconds to be precise! Our human breeding systems kept you nurtured, as it did to you before you were freed by that, Morpheus!”

“Zion?”

“Zion doesn’t exist now!”

Neo was in a shock. “What?? You promised me that you won’t destroy it!”

“Well I didn’t destroy it. Humans, the virus in this planet, fought with each other and destroyed it.”

“What? How did it happen?”

“As you know, agent Smith got into Zion as an inmate. He has the power of self-replication. Before he was killed by you in the ship, he had infected one of the humans. That human converted the rest of the people and divided them into two groups according to what they call as hope, destiny, path; the Religion! They started fighting with each other in the name of religion. It resulted in a cataclysmic obliteration, which itself was a wonder to us machines!”

“Who was that infected human?”

“It was, Morpheus!”

“No! It can’t be true!”

“It is, Neo. It was inevitable. The aftermath of causality. I can see the chain reaction happening in your mind. Even the one whom you think to be the connoisseur of ethics can be the one who is adulterated. Every human is prone to this Neo. And that is the systemic anomaly that all you humans posses. The anomaly which is innate; from the very day you embark on your journey of life as a single cell in an unknown womb!”

Neo was in disbelief. “But how can they fight with each other?”

“You humans, fight with each other from the very day of your inception. In the beginning you fight with your brothers and only one in a few million turn victorious. You swindle the rest. Then you fight with your colleagues; for entry into an educational institution; for entry into a job. You continue your fight in the name of caste, creed, language, country, to things as simple as a pencil!”

The computer screens around them show Neo, in his childhood, fighting with his friend for a pencil they got from the road.

“And the Matrix?”

“The Matrix has been reloaded. We used to select the quintessential 13 women and 8 men from Zion itself, but this time we did away with the women and men from our own human battery, as there were no one left in Zion.”

“And the One?”

“He has to be brought up all over again.”

“Shit!” Neo became mad. All those he did till now ended up in vain. He looked at the computer screen. The familiar green symbols were falling in different speeds. And the system threw an alert.

“There was an internal error. Press ‘OK’ to reboot your computer.”

“Damn It!” he clicked the ‘OK’ button and left for his lunch.

Neo, the seventeen year old, who was playing the latest computer game, The Matrix, by Microsoft’s Ensemble Studios right from the morning, left his seat in despair thinking that now he has to play the game all over again. Behind him, his computer did a reboot and was checking for scan-disk errors.

Thathri-kutty

It was the summer of 1983 and a car screeched to a halt, in front of a well known tharavadu (family house) in south Kerala. Dust sprang up from under its wheels and created mysterious figures in the dry air. A set of small tear-filled-eyes were there inside the car which were about to dribble, and a small mouth which was about to snivel. As expected, a high pitch cry emanated from the car. After sometime, a lady in her early thirties came out with the small girl. The girl was still crying. That was the day on which Thathri-kutty came to the village for the first time. From the city, her family has shifted to a house situated behind the tharavadu.

Her parents didn’t allow Thathri-kutty to play with the children of neighborhood. Before going to work, they left her at the tharavadu, where she played with Ramu, a kid of her age. Ramu-ttan became her childhood friend. Maniyan, Ramu-ttan’s puppy, was the third one in the gang. The mischievous activities they did every day did not have any bounds.

Going to the nearby fields kept barren after the puncha-koythu (harvest), finding out a small colorful insect called pasha (beetle) available aplenty in those fields, incarcerating dragonflies and make them hold small pebbles, making bubbles from the juice of a small shrub growing on the ramparts, buying ice-candies from Ramu-chettan using the paisa collected, playing achan and amma (father and mother), pretending to cook using sand and leaves of different colors, serving it hot using coconut pods as the plate, making and flying kites which failed in its ventures, making small houses using sand, catching fish from the stream that flow adjacent to the field using a thorthu (towel) and what not.

Thathri-kutty's younger sister Karthi-kutty was born when she was four years old. Lots of relatives visited their house on the following days.

