Shades of Love: Impressions

The last time I read an anthology was during my BA days, when hours would be spent trying to thrash a Keating or a Chekov into submitting all interpretations of their work in the Lit. class. I think it was the nostalgia that prompted me to accept a review copy of 'Shades of Love', despite my professed fatigue of reading Indian English writing. Also, the endless intrigue of love pushed me further. Thankfully, it wasn't a bad pick.

Edited by Ankit Mittal (who needs to find a better proofreader, considering the number of errors I spotted), 'Shades of Love' is a collection of short love stories by Indian authors, known and unknown. Some names I was familiar with; Sachin Garg, Naman Kapur, Aastha Atray Banan and Rohit Gore among them. The other new names, were as good, if not better, than the published crop. Mittal needs to be credited for making mostly poignant choices, reflecting indeed the many shades of love in this anthology. However, some stories are entirely forgettable.

I shall recall, here, the most unforgettable ones.

'A Pop Tart's Psychotic Love Story' by Aastha Atray Banan with its 'LOOK AT ME!' title, also has the meat to go with it. We have the story of a girl, unable to forget the lover who has ditched her, pushed to the threshold of madness. She will do what it takes to have him back, even if it means to kill him or his present girlfriend. When she finally walks up to the ex's house, all guns blazing, she is met with a rather unexpected turn of events...

'A Hero Greater Than Shahrukh Khan' by Rohit Gore has a cheesy title (Gore has a penchant for those), but is deserving of mention because of its tenderness. Caught in Mumbai's infamous deluge, an underdog becomes his family's hero; winning love at the cost of his life.

'Stolen' by Naman Kapur is a sharp little story about love between two equals - in crime and in bed. A pickpocket zooms into a target, sparks fly, and the one out to steal is stolen from. Fun.

Apart from these, 'The Remedy' by Sachin Garg, and 'She Called It, Kikugasane' by Tushar Rai are also fair reads.

However, Durjoy Datta's 'The English Teacher' is the most remarkable and shocking story of the whole lot, about an obsessive love, and that's all I am going to say about it for fear of ruining it for a reader. If you need a reason to buy this book, buy it for Datta's story. Yes, ignore the horrible paper quality of the book, ignore the lame stories, even ignore the choice of font on the book cover. Read Datta's story and ask Grapevine India to rope him in to write a novel that would stick to a reader's mind forever.

Leela

(Image: oilpaintingsonline.com)

I hear you often. The ripple of a breeze around my knees. The soft whoosh of the wind blowing through my house. Leaves raining down on me while I walk promenades when it isn’t even autumn. I hear you often.

I am sure you do. Because I speak in so many voices. How silly of people to assume one has but a pair of ears and one voice. There are thousands, I say. Millions even. Because when I have to reach out to you, I am heart, I am earth, I am wind, I am fire, I am me, I am you. I am a hundred lovers there were, I am a hundred lovers that will be.

So what sense lies in missing you, then? I am enveloped in your presence. It wraps me in a hundred layers that transcend even my body. You go where I go. Where is the pining? Where are the tears? They call longing ‘Radha’. What if it means ‘Krishna’? A synonym, dressed in a different colour? How would they ever know?

You are right. They would never know. They can never see the pain that stays hidden beneath my smile. They would never understand that what is Radha, is Krishna and what is Krishna, Radha. They would never fathom the agony of a soul split in two, of the burden of wearing two kayas. That is the pain, dear Radhika. That is the missing. It is that weary feeling of being lost, torn.

Then why split in the first place? Why start this leela? Is it not enough to remain one? This entertainment, this evolution, why? You erase my memory with every birth. I have to remember everything, all over again. I have to remember that that dull ache in my bones every night as I lie down to sleep, is the weight of not remembering. Of having to remember, excruciatingly, that every element breathes your name to me. Why start this leela?

There is dharma, Madhava-sangini, the need to fulfill duties, to repay the debts of karma, to heal what is broken. But that is a story for another day, priye. Another knife that slices through our union is desire. My desire. The desire to see you searching for me. The pleasure of seeing you find me. The ecstasy of becoming one again. Transcendental as the joy of eternal unity is, desire is undead. It rises, like a ripe seed beneath frosty earth, when spring beckons.

And in that little act, you inflict two wounds on me. All at once. You split into two, you and me. And then you go away too, leaving me waiting, turning into ‘Radha’, the ‘Radha’ of longing, of tearing, waiting by the Jamuna. Not the ‘Radha’ that means Krishna. I have turned into every lover’s quoted example. I have become the pain from a phantom wound. I am you and all at once, I am not you. I no longer see my own reflection in the dark waters of the river you have left me by. I see you.

Ah, dearest Vrindavana Viharini, how easily you fall prey to my leela. How ready you are to see what I show you. How unquestioningly you believe what you see. But without you and your unconditional acceptance of this plot, my sundari, this play wouldn’t be as beautiful. Whether it is I & you, Shiva & Parvati, or any man & woman, Purush and Prakriti must constantly engage and disengage from passion play. Nothing can break the cyclical nature of existence. We must break and mend, part and unite, cry and laugh for eternity. For how will we belong, without tasting over and over the salt of the other’s tears, and the madhurya ras of the other’s embrace?

So there will be no end, you say? No final closure. No final relief. No final oneness. Just this eternal ekta and dvandva, this constant chase must continue. If there is no other way for Prakriti and Purusha to engage and disengage, then what remains of this tarka and vitarka? Nothing. Nil, shunya. There is tremendous rest in this shunya. I am that when I am not with you. I am that when I am with you. And I am that in between too. An entire universe, not of minds floating inside different bodies, but of bodies floating inside a singular mind.

You know now, dear Gandharvika, that you and I are one, even when we are not. You know why you hear me often. Why I am like the ripple of a breeze around your knees; like the soft whoosh of wind blowing through your house; like leaves raining down on you when you walk the promenades when it’s not even autumn. You hear me often, you know, because I am the song of your heart.

(Co written with Reema Prasanna @ScrollsNInk)

Firebreaths and friendships

(Image source: dart.fine-art.com)

The swords in her belt sat tight, but her heart had not agreed,
That was not the day to fight; might ought not always be right.  
She was to slay some dragons, she trained them instead.
They jumped through hoops in little carousel circles around her head, 
they made her joyful, they made her dizzy.
Sometimes the dragons snuggled up in bed too; 
she learnt to live with the fire-holes in her duvet.
She learnt to live with stares of suspicion too,
People and dragons are not usually friends - 
But all that mattered were her hoop-jumping, loopy dragons
who kept her dizzy with joy.
Dragon slayer turned dragon lover - 
her hearth was bright, her heart was warm. 
In firebreath she found love; unspeaking, but telling.
The story of their friendship spread - 
like wildfire, nay dragonfire!
And then the dragons just like that went away, 
in search of another slayer, a new battle, another lover to make.