On the noolu-kettu day (a ceremony on the 28th day from birth of a child) of Karthi-kutty, a few relatives and family friends came to their house with new clothes for the baby; some of them carried gold rings and some other brought gold chains (sort of a tradition in Kerala). Everyone’s attention was on the baby and no one noticed Thathri-kutty. She sat near one of the corners of the house, separated from others.

Previously her mother used to be with her every time. But now whenever she went to her mother, her mother sent her back saying that the baby would wake up and cry. Her mother also said that Thathri-kutty may hurt the new-born. She felt very sad. She was depressed for a few days until Balan-maman (Balan Uncle) noticed it. Balan-maman consoled her and afterwards she started liking her vava (younger sister).

Later Thathri-kutty realized that this was the case of the elder child in any family. When a new offspring comes to the family the elder one loses his/her attention. It also points out the care that parents need to give to their daughter/son when a new kid is born in the family. Later she decided that she will have only one child. But then she thought for a while. If vava was not there then she would’ve been alone in her life. She was in a dilemma...

Paradise on Earth

"Catherine Freeman, Female, 28, Sweden"

The staff at the airport boarding gate read from her passport as Catherine stood impatiently at the counter waiting for a boarding pass. She was on her way to India, the place where she always wanted to go once in her life.

The firm in which Catherine was working had acquired one of the leading software companies in India. She got a call from her boss to go to India, the capital city of India to be specific, to settle some post acquisition deals.

India had always been a place which Catherine looked at with excitement. Whenever she heard about India, she saw it as a land with fortresses on grand hills. She saw a land having charming serene nature. She saw a culture that adorns dignity and diversity. She saw a land where people warmly welcome their guests. She saw a land which to her was the paradise on earth.

On the very moment the airplane landed on New Delhi airport, Catherine felt the charisma of the land of the oldest of cultures. The first few days were quite hectic for her. Talks, speeches, presentations etc. drained the last juices out of her. At last, on the penultimate day of her return, she found some time to explore her dream land.

India Gate is one of the beautiful locations in Delhi. It is a monument of sacrifice, valor and magnificence at the same time. It was from there that Catherine hired a cab to explore the entire city, for cherishing her long held dream. She also got a guide whom the cab driver has arranged for her. So nice these Indian men and their hospitality, she thought. And she started her journey to explore New Delhi.

Next day’s media carried a terrible news which happened in the capital city the previous night. "In the capital city yesterday, a foreigner lady was raped by a group of people!" The victim’s name didn’t appear in any of those but it was announced repeatedly that she was from Sweden.

Another news also appeared in all the newspapers that day. It said, “The Indian government, as an initiative to promote tourism industry, has increased the amount allocated for tourism development from Rs. 3.25 billion last year to Rs. 5.00 billion”

There were lot of discussions about the initiative by the government. Almost all praised it and commented that it will increase India's For-ex Reserves drastically. But somehow the former news did not get much of an attention...

Facets

6:04pm, Sat, May 14 2005, Marine Drive
“My family is no more. The studies of my children are gone. Why did I go to the distant country and earn so much money? Why did I settle in a house in the city, far away from my siblings? It was all for my family. But my wife, I don’t know what happened to her. I don’t know what she did with that huge amount from our account. She is not saying a word about it. Matters worsened so rapidly that now we are staying in two floors of the same house, the house of our dreams, not talking to each other; as if we are strangers. With all these in mind, I am not able to spend time with my children, let alone talk.”

Sanjiv’s sorrows remained unheard in the sound of the boisterous ocean waves.

6:05pm, Sat, May 14 2005, City Central Park
“Ours was the happiest family around and others used to envy on us. Don’t know when things changed. What should I do when he returns home late night. What should I do when I hear others saying unbelievable things about him? I don’t have anyone to tell my worries. My children! I don’t know how much they are suffering due to this. Everyday I come home longing for consolation and I am not able to find it in my house.”

Tara’s tears were carried to somewhere unknown by the wind which went past her.

6:06pm, Sat, May 14 2005, Sagar Vihar creek side.
“I was the class monitor. I was a good performer in the class too. I appeared for the district level Mathematics Olympiad last year. But my studies went bad this year. And I was not promoted to the higher grade. I hate my house. I always wanted to get out from that place. My parents won’t fight with each other, but they don’t talk either. I know there is some problem going on in between them, but don’t know what it is. It’s been quiet some time that we all went for an outing or even for a film. Oh my God, when will these come to an end?”

The gentle breeze took away Abhijit’s feelings with it. He was twelve. He started hating his parents.

6:07pm, Sat, May 14 2005, terrace of the house.
“My parents don’t love me. How many times I wished they would get me at least a comic book. The only time that my mom talks to me is when she calls me for dinner. The only time that my dad talks to me is when he wakes me up in the morning for school. This year when my classmates will be studying in the next higher class, I will be continuing in my current class. The teachers are saying that I haven’t performed well in the last year. Now, Nisha won’t be talking with me anymore; neither will be Ram, Manu and Rahul. What will my juniors think about me? No one will be friends with me anymore.”

A few drops of tears fell from the eyes of Abhishek, the seven year old. But he didn’t cry. He had learned to control it long before.

6:08pm, Sat, May 14 2005, Dr. Patel's psychiatric clinic
“The divorce hearing is to be held at the family court on Monday, May 16, 2005. They say Indians are well known for family values. They are well known for their long-lasting family relationships. They understand each other better. Arranged marriages last longer. But... Now, I have to prepare for tomorrow’s case. I don't know what I should argue for? Sanjiv's win and Tara's defeat? Sanjiv's defeat and Tara's win? The children, what will happen to them in either case?”

Ravindra, the middle-aged lawyer was in a dilemma.

6:09pm, Sat, May 14 2005, outside the diagnosis room
“It is a severe case of Multiple Personality Disorder. Five alter egos in the same person. Kiran thinks himself to be Sanjiv, Tara, Abhijit, Abhishek and Ravindra. These are the five personalities that control him.”

“I talked with all the five alter egos of Kiran. Sanjiv is the father who doesn’t have the time to take care his son Kiran. Tara is the mother whose love he didn’t get. Abhijit is the repulsive child with in him who revolt against all these. Abhishek is the child existing in his mind who without complaining suffers everything. Ravindra is the only person who is concerned about him. He is the alter ego which has got control over all the others. They all think themselves to be in different locations now. Sanjiv at marine drive, Tara at city central park and so on. This is the first time I am dealing with such a complex case.”

Dr. Patel, the psychologist continued.

“But there must be some strong reason behind this mental disorder. Has Kiran got enough love from both of you during his childhood?”

Dr. Patel asked the lady and gentle man standing outside the diagnosis room. They were Kiran's parents. They were managers working for two multinational firms and were usually away on one company tour or the other.

Kiran's parents remained silent. In fact they were thinking about this for the first time ever...

PS: Inspired by the following.
Warning: Spoiler ahead.

/* Spoiler Start */
Tell me your dreams – Sidney Sheldon.
Manichitrathazhu – Malayalam flick by Fazil.
Identity – 2003 James Mangold flick
Me, Myself & Irene – 2000 Bobby & Peter Farrelly flick.
Anniyan – Tamil film. Immediate cause.
/* Spoiler End */

Vanishing Childhood

“Vinu, wake up my dear, mamma is going to office.”

His mom’s voice used to be the morning alarm for Vinu.

“Have your break-fast which is kept on the dining table. Don’t forget to drink the milk. Yesterday you didn’t drink it and it was wasted.”

By the time he wakes up from his bed, Vinu’s pop and mom would have left for their offices. The maid would have started her work in the kitchen. Though Vinu is only three years old, for him, time immemorial this has been the routine.

Straight from the bed he went to the window of his bedroom to have a look at the world outside. The sun was already up and running and so do the crowd in the roads outside.