Co-written with @A5ma - Asma Kazi

The Dead Soldier's Wife

The annual Honour festival had been held in her village ever since she could remember. When she was a very little girl, there had been a big war (which she didn't really remember), and from then on every year, year after year, the hilltop fair would commemorate the bravery of their only village hero, the martyr, R. Hearst. Like all other children of the village, she would wait eagerly for the fair, where dolls, and sweets, and trinkets would be sold. In the colourful rush of swings and hawkers and holidays, the blood of war was forgotten. A quick customary prayer, an even quicker speech extolling the virtues of the great yet young Captain R. Hearst, who had laid his life down for his country, and the fair would be thrown open. The drummers would beat their drums loudly, the trumpeters would play their horns loudly, as if to drown any sombre remains of the fair's grim origins. At the end of three days of feasting and fun, Emily would return happily to her village at the foot of the hills, a doll in one hand, candy in another, and R. Hearst's grave would wait again for a year to pass.    

Years, fairs, and Emily's childhood slowly passed by. There were newer children now, newer visitors, newer stalls - much bigger. The celebrations during the Honour festival continued, but Emily began to be drawn to something else. Suddenly, the opening sermon, praising the good Captain R. Hearst, sounded sweeter than the fair songs to Emily's ears. For the first time in her life, 16-year-old Emily visited the grave of the brave R. Hearst. Beneath the mounds of customary flowers, lay a simple stone grave, with a simple epitaph engraved on it:

Capt. R. Hearst

(1889 - 1911)

That brave, beautiful man,

who died for us 

The music was louder than ever, but Emily just stood and stared. The pastor smiled at her indulgently (for people rarely revisited the reason for the Honour festival) and then left to join the others. The inscription was  dusty. She stepped up on the grave and dusted that ornate faded gold lettering with her hand. That was when they first touched. Her sisters came calling, and whisked her away to the fair, but a part of her heart secretly stayed behind.

From that day, Emily's feet were drawn to the hilltop, where amidst ash-brown leaves, lay the brave and beautiful R. Hearst. At first, she carried little wildflowers, to pay his grave homage. But the leaves and the dust and the cobwebs bothered her, bothered the grave, so she carried a little broom along on her daily visits. The villagers thought it odd that the blacksmith's youngest daughter should go up alone to the hilltop everyday, and odder still that she should carry a broom along! But they just laughed and said nothing. What else could it be, but a little eccentricity? But there was more; something they would later call morbid and sordid. But there was more; it was probably love.

Had a curious soul followed Emily up the hill on any of those many days, he would have seen her either sitting solemnly, looking down at the village, or sweeping the grave fervently, or lying on her grave - her smooth, warm cheek against the smooth, cold stone, or talking to the tombstone, or smiling or crying. If he went closer, he would have heard her address the tomb of R. Hearst as 'Darling'. He would have heard her musing loudly what the R in R. Hearst stood for - Roger? Robert? Renee? Raphael? or Richard? He would have heard her impassioned voice and seen her adoring eyes. And if he could go close to her heart, he would discover a strange, terrifying desire that was taking shape therein. But no one was privy to the desires of the village blacksmith's youngest and prettiest daughter, and Emily went about the world, her heart full of a dangerous kind of love. Almost a year rolled by.

The Honour festival's opening sermons had always spoken about the virtues of R. Hearst, but had never spoken about R. Hearst. He was a traveller, who turned soldier, who fought in a war, and who died protecting their village. No one knew from where he had come, and where he would have gone. No one knew who he was, and how he came there. No one, but the pastor, knew. R. Hearst, the stranger, had come to the village church one snowy night, spoke little about himself, thanked the pastor in the morning, and left to join the battalion. Emily saw this in a vision one night, and knocked hard at the pastor's door the next morning. She demanded to know everything there was to be known about Capt. R. Hearst, the soldier who had died for this village, and in whose memory the Honour festival was held each year. 

The pastor recounted that cold night from years ago, painting from his mind's eye a picture of Capt R. Hearst. A young man, not more than twenty and five, with broad shoulders, and bright eyes. He called himself R. Hearst. Dressed simply, in the manner of common country folks, the man had yet a noble countenance. He had the most brilliant blue eyes, that would not be dulled by the night's cruel cold. Food there was none, so he ate only the meager bread and wine, that the pastor could offer him from the church's cellar, yet his voice was deep with gratitude. He was a single man, carrying no burdens upon his being, save for the love of his motherland. He slept little that night, but was fresh of appearance, when he awoke. He finally bid the pastor goodbye, with what the pastor thought, was a mild tear in his eye. He had no riches nor horses, and the last he remembered of the living R. Hearst was a handsome figure walking down the village road on a wintry dawn, receding into the horizon. The next the pastor saw Capt. R. Hearst, he was in military finery, a neat bullet hole on his heart, and a proud, dead face inside the coffin. He had performed the last rites.

Emily had smiled through most of the story, 'seeing' for the first time the man whose image she had long sought. But by the end of the pastor's narration, she broke into a uncontrollable spate of tears. The pastor knew at once that it had more to do than with his story-telling prowess. He remembered suddenly that he had a picture of him, that the young, dead captain's sister had given to him, when she had come looking for her brother, and found him gone. She had never come back. He almost gave Emily the picture - for what would better pacify her? - but decided against it when he thought he heard the words 'My love' between her muffled cries. Emily left, and the pastor prayed. He prayed, for the first time, that the Lord God may take away from someone what they so desired. He prayed that Emily wouldn't come back, but he knew she would.

She did return; the following Thursday - two days before the Honour festival. Her eyes seemed red from crying, but they were now bright with resolve. She waited until the villagers left after the sermon, and then approached the pastor. She held a neat, large bundle under her arms. A bundle that was big enough to contain a wedding dress. The pastor knew he was about to enter an argument, he would not win. So he listened to her patiently. He told her it could not be done, but she looked at him with imploring eyes. There was no other way she would have it. What would her parents say? What would the villagers say? She only shook her head. The only other recourse would be to join Mr. R. Hearst in his grave, she said simply. The pastor agreed to hold the wedding on Sunday - at the Honour festival.

The villagers assembled in hoards again. The fair ground was set. The stalls were set. There were toys and trinkets. But there were no colours. The villagers didn't know if they were going for a wedding or a mourning. Some wore white. Some wore black. They had talked and talked and raged and begged and threatened, but the will of the blacksmith's daughter was unbending. The choice was simple, she said: A wedding or a funeral.