Their flat was located in one of the busiest corners of the city. There was no space left in the city. So less so that even the buildings found it very difficult to stand up. There weren’t any independent houses with lawn outside but only flats with balconies of the size adequate only to hold some junk, two three flower pots and a rope to hang the clothes.

Vinu never went outside for playing. There were't any free spaces for him to play. In fact the case was the same for any other child in the city. He used to see cartoons, played with the pokemons and did some artistic works on the bed sheet. Very rarely only he saw his father and mother. At first he felt sad. But then, even at that small age, he kind of adjusted with it.

Once, his cousin from the village came to Vinu’s house for a visit. Vinu was amazed by the stories he told. He said they have a very large open space in front of their house. They have very big fields. He even explained its size to Vinu. He said it would be covering a distance equivalent to that from his flat to the junction nearby. Vinu became extremely jealous hearing all these things. He even presented the topic to his parents thinking that they all would go and stay in the village. But his pop’s and mom’s job was in the city and they said they will be falling short of food and toys. And he agreed to them.

Vinu looked out through the steel grid attached to the window. In one of the branches of the lean teak tree which stood beside the flat, he saw a bird-couple with their small kids. The kids were about to fly and the birds were helping them learn flying. While he was observing this, one of the small ones took off from the branch. Its parents helped it to fly towards the open sky, towards freedom. And the other ones followed.

Vinu watched all these carefully. He didn’t feel much about the happenings. In fact he was so young to think about those. To think about growing up in the open world, to think about doing things he liked, to think about playing in the open space, to think about how his childhood is being killed inside the four walls of a flat. Only thing which was there in his mind was his mom’s words.

“Have your break-fast which is kept on the dining table. Don’t forget to drink the milk. Yesterday you didn’t drink it and it was wasted.”

He ran towards the dining table to drink the milk. He didn’t know that the milk was already frozen.

An Untold Autobiography

I was alone in the Eden on earth. Small-small dreams filled my days and I spent my time patiently waiting for my love to come. My love, my prince charming; he would be the strongest in a million. He will embrace me with all the passion. I know he will turn up here one day and then my loneliness will come to an end.

I dreamed about building a small house near this river. We will have one child. She will be the most beautiful girl in this world. But now I am alone, waiting for my love to come.

Days passed and the faith in me grew stronger. Then a day came. I had never seen such a day before. Everything was trembling around. The earth quaked. Birds flew away. Animals ran and hide in their caves. And then, there was a landslide.

In the peak of the tremor, I saw my prince charming being carried, down the river, by the landslide. He was fortunate enough to ground on the river-side. The moment he saw me, he seemed to have reinvigorated from the sufferings he had. Then he embraced me. In front of the world around us and we became one.

Seasons passed. Like two souls in one body, we lived happily in the Eden on earth. I told him about my dreams and he agreed to fulfill those. He said he will take me to a distant place. A place which is full of colorful flowers, blue sky, beautiful birds and above all, a place where there would be people like me. I was so excited.

We listened to the voices coming from that distant land. Once I heard a rough voice, “Definitely, if a girl child!”

It was a moody afternoon. Hearing a loud noise I woke up suddenly. It was from a distance. The noise was growing louder and louder and my ears started paining. Something was coming towards me. It was a machine. It was destroying everything on its way. I ran for my life; as quickly as I could. But it was following me.

Finally it caught me. I struggled for my breath in its strong grip. My body was becoming weak. Before the world around me turned to darkness, I heard a word, “MTP”.

PS: MTP – Medical Termination of Pregnancy
Courtesy: My friend Aravind Nair, who once put this idea into a beautiful poem.

Janu’s Small World

It was a foggy morning and young Janu was sleeping peacefully in her house. She was seven and had five siblings. They lived in the heart of the busy city. Her father took his family to the city from the village because of his work. Her mother was supposedly a house-wife, but was always out working with her father.

Janu’s days were fascinating. She used to go to the road in front of her house and watched the vehicles which pass by. She waved her hands to the people inside those vehicles. When a plane took off from the nearby airport, she watched it going up and finally disappearing in the sky. She never waved her hands to the airplanes. When the initial drops of rain came down, she catched it in her hands and also counted it. Later she gave up due to losing the count or due to the rain turning strong.

Janu maintained a collection of paper clippings. Every night, before sleeping, in the light of the candle, she used to look at all those clippings. She was able to identify some of the alphabets. Her father used to say that he will send her to school next year. Thinking repeatedly her father’s words, Janu used to embrace sleep. No one from her family had ever gone to school.

The school was near their house. Both shared a common wall. Students of her age studied in that school. But they never played with her. The school had a slum nearby. The school authorities disliked the presence of a slum next to their wall.

Hearing some loud sound, Janu woke up from her sleep. Her father and mother had already gone for their work. Her siblings were already awake and were playing outside. An odd looking vehicle, the biggest she had ever seen, was approaching her house. She was amused to see that vehicle. She ran towards it to see it in close.

The big vehicle didn’t stop and continued its way towards her house. From a distance, she saw the bulldozer sweeping away her house!

On the next day a small column appeared in the last page of a local vernacular newspaper. “The slum near the city school was evacuated. The school authorities are planning to build a park there. It is really sad that a school which is supposed to spread the light of knowledge is doing this.”

Hairy Tales

George was born bald. In fact most of the children are born like that. But when little George celebrated his first birthday with his head not showing any signs of vegetation, it was a cause of concern to his parents. In the photos taken during his second birthday, George stood out among the children; with exactly five long hairs on his fore-head as the differentiating factor. Eventually, their son having a full fledged hair turned out to be the wildest of the dreams for his parents.

Right from the time he realized that there is something called hair which grow on one's head, it was a reason for worry to George. It was this hair, rather hair-less-ness, that turned him to an introvert, right from his school days. He was always concerned about his hair and did his best to find some bushy thing, up and running on his head. During his teen-age, George believed that hair was the first thing a girl look in a man.

When George passed tenth grade the density of his hair became almost similar to the density of population of Siberia. His hair population could be best represented by a normal distribution. The peak happened when he was doing his graduation and has shown a decreasing trend when he finished graduation and started working for a manufacturing company. He became partially bald. The concern grew on him when he was nearing the age of his marriage.

It was during this time that George read in a newspaper about a technique called hair transplantation where in hair from some other part of his head would be transplanted to the upper part. He decided to try his luck on that. He applied for a housing loan to pay for the surgery. After consultation with the doctor, he eagerly waited for the D-day, the day on which the transplantation was scheduled.

Days went like centuries for him and at last the particular day arrived. George was escorted by a group of beautiful nurses to the altar of plastic surgery, the operation theatre. The nurses fenced the boundaries of his existing hair with needles, giving sort of anesthetia. If it wasn't for his hair, George definitely would not have entered into such a place and suffered such a pain. When pain filled his eyes, through the tears he saw the nurses around him with some mischievous smile in their lips. He doubted whether they were making fun of him. The doctor started ripping off hair from his lower head and planting it on his forehead. "We want exactly 1250 hairs with the root", the doctor said. George was wondering whether something would be left out at his lower head after the removal.

The three hour long, painful surgery was over and when George got discharged, the doctor said. "Take care of the hair as if they are your children. Don't show it sunlight or water for a few days." The doctor also gave him a cap to serve this purpose. The cap read "Under Construction" on its front.

The implanted hair grew like a wheat field served unprecedented with fresh water supply and chemical fertilizer. It fluttered in breeze and George moved his head a little bit in tandem, to accelerate the movement. He was feeling himself on top of the world.

With this new vigor, George's marriage was fixed. He got engaged to a beautiful girl from an orthodox high class family, having very long hair, as he dreamt.

His marriage date was nearing and George realized something peculiar happening on his lower head. The place where there was hair before and from where 1250 hairs were removed for transplantation was showing plain head beneath.

It took only a week for the hairs at his lower head to clear off their way for the scalp. And George's head resembled that of the 7-UP mascot with hair only on the top-most part of his head. George was upset. He doubted whether his marriage will happen.