The sombre father of the bride walked her down the aisle that led to the grave. The sombre bridesmaids stood still. The parishioners sat grim. The service began. The rings were exchanged. She put her own ring on her wedding finger, and hung her husband's ring by a simple chain on his tomb's cross. She kissed the familiar stone stab again, for the first time before others, when the pastor asked the bride to be kissed. She smiled when he asked for the vows to be said. She said he would be by his side while her life lasted, and then forever together with him when she finally died. The pastor gave her a wedding gift - her husband's picture. She wept for joy. The guests cheered hesitantly, their hearts heavy. She said she was happy - the happiest she had ever been. She asked the fair to be continued, for she was now the hostess. Now, the guests cheered heartily.

She brought her other things. Her lone broom now had company. A house grew around these things. The grave became his shrine - their home. Years passed. Her love grew. Capt. R. Hearst, whom she now called Roger, lay silently by her side in the night, as in the day. She passed on, united finally with her one true love. A life from the past, and a life from the present converged, till history acknowledged them as one.     

Today, when the Honour festival is celebrated, there still are dolls, and sweets, and trinkets. There are swings and hawkers and holidays. There are celebrations and venerations. But the festival starts around not one graves but two. No one suspects that there ever was just one grave. The older-looking grave belongs to one Capt. R. Hearst, and the second grave says,

Mrs. Emily R. Hearst

(1908 - 1940)

That beautiful, brave woman,

who lived and died for him

  

          

  

The Pact

(Image source: wildnest.wordpress.com)

The supermodel

(A Guy Bourdain fashion photo. Image source: http://fashionprettyrabbit.blogspot.com/)

She was a natural at the supermodel hunch. Years ago, when a depressed, aging ramp queen had showed it to her, she had copied it perfectly. She knew she was perfect even now, as Raphael smiled and clicked away. The makeup had always been thick, but perhaps never enough to mask the emptiness of her spirit. Her hunch half enveloped that ever widening hole in her soul.

"Look into the camera," Raphael roused. He distracted her. She was comfortable in her skin, but she didn't like the way he undressed her - she felt vulnerable. She moved her arms above her head and delicately stepped back, staring directly into the lens. That circled darkness spoke to her, she identified with its soul-less eyes. She gently moved her fingers to her lips for her next pose and felt the cracks appear in her facade. She tried to look deeper into the lens, hoping her eyes would meet with his.

"Wonderful," Raphael said, and continued to click, oblivious of her pain and longing. He was unseeing now, as he had been through the five years of their professional relationship. His perfunctory greeting of "Hello Jasmine" stayed unchanged. It seemed cold, even cruel to her - a calculated distance designed to singe her with indifference.

Every night she'd retire to her boudoir, where portraits he had shot lined her walls. She loved his intensity, his affair with the camera. Oh! How she longed to be held the same way. She wanted to be moulded into any shape of his desire, his longing. She wanted him to lustfully forge her into any shape. Just as long as he held her. She wanted to be desired. Her mascara trickled down her cheeks in despair, she lifted her hand to wipe it away. Just then the doorbell rang.

She ran up to the door in hope, and opened it to nothingness. Raphael was her neighbour too, and she always hoped he would drop in, if only to ask whether the mailman had come by. But he never did. He hadn't come now either. But there was an enormous envelope at her feet, with her name on it, in Raphael's familiar hand.
Nonchalantly, she tossed the envelope on to the dining table and retired back to her bedroom. Why couldn't he see her hope, her longing, she wondered. "Jasmine, pretty pretty Jasmine; you need to come out of your shell, show the world your beauty!", Raphael's words echoed in her head from their conversation earlier today. Tomorrow, she thought, she'd tell him everything. She'd be beautiful to him, for him.

She couldn't sleep that night in eager anticipation. Visions of Raphael undoing layers of her clothes and her soul swam in her head. She tossed and turned a hundred times over wondering how best she could reveal herself to him. She mentally picked her favourite Versace LBD to wear tomorrow. But her mind would not ease. Restless, she walked to the dining table and opened the envelope. She thought it would be the usual proofs of the fashion shots taken by Raphael earlier in the day. But it wasn't. With the thick sheaf tumbled out pictures of her glorious nakedness; tumbled out years of voyeurism, admiration and worship through the lens of the man she had always desired. And there was a note too.

 Her fingers trembled. Did she really want to read the note? Was she ready for him to confess her feelings for her? Her head spun with all the questions. She wasn't sure. He had been her escape for many years now, she watched him closely. But not as closely as he watched her, she thought. She felt violated, but she liked the feeling. She knew he loved her now; she could feel it. Slowly she open the note and read it. Her body froze, her lips quivered, she let the note drop to her feet.

*******

She wondered what he would have said about the suit. She thought the colour didn't suit him at all. The suit looked a little oversized too. She wondered which of his family members had chosen that suit and given it to the undertaker. But his face was handsome as ever...
She was roused out of her reverie by the priest's solemn voice. She was roused to the truth that Raphael now lay quietly in a satin-lined box, his bruised blue neck hidden under a stiffly starched collar. He had chosen to confess, and he had chosen to go. Confessions she would never forget. Her mind replayed the happenings of last night for the zillionth time. She remembered being frozen, she remembered running to his door, she remembered howling, she remembered white hot pain searing her heart, she remembered calling 911 and she remembered reading and rereading the letter, till every word had inked itself upon her soul.

*******

That night after the funeral, she dressed up in her favourite LBD. She had to try to come out of her shell. She had to try to show her beauty to the world. She applied another thick coat of makeup and looked at the mirror. The note stuck to the mirror looked right back at her. That was all she had of Raphael. The only time, he ever truly spoke to her. She picked up her purse and her priced note and went to Raphael's favourite bar. Midnite. She took her seat at the end of the bar, lifelessly. She didn't know any of these people, yet she knew they were judging her. "Scotch, on the rocks and keep 'em coming," she told the man behind the counter. "Rough day?" he asked. She opened her mouth to speak but said nothing.

Five o clock the next morning, when the last of the bar's customers were leaving, they noticed that famous supermodel bundled on the floor in her black designer dress, a glass of whiskey spilled nearby, and shook their heads. What they did not see was a crumpled note in her hand that read,

"Dear Jasmine," the note had simply begun. "I only wish to repeat what I have always said - you need to come out of your shell, show the world your beauty. I've lived in my shell for long, with only your beauty for company. I stayed and watched from a distance for fear of contaminating your divinity. I lived in the wretched pain of loneliness, loving and longing, because you were always so achingly delicate. I was afraid I would break you. But your imploring eyes impaled my soul today. I cannot stay away now, but I cannot come close either, so I choose the easy way out.