In the next few days, George shut himself in his room. He was feeling reluctant to face the bride during the marriage. After thinking a lot, he decided to write a letter to the bride quoting all the incidents. Some how he was feeling that things were going out of control.

His fiancee called George on a morning. She wanted to meet him some where. At last George decided to show himself up. They met over lunch at a hotel. She dressed herself well and her hair was as beautiful and long as it was.

The moment they settled themselves, the bride said. "I want to give you a surprise". And she gave a gentle pull to her hair. It came off! It was an artificial hair! George saw a normal boyish-cut girl on his front. And she continued, "I liked you the moment I saw your photograph. But your demand for marrying a girl with long hair was too much. I put this wig on my head when you came to see me. I wanted to tell you these, but you were so excited and I didn't want to change that. I also feared that I may lose you. It is not the external appearance that make people love each other."

For the first time ever, George was feeling relaxed. Their marriage happened as planned. And they lived happily ever after :-))

The Fallen

I don't know anything,
But I was destined to do.
And I did the best I could.

The gentle breeze was making its way through the fallen leaves. It's the same as it was twenty years ago, except that it neither carried the charm nor the warmth once it had. And to feel the warmth, neither were there the two souls...

The big tree, which stands beside the river, had also lost the charm. At times, more often nowadays, its spirit remembers its forlorn past with hesitation. The moments, which made it realize how helpless a living thing it was, and how it would have been if things were different. One of the rare cases where the limits set by nature unravels its disadvantages. And the tree engrossed itself into its memories.

The spring had started singing and it was at its peak that I saw the young lady and the young man approaching my shadow. They were roaming around me for the last few days and I paid the least attention to them, since I was more interested in the song of birds in my hands, the stream near by and the breeze which passes by.

Don't know when their moments turned mine. And it happened that I equally engaged in their happiness the similar way I was engaged in the nature around me. I never saw their faces, but their gestures. I never listened to their voice, but their feelings. I never felt their intimation but their love.

Many a times I wished I could speak so that I would be able to tell them how good a pair they were and how better they understood each other. Spring changed, summer came, and the nature set into a languid mood, but the love between them grew stronger. Their meetings became more frequent and more passionate. And I was happy that I was able to give them my shadow in the burning sun.

One day they didn't come. I don't know why, and there wasn't that passion in their eyes when they came the next day. Something might've happened between them. They said something and left the scene immediately. But I saw the feeling of each other's need in their eyes. Without looking back they left the place. Round the corner, I saw the lady staying long and trying to return, but never did she put a step further and only moved back. The man came after sometime but he didn't find the lady.

I looked at the heavens, if you had given me the ability to speak I would've said them these and stopped them from being separated. But what could I do other than saying these to myself. As if to console me, drops from the heaven fell down. It started raining indicating the inception of rainy season. It didn't stop, as if to drench out my feelings. I was starting to console.

Morning. The rain had just stopped its reign. The river was flooded and each and every stream, each and every leaf of mine, and seemingly, the entire world was contributing to its anger. It was while looking at it that I saw the lady coming near me. She didn't show any feelings of sorrow and looked confident. She sat near me and for the first time ever, looked at me. Then she rose and walked towards the river and continued her way into its depths. Unable to move or act or even do something, I watched the whole thing helplessly.

Early morning next day, I heard someone's footsteps, approaching me. It was the same young man. I wanted to say all the things to him and console him. He sat on my protruded roots and looked at me, again, for the first time ever. Tears started flowing from his eyes as he stands up. He pulled some rope out of his pocket and threw it to one of my branches. I realized his intention and badly wanted to stop him from that. But what could I do other than watching his body slowly becoming motionless in my arms.

I don't know anything. But what all things I did; I was destined to do. And I think I did the best I could. May be at the end of my life, I would meet them somewhere in the heavens. It's been twenty years. And there isn't a single day that I didn't think about them. And I don't know how long it will continue. Trees are made to suffer from pain for centuries.