Raphael"

(Co-authored with @LilMissIssues)

The renewal

(image source: art-3000.com)

Wisps of her hair, caressed his arm. His eyes seemed so deep, he held on to her and she lay on his chest. The knife still in his heart.
She licked clean a trickle of red as it flowed down his chest. Warmth and salt.
She knew he was forbidden but it felt so right. He hated her. She restrained him, she made him feel complete.
And slowly his hatred of her turned into something she hated. He said his heart felt love; she knew his heart must be stopped.
For she stopped loving him a long time ago. She stopped breathing him in, all she was, was his aura. His soul.
And when she wedged the deliberate knife into his heart, she was set truly free.
She smeared his blood on her hands, rubbed it all over her face, her body. She felt new.
He had served his purpose. There were new hatreds to find, new loves to kill. Renewed, she left in search of new vulnerables.
He lay there, his hate and love for her pouring out of his heart. She ventured into the darkness, exactly where he met her.

(Co-written with @LilMissIssues)

Passion play

(Image source: http://evolpad.livejournal.com/)

The curve of her back guides him to places he needs to explore.
He looks in reverent fascination, as his hand is led to distant, unknown temples of pleasure.
His lips can't get enough of the taste, his fingers always reaching out, digging into her flesh, showing her his hunger, yet leaving no marks on the temple of the deity he worships.
She is pleased with his longing, pleased with his tender touch that belies the violent passion that strains at the leash. She lets him dig and she lets him claw, feigning indifference, teasing.
Her fingers dig into his back, leaving tiger claw marks, she asks him to take her, yet pushes him back to watch his need to be in her, knowing every second she makes him wait means more urgency, more passion in every move he makes.
He struggles against her hands that hold him back, and gently pushes them back and reassures her writhing body by whispering into her ears, beseeching her to give in to his need.
She nods vaguely, hoping her signals would be mixed, but he is beyond seeing. He wants. He badly, madly wants. She knows. She gives in.
Warm, audible breaths.
They move to a rhythm, then to no particular tune, always falling in sync, their bodies as one, a lustful, loving, sweaty unity.
And then rain, relief and tears. Uninhibited, unguarded, unafraid sheddings to witness and whet this unbridled play of passion.
She quivers and falls back, and gives in to the impending explosions in her head, and goes into a place unknown, yet darkly red, throbbing and familiar.
He knows of her story and he knows of her pain, but he lets the tears flow, he lets the storm pass. He knows she turns to him for the calm. She always does.
He strokes her head for hours; strokes till the pain of her past is gone, strokes till the love of now returns.
She feels loved, she feels strong. She gets up and leaves, unbreaking the sacred silence of their ritual.
He looks on, but she does not turn around, secure in the knowledge that he will always be there and waiting.

(Co-written with @nelsonnium)

An interlude

(Image from zazzle.com.au)

..."Drat! Like a man, I ought to have taken my chances," he said half joking, half flirting.
"You are still a man, and there are still chances," she said, half challenging him.
Their chance meeting and the impulsive coffee date was taking a rather interesting turn. She had a dinner to cook, he had an office to go back to. But the currents led them elsewhere.
"It's time for the adventure to begin then, ma lady," he bowed, feeling every bit like the man he'd found again. She tittered rather loudly, drawing stares from the young cafe crowd. She looked down and then up at him. He stood there smiling, and she knew it was her turn.
"Let's have an affair," she chuckled, "this ring has been sitting heavy on my hand for quite some time. And this bag of vegetables too."
He guffawed. "Sounds like a plan. You carry the same cross as all of us do," he said. "I need a story too. I'm done with status quos, much like you."
"Come, then. There is a change in both our post-lunch plans," she said, and led him to her car.
She motioned for him to sit, took the wheel and drove. Driving and some more and then some more. Over smooth turns and rough ones, over gurgling brooks, past barren scapes. Like their life. She kept driving till a piece of wilderness inspired her to stop. He sat quietly, storms raging within, wondering at the end of this journey, marvelling at the fire driving her, and now him. The tyres screeched in protest as she rammed the brakes.
"What now? What chances are you taking, now that they are yours to take?"
He smiled. He couldn't believe they were doing what they were doing. He played along. "Let's rebel," he said, "It's old hat for you, but still... Whaddya say?"
She smiled back at the recollection. "Yeah... That was a time. I haven't broken rules in a long time. So yes, let's. Let's rebel..." she said. Through her charade of excitement, he could see a sadness creeping into her eyes. He noticed she was drifting. "...let's rebel, because life is short, and happiness elusive. I thought I was happy because I chose my life. But I'm not. Are you? Will this little rebellion against our status quos give you happiness? Will it make me happy?"
Though they hadn't met in years, he knew where she was coming from. They had exchanged many frivolous details about their lives in the coffee shop after so many years, but the songs of the heart were only emerging now. He knew there were many little stories of unhappiness beneath the surface, underlining this moment. He felt united again with her, in his unhappinesses. He remembered the boundless joy that had once bound them and silently mourned its loss.
Smiling sadly, he nodded and said, "We're booby trapped. Not that that hurts. What does is the clipping of the wings we were so proud of."
She faced him, then kissed him, then sighed. "Yes. We grew up and the wings were gone. This world is a sorry place. The love has gone too."
He looked away. The landscape appeared misty. Was it his eyes? He held her face close. "You think so? I think I still love you. Don't take that away."
"Yes, I think so. And I'm not taking away anything. I'm only asking for a story in the earnest. A story without lies; a story without love."
"A story without love? How, my love, are we to have a story without love? You leave me helpless," he said and noticed the mild exasperation in his voice.
"Oh, come on, must you weigh us down again? Weigh us down with an old, pointless, hurtful love? Let's aim for a higher or a baser deal."
"I'm not sure what you mean, but will a 'different' partnership mean more to you now? And how can I, we, be different? How different can a man and a woman be when put together?" he asked quizzically.
"What I want is a mate of the spirit, or a mate of the body. You know, let's be partners in a spiritual quest or let's just have sex. Leave my heart alone. I can't deal with any more posing and pleasing. Let this rebellion, this secret, this affair be spiritual or animalistic."
He was surprised and looked it. "You really have grown up. You had once worshipped love."
"I changed my mind. Love is one big fucking lie," she said.
He put his hand around her waist saying, "I'd argue, but time's flying..." He then pulled her to him with force that was only his. Their lips met in a violent force. He was being himself, his old self again. And yet he wasn't. It was a strange yet familiar moment to them.
As the past hurtled past her eyes, visions of their younger vulnerable selves swimming past her consciousness, she let him kiss. She kissed back, and tore at his clothes and his flesh seeking satiety, seeking happiness, amid that wilderness. She focussed on his skin on hers, her focussed on the goosebumps, she focussed on the stirrings between her thighs. An old, familiar surge of love hit her - love that had once bound them, love that had given her pain. She closed her eyes, and mumbled a "No", as if willing love to go away, and continued to kiss him. A misty haze of past-present, love-hate, moral-amoral surrounded her.
The haze enveloped him too. He wanted to own her without wanting her. He let her body dictate his senses; the way they had when they first crossed paths. He was now a savage animal, shorn of all senses, all things beautiful and tender. She joined him in his abandon...
Later, as they lay spent, the stereo of her jeep belting out shameless youthful pop music, she sighed a 'Phew!' "That was nice, and I feel strangely fulfilled. Call it happiness, should I? But you and I know it won't last..."
She trailed off again. "...Nevermind, what makes you happy?"
He smiled, shook his head and ruffled her hair. "I stopped searching for happiness. Like love, it is an impermanent illusion. And it mostly hurts... Now I just be. Take what comes my way - good or sinful. No guilt. I stay happy knowing I followed my heart. Like I did today," he said and turned to face her.
"You did good," she said, "I think I did too. Our changed post-lunch plan has made me happy," she winked.
He winked back.

(Written in collaboration with Nikhil Deshmukh @red_devil22)

Spring cleaning

(Image from allposters.com)

   Good things must often begin with the not-so-good. Spring cleaning wasn't the best way to begin the season of light and warmth and colour, but the old must be done away with, to make place for the new, mustn't it? She sat amidst a mountain of mess, pulling out things and memories from her closet.
    And, then, like a ruthless Tsunami, memories gushed forth. Unabashed. Unrepentant. An old photo-frame here, a worn out sweater there. Some mugs tossed in there casually, the new abode of some spiders. Then she saw it. That relic of her kaleidoscopic past. Its impact searing her retina. It was just a small black diary. She could feel her heart thud like a drum and that faint feeling of sinking begin to gnaw away.     

   Some dried petals fell out, as she held aloft the diary, and put an end to the debate of whether she should open it or not. The now bare stem of that long-lost symbol of love guided her to that day of January, 1996. She smiled, as she read the opening words of a heartbroken teenager. "Dear Diary, I want to kill myself, and him..."     

   "...I really mean it. This bottle of rat poison that I've smuggled into my purse is going to do the trick. A few drops into our coffee tomorrow, and I will end this misery! What does he mean we are just not on the same wavelength anymore? Didn't feel like that when we made love in his pad last week! It's that bitch, playing games. Ha! How would he know I've just ran my car over her? Aren't accidents common in this part of town? *Giggle*."
    She looked up from the diary and laughed out loud at the memory. She had been quite the firebrand in those days. Fortunately, only the Bitch's leg was broken in that accident. And the rat poison had never happened. Good sense had prevailed. 'It should have...' she thought. Two fat tear drops blotted some words on the page, and she started shedding silent tears. Aravind was a beautiful dream that had ended too young.
    She flipped over a couple of pages. November 96. "Dear Diary, Just back from Aravind's wedding. It was grand. He looked cute. I actually smiled at his wife. I loved his expression, when I went on stage to meet them. For all he's done to me, I actually wish him well. Couldn't stay there very long. It hurt. Him too? Wonder... They're relocating to NZ. He's always loved that place. We'd planned a holiday there. Sighhhh.. I miss him bad. Feeling bleary, baby. Think it's this rum. Glass number 4. Ha! I'm happy.... " :-/
    There stuck a picture of a dashing 28-year-old Aravind, his pretty, wide-smiling bride, Mischa, and her, still the awkward teenager, edging towards womanhood. She ran her fingers over the picture, especially over Aravind's face, and smiled. Then she remembered what cancer had done to his handsome countenance, and tears streamed down her face again.
    It was 14 years since she last saw him on that bed. She saw him until she could bear to see no more. The mess of saline lines hanging over him, his skeletal body -  a sad reminder of his muscular frame. She'd walked away sobbing, vowing never to be back. She had slept that night, crying. Numb with  pain. Unable to feel anything else. When she woke up the next morning, she really couldn't feel a thing. She was unable to move, unable to feel her legs. It took months for the fact to sink in that she was paralyzed, and could walk no more. Aravind had died sometime in those dreadful months too. She never found the strength to verify the news. It wasn't his death that had crushed her; it was the death of the idea of her first love that she had grieved - soul and body. 

   Years of visits to specialists had only offered one diagnosis: her paralysis was psychosomatic. Nothing was physically wrong with her. Physiotherapists, psychiatrists, and even faith healers had tried to convince her she could walk. But she wouldn't. She couldn't. She wondered which part of her didn't want to.
   Her husband, Dev, had been kind. Beyond kind. He was a physiotherapist, and they'd met during one of her first frantic visits to the hospitals. She hadn't got used to this cumbersome wheelchair then. She hadn't gotten used to her legs (or her mind) not obeying her then. She hadn't gotten used to the past tense that Aravind had become then. She was hysterical, when she first met Dev. Somehow, his understanding presence had broken her down. She howled in pain, or the lack of it in her legs, letting loose all the anguish that her tender 20-year-old heart had held.
   Dev had held her then, as he held her now. Forever loving, forever patient. He was patiently stirring the soup in the kitchen now, even as she messed about with the skeletons in her closet. She smiled fondly at the gentle noises of the wooden ladle. Ever so consistent. It had taken years of Dev's mature love for her to start forgetting Aravind, and now she had stupidly done this. She shut the diary and wheeled her chair to the window of their fifth floor apartment, which overlooked the river. She closed her eyes, and flung the diary out, feeling the weight of her past let go of her shoulders, her head, her heart. It was high time Aravind made place for Dev...
   She sat back, and took a deep breath. She felt light. Her heart felt joy. Her stomach felt fluttery... Fluttery? Wait-a-minute! Was it? Could it be? Yes it was! It was her and Dev's child's seal of approval. It was their baby's first kick! She held her stomach, and began to weep loudly. Dev rushed in from the kitchen, and stood at the door of their study.
  "Babe, are you alright?" he asked.
  She looked up, and smiled a smile of ecstasy. Rising unselfconsciously, she ran up to him, and holding him like she would never let go, said, "Never better."  

(Co-authored with Nikhil Deshmukh  @red_devill22)

The Inheritance

(Image from bdisoft.com)

Two gunshots rang out loud and clear. They ripped the air, and set wings and hearts aflutter.

******************

Princess Chandramukhi had definitely taken after her grandmother. The rebel blood had skipped a generation. Her father, the staid king, His Highness Rajtilak Kulasreshtha, never quite understood the two most-loved women in his life. 

His mother, the erstwhile queen Chandravati, had decided to go riding one frosty morning, when he was a little boy of seven, despite repeated protests by her husband (the mild-mannered King Praveer) and never returned. Whether their favourite Rani had died or eloped or met worse still fates, became the favourite stories of Vayupur's many generations. Some lanes tittered with gossip about how the Queen had left her now 'non-performing' husband for another man (possibly the Nawab of Mirajgarh), and was living a rather hedonistic life under an alibi. Some whispered how the Rani was depressed, and had ridden off the cliff, unable to bear the fetters of Vayupur's restricted life. While some other believed their Queen was possessed by evil powers and had vanished under a mysterious spell. The stories never really stopped, and Raja Praveer died soon after of loneliness and a broken heart for the love of a woman, who never really belonged to him. 