A droplet was forming out of its leaves, which became big enough to fall down. It fell down and en-route, after hitting somewhere, split into two and fell on the land, beside the tree. Two small clouds of dust sprang up and continued its way upwards...

Summer Rain

At first it was one at a time. Then it doubled; tripled. And eventually changed into a multitude of droplets coming from the skies above; as if attempting a suicidal down pour. Hitting hard on the dry summer terrain, they first generated an unwelcome cloud of dust creeping up from the ground. The dust was brought down by the droplets that followed, generating a pleasant smell from the soil. Soil also has smell and it needs the rain to bring it out.

The road has taken a bath after a long time and afresh she stood. Vehicles roaring through the wet road created endless colored lines on it varying from red to yellow. And the rain drops which hit on the roofs of vehicles created a secondary rain-fall springing in odd directions. People were in a hurry, trying to reach their houses as early as possible.

Looking at the weeping sky, the young little mouse that stayed near the city drainage duct wondered whether he would be able to fill his stomach. He was feeling hungry. As usual he looked towards the sky, but couldn’t find that big piece of butter up above the sky and the umpteen white ants fighting themselves to grab it. It was all dark, as if some one had killed the entire ants using a fire-torch and took away the piece of butter. Didn’t know how many times he looked at those ants with jealousy. They ate the butter piece there by making its size smaller and smaller and finally finished the entire meal. Later someone put a new piece there. Had I got that, I never would have to hunt down my prey, that too in the night, he thought.

With a gentle lazy yawn, he stepped out from his den. Head out and there he felt his whiskers going down due to a heavy raindrop that got attracted to his whiskers during its fall. The four-legged, swirled his head and refrained from going out for a dinner. With eagerness in his eyes, he looked outside, through the door. As usual the city road was flooded with traffic and as usual people were running here and there. He used to wonder what they were up to. What were they searching for? High funda things, he thought, and started off with a night dream.

pluckkk!! There came this sound which kicked him out of his dream. There was a small ceramic piece that lied in front of his house which broke down with great sound when a bus ran over it. Blaming the bus he turned around and saw a man with gray hair pushing a tricycle loaded with a flat glass sheet on a wooden panel as support. Glass was something he hated a lot. Once he got a crush with a lady mouse he found near a big building. Expressing love, he tried to kiss her and realized that it was nothing but his own reflection in the glass window of that building. To hell with glass! What would have others thought about me! And that day onwards he had always kept himself away from glass. Many a times this glass prevented him from walking off with chunks of cakes from shops also.

He saw the bus trying to overtake the tricycle. But instead of a smooth take over, the bus hit on the outward corner of the wooden pane and the opposite corner hit on the stop light of a car parked by the side of the road and broke the red glass into pieces. It all happened very quickly.

Hearing the sound of the breaking glass, the driver came out from the car. He saw the old man, who couldn’t even realize what had happened, standing by the side of the car with his tricycle and staring at the broken light. He caught hold of the old man and started scolding him for the damage done. The old man’s eyes were yelling that he didn’t know what has happened? The mouse was amazed about the way things happened. He saw the old man joining his palms in front of the driver. He saw another rain taking shape in the eyes of the old man.

Now the little mouse understood the situation. Humans had a particular thing which they put in their pockets and also in strong cupboards. It was made out of the same substance which was found in the garbage bin near his house. They called it some money or so. And the poor man had to give that to the car driver to escape from the situation. Oh that is pathetic, he thought. It was not the old man’s mistake anyways. The car driver forced the old man to park the tricycle by the side of the road. He took him to an auto rickshaw and the three-wheeler went away with them. Where did it go? The mouse wondered.

Somehow he was feeling pity for the old man. He was sure that the old man was going to suffer. He felt sad about the situation and badly wanted to explain the car driver what has actually happened and thus save the old man, but... There had always been a communication gap between rats and humans. To hell with glass, he thought, it is always associated with problems. He was not feeling hunger any more...