The young Prince Rajtilak was initiated to bear the royal burdens at a tender age of 12, under his mentor, the royal commander, Purushottam. His young mind tried not to heed the stories, and he drowned himself in the royal duties. He had married young too, but never gave his heart to the beautiful Princess Latika. He couldn't have it broken again. But, the day he first set eyes on his beautiful little daughter, he knew his heart was his no more. He named the apple of his eye, after his beautiful mother, and called her Chandramukhi. 

******************

But the good King Rajtilak wondered, today, if naming his daughter after his mother had been a very good idea. She had inherited not just her legendary beauty, but also her legendary temper and impetuousness. He had raised her with as much care as deserving of a princess, and more. She was, after all, his heir apparent. He had no desire of a son, and had refrained from having any more children after Chandramukhi, for fear of loving her less. Queen Latika had only to quietly acquiesce. 

There Chandramukhi was, practicing fencing, this frosty morning, quite like the one many, many years ago, with her favourite 'uncle', Purushottam. The royal commander was now retired from the army, but could never quite take leave of his sworn allegiance to the royal family. He was a grey, old man, but still an agile swordsman. He dodged Chandramukhi's attacks with ease, smiling at the efforts of his best student. The young princess was so much more fiercer than her father. 'She has so much more spirit... just like the Badi Rani, Chandravati', he couldn't help thinking, and lost a moment's focus. Chandramukhi swung her sword, and stopped it just short of her uncle's neck. King Rajtilak smiled from his balcony. He had seen this scene so very often. Purushottam always let her win. His daughter would now really 'fight' with him.

Chandramukhi knew that look in her 'Kaka's' eyes. 

She dropped her sword and said, "I know, I know, I remind you of daadi. But kaka, can't you fight seriously with me?" she admonished him lovingly. "You say I fight well. Why won't you attack me? I'm a big girl now, kaka!" 

Purushottam guffawed and said, "You sure are a big girl and an excellent warrior to the world. But to me, you're still my little princess. Now spare this old man," he said, and sat down under one of the many neem trees that lined the sugarcane farm. 'The yield has been good this year,' he observed and closed his eyes for a brief repose.  

Chandramukhi rolled her eyes. She was tired of being mollycoddled by her elders. They all seemed to want to protect her from something. She knew it was her grandmother's shadow they didn't want her to colour, but she was beyond redemption. The little wooden chest in her room had many souvenirs of the Queen Chandravati's life, that she had collected from the palace over the years. Her favourite pastime was to stare at the regal painting in the palace hall, and coax old servants to tell her stories of her mysterious grandmother. Her father had often chastised her, when he found her chatting thus, but he knew not of the deep engravings in the little girl's heart.

But it was time. It was time.

******************

The swish of the flying spear pierced the frost, and the pitiful bleating of the goat tore through the field. Purushottam awoke with a start, and clutched at his sword. He ran towards the direction of the sound, slashing through the thick crop. He stopped short of the dying animal, still bleating, bleeding, and released the animal of its torment with one swift blow to its neck. Something was amiss. The Raja heard the cries too, just as he was returning to his chamber. He turned around and ran to the balcony. No Purushottam! No Chandramukhi! He grabbed his sword from his room, and ran out in to the field.

Purushottam bent down, inspecting the spear. It had royal initials; quite unlike that of Vayupur. But he remembered the inscriptions from a few weeks ago at the Swarnarath festival. The vast red flags of Naagdwar had been one among the many at the festival of the gold chariot. Every year, neighbouring kingdoms participated in the chariot races. This year, the Prince of Naagdwar, Vikram, had won the tournament. Though Naagdwar was an enemy state, all were welcome to the tournament. The victorious Naagdwar flag had waved jubilantly, before Princess Chandramukhi's beautiful and sullen face. She had not taken the defeat very kindly... 'Princess Chandramukhi... where was she?' He looked frantically around. She was nowhere to be seen. 'Oh my dear God...' Purushottam's lips said a scared, silent prayer.   

Raja Rajtilak had, by then, reached Purushottam. 

"Where is my daughter?" he demanded, his face white with fear. 

"She must be here somewhere, my king. But lie low. It could be an enemy attack. Look here, Naagdwar's symbol on this spear," Purushottam said in hushed tones. "Naagdwar? But..." the Raja was cut short, as  a second spear came flying in their direction, and missed the king's head by a few inches. The spear struck the tree and got lodged in it; it had a red flag tied to it. 

Chandramukhi had heard the spears too. Their ring was unmistakable. She ducked in a thicket, and held very still. She sucked in air with her mouth, afraid, her breathing would give her away. Beads of sweat appeared on her brow, as she sat and waited in anticipation. She only hoped her father and uncle would be safe. She prayed they would leave, as she clutched at her sword.

"My liege, I pray you go back to the palace. There could be danger. Send reinforcements for me. I shall try to find the princess till then," Purushottam said. 

"I am not going anywhere without my daughter," the King said. "You go and send soldiers; I will find my daughter.

"But your Highness..." the old commander began in protest, but was cut short.

"Enough," Raja Rajtilak said, "you have my orders."

Purushottam bowed low and turned to leave, when two shots rang out loud and clear. Two gunshots rang out loud and clear. They ripped the air, and set wings and hearts aflutter.

******************

Chandramukhi's body stiffened, and her knuckles grew white with clutching her sword. Suddenly, his hands grabbed at her waist, and turned her about to face him. "Vikram!" she exclaimed. "What's wrong with you? Why did you fire?" she barked at him.  

"They were taking too long, my love. I couldn't wait," said Vikram, pulling her into his arms. 

"Oh, I couldn't wait either," she said, half-laughing, half-crying. 

Vikram pulled her down to do what he had come for. Chandramukhi's young body was a drug he had gotten addicted to, since after the day of the Swarnarath races. Their acrid competition had turned into a violent, passionate love. Since she hadn't a chance to go out alone in the last week, an impatient Prince Vikram had devised this desperate plan today. They would have enough time before anyone came looking for her. He had scared them away. Today, he would take her away for good. She was his.  

******************

The gunshots did not deter King Rajtilak. He was not going to lose his daughter. He  walked towards the direction of the gunshot sounds. He walked up cautiously to the spot where the crop seemed to be disturbed. He peered through the plants, not to find enemies in wait, but a sight of two young bodies writhing in the throes  of passion. He looked away in shame, and muffling a cry, turned around and started walking away. Tears streamed down his face, as he cried without restrain.  He cried like that 7-year-old prince from years ago, who had seen his mother do the unthinkable, in a field like this. His heart ached with the burden of another secret he would have to carry forever. His heart broke once again.

      

The sculptor

   (picture from torimusicious.blogspot.com)

   The hours had been intolerably long; trickling away in painfully slow minutes. She had been browsing the net for hours, her head filled with stories of elves and fairies and monsters that walk among us. Suddenly the screen flickered, and glowed a bright green. She tapped at the keys vigorously, and moved the mouse about. She bent down, and turned off the main switch. But the screen stay put, with bold red lettering on it, that read: YOU DIE TONIGHT!
   Outside, through the piercing solitude of the night, she could hear suddenly the dull noise. Thud-thud-thud... like hammering, or footsteps perhaps.
   "No!", her mind revolted. "It cannot be." The night was too spent for anyone to be awake. "Your mind is playing tricks on you!" she heard herself say. And then, the next moment, the irony struck her - her mind was telling her that her mind was playing tricks. On the screen, the words continued to flicker. But suddenly, the red bold letters transformed to an almost demure small, clean, white font, which read:
   "Don't run away. This will soon be over."
   Too stunned to even wipe the sweat that was profusely wetting her brow, she heard the steps again. Or not.
   She hit hard some random keys, fighting the letters that were. But the letters stayed, glowed and mocked. She tried to drown the sound of those thudding steps with her tapping of the keys, but it seemed like a fort she couldn't hold for long. The phone! She'd have to call someone for help. She picked up her cell, and began to dial her boyfriend's number. Her heart sank, when she realised there was no network.
   For the briefest of moment, she felt her old self return. "So much for your effing 3G, moron!"
   And then the steps. And then the silence.
   She felt herself the protagonist from one of those horror movies that she'd always mocked for being too coincidental - how the network failed just when the heroine decided to call for help. She was certain her present scenario wasn't what her professor had in mind, when she'd declared, "Be the stars of your own film!"
   "HA HA HA! HA HA HA!"
   The last thing she heard was a scream - was it her own? - and the monitor glowing with a smiley.
   Then there was black. Consciousness left her.
   "Why am I being carried?" a voice in her mind echoed. "Oh, and so amazing is that island over there. Isn't it, Cliffe?" shouted another.
   "Cliffe?"
   "Cliff" the voice corrected. "That's where we are headed. You and I. A 1000-foot drop off this glorious cliff, before we reach that island." The heavy thud continued under her, footsteps of this man called Cliffe, who was carrying her to the edge of an abyss. She enjoyed floating like this, looking up at his face, familiar from some lifetime. An old boyfriend perhaps. But he was called Clyde. "Heh, he is cute," she thought, as his face started receding towards the sky. "Oh, but he's not flying... I am falling. It is I who dies tonight," she thought to herself, as she floated down like a leaf through the satiny darkness.
   Ah, the devious comfort of knowledge! The wonderful tyranny of ignorance!
   For a moment, she felt glad that she had had that message on the screen. "It is death," her voice went on, "How much worse can it get? There's no choice to make...you're free!"
   "Oh, you are mad, woman," the other voice chided. "But you never wanted to make the choice, did you? Cliffe asked you so many times, didn't he? You ran away from it."
   "Who's Cliffe? He was Clyde!" she argued.
   Before the voice in her head, or were there two, could carry forth their learned discussion...
   SPLASH!
   Rude water. She didn't know what was more terrifying - its chill, or the one that it had sent up her spine. Her arms danced around wildly, as she struggled to get a breath of air - it seemed it had all turned cement - and the darkness brought forth newer nightmares.
   Far in the distance, she thought she heard those steps again. Yes! There he was. And then, surprisingly, he lit a match. Faint light.
   "Surely this is it," she thought. Surely, this was her end.
   In a strange frenzy then, she began removing her clothing. They were too heavy, and she wanted to feel light. She had never thought lightness would be her last wish.
   Beside the sodden pile of clothes, she sat naked and in wait. The island seemed to have shrunk into a pebble's worth of land, and she tossed it into the water. He stood beside her, aloof, unaffected by her bare body, having lit a cigarette with his match and letting it burn away. He wasn't even Cliffe anymore. Here now stood a random colleague from her workplace, who she had bumped into earlier in the day at the office canteen. There was nowhere to go, nothing to hide, no one to wait for. Here and now was freedom. If this was death, she didn't quite mind it. But wait, the thudding hadn't stopped. Thud-thud-thud...
   "Stop fooling yourself, woman!" the voice snapped her out of her reverie. "There's no voice. There hasn't been a voice. You've been kidnapped, and you'll be murdered."
   The man stepped closer and peering at her said, "Do you know me?" If a snake had spoken, she was sure he'd have sounded much the same.
   "No...", she lied.
   "Hmmm. Good. Allow me to introduce myself. I'm Ayam. Do you know why you're here?"
   "No...", she lied. Again.
   "Oh, I see. Doesn't matter. I'll tell you. You're here because I am going to kill you," he said.
   She could see the cold, crude white of his skin - as much as she could in the glow of the cigarette that hung from his lips.
   "Then why don't you?" she asked.
   "What's the hurry? We have time, don't we? I certainly do. And whether you do or not, is quite immaterial, won't you agree? Ha ha ha!" He was evidently pleased with his joke. But she couldn't get the image of the snake out of her mind - If one had laughed she was sure...
   "Anyway, while we wait, let me tell you a story..." he made the incredulous proposition.
   She heard the wind howl. She heard the sea roar, She could feel the surf slide onto her naked skin - and the sudden independence of it struck her. For the first time in her life, she wasn't conscious of her body, didn't find it ugly.
   Her thoughts were interrupted by the figure pinning her strongly on the floor. "Shall we begin?" he said, carefully placing his hands around her neck. But all she could focus on, was the sound of those steps.
   The steps, the incessant footsteps continued to climb an interminable staircase. Far sometimes, sometimes jarring, but constant like her heart. Even as Ayam slowly squeezed the life out of her, telling her wondrous tales of more elves, more fairies and more monsters that walk among us, the thud-thud-thud stayed to comfort her. Her eyes began to bulge, her breath leaving her, Ayam's death-like grip on her beautiful neck.
   It hit her then. Ayam was her hatred for herself. That monster called self-loathing. It had got to her today. "But I am beautiful," she gasped for breath. "I want to... (choke)... live."
   "A little too late, aren't you?" he said mockingly, his eyes in an intense love-hate gaze.
   "No...(choke)..don't...", and she woke up with a start.
   "Damn, that was scary!" she giggled nervously, and walked toward her bedroom. It was nearly half past three, and she had been asleep, slumped over her keyboard for more than half an hour.
   THUD-THUD-THUD...
  Her eccentric sculptor neighbour was still carving away. "That sure was a masterpiece," he said, and smiled to himself. He had more black dreams to create tonight.

(Co-written with Abhimanyu Jain @abhiqrtz)

  

The farewell

   They laid carnations on the grave. Her favourite flowers. How often he had walked home carrying a bunch. He was carrying one that day too. But nothing could have prepared him for what he saw, as he opened the door of his home on that summer evening of '98.

-------------------------------------------------------

   
   She lay there in the passage to their drawing room, in a pool of blood. Eyes still open, smiling even, as if welcoming him. He fell to his knees and clutched his head. She had slit her wrists. "Oh God... Oh MY GOD!" he shrieked. "What happened? Why did you...," he asked in shock, even as he rushed towards the medicine cabinet to get the first aid kit out.
   "Don't." she said softly, stopping him mid step, "I was just waiting to tell you I loved you," and closed her eyes forever.
   "NO! Please don't leave me Yana, please!" He held her face, and kissed her forehead, bawling like a baby. He had booked two tickets to Bali just a few days ago. "She needs a vacation," her doc had told them last week. Six years. Six years he had been caring for her, through her chronic, complicated illnesses. "We'll be okay," he'd smile assuringly, as her put her to sleep every night. She'd just smile sadly.
   But he knew she was slipping away. His beautiful, young bride was slipping away everyday, as they tried in vain to battle her premature Alzheimer's and depression. Her past was fading, and her present turning dark. There was little he could do. Sometimes, love isn't enough. He dialed the police station and hospital numbers.
   As he waited for them to arrive, he sat next to her, and looked around their drawing room misty-eyed. It was neat and orderly just as she had done it up, when they first moved here. She had picked all the things personally and supervised every small detail in the house. And now she lay there, lifeless like her favourite Victorian furniture, her favourite Persian rug, her favourite Chinese vase. He slouched on the floor next to her and stared at the eerie whiteness of the wall. Their 20" wedding frame was missing! Bewildered, he wiped his tears and stood up.
   His first instinct was to check their bedroom. He ran up the stairs, and right enough, found the frame propped up on their bed. Her ivory wedding dress lay neatly alongside it. The floor was strewn with their wedding photographs. She had probably spent her final hours trying desperately to hold on to the slipping memory of the happiest day of her life. She had probably decided life wasn't worth living, if she couldn't remember the love of her life - him. He broke down, and threw himself on the bed. His heart threatened to stop with the pain he felt. Tears streamed down his face, as he lovingly caressed her dress. That's when he found the note, neatly rolled into a scroll, and slid into her gold wedding band.

"Dear Jim,

   Now, don't be mad at me. Look at it this way; no more medicine schedules on that darned excel sheet! (Bad joke. So, sue me!)
   P.S.: Darling, I know you won't be in the best of your minds when you read this. But this is something I meant to tell you for so many months. It has taken many painful days and nights to say this to you. I want to leave. I need to leave.
   Meeting you has been the best thing that has ever happened to me. In you I found the love I had always dreamt of, waited for. In your arms I found the solace and love a woman can only dream of. Only with you, I could feel happy, healthy and whole. I have no regrets. You loved me like a man should a woman. You loved me like a dream. But life can sometimes cruelly shatter dreams. Six years you stayed by my side. Nursed me, held me, took care of me. Even in my imperfection, you remained perfect. I've never felt more loved than in these six years I've spent with you. But I could give you nothing back. Not even happy memories, because they are beginning to deceive me...
   I'm sorry, Jim. You deserve a better life, a partner, who can take care of you. Who can love you, like I wished I could. Do me a favour, Jim. I have gathered all my stuff here. Burn all of this up. Burn my memories off. Start your life again, Jim. Marry. Have kids. Play with your grandchildren. Promise me you will, and forgive me. Love, Yana."
   
   He kissed the letter, and as he held it tight, felt something on the other side. He turned it around and found their two Bali tickets attached to the letter and a small note under it. It read,

"P.P.S.: Go. I hate to be a spoilsport."

   The bell rang.
   It was the cops. He was surprised to see their lawyer with them. "What's he doing here?" he wondered to himself, puzzled.
   "Hi Jim," the lawyer said, "I'm so sorry. Yana called me this morning about her will. She wanted me to keep a copy ready. I had no idea..." He handed Jim a copy. Tears welled in Jim's eyes. She had been planning it for a while. 'Why didn't you let me in to your biggest secret?' He took a deep breath, and nodded. The cops went about their business in a cold manner, as his world came crashing down. They began to take the corpse away. His love gone cold, white. "May I, officer?" he asked, choking with emotion. "Of course," said the officer, and respectfully laid down Yana's still beautiful body. He kissed her lightly on the lips one last time. "Goodbye my love," he said, bursting into a fresh spate of tears.
   Hours later, when he could summon the courage, he opened her will. She had left everything to him, and asked him to burn it all. He would. There was nothing here for him anymore. This house now felt like a coffin. She was all around. In every nook. In every breath. He could think of no better way to let it all go. Moments later, he was out on the porch with several cans of gasoline. He splashed it all around the house. He was having none of it stay with him, without her in it. She had left him behind; he would leave all of this behind. He smiled, and dropped a burning match on the balcony. An angry streak went right into the house and started turning everything it touched into ash. He began to walk away, even as fire engines rung their bells furiously and approached the home of Mr. and late Mrs. Smith.

-------------------------------------------------------

   That night had been a living nightmare. Cops, questions, fire and darkness. Courts, more cops, lawyers, friends and alcohol followed soon after. He had walked through those days in a daze, until he found her. Today he had brought her to the charred remains of his past for the first time. He did not wish to walk down that road again. That neighbourhood, that pain. But she had insisted. Behind their good life, she had sensed a void. All through their first days together in Bali four years ago, their whirlwind romance, their crazy-quick wedding, their marriage and kids, a part of him had been missing.
   "It's time you truly fulfilled Yana's last wish, darling," she said softly. "Forgive her for leaving you. Forgive yourself for not being able to stop her. You have never once visited her grave. Let's go say hello. You need it for a goodbye."

(Co-authored with Nikhil Deshmukh @red_devil22)

The reunion

   She poured him a stiff one on the rocks, and some overflowing on to the table. "It's rather hot today," she said, offering him the frosted glass with some gold liquid in it.
   He pulled down his tie as if on cue, responding to the two buttons of her shirt, which she had unbuttoned. Hot it was. She was making it worse. This woman knew a man's anticipation. He took the glass gratefully, sipped, and drunk in the luscious sight of her. She was beautiful.
   "Thanks for fixing this meeting," he mumbled. His senses were fixed on her. Her slender frame, smooth skin, those peeking thighs that taunted, those arms he wanted, her copper-streaked hair. It wasn't the whiskey yet; he was high on her. She walked up to him and sat close, their legs almost brushing.
   "Oh, don't be formal, love," she said, "It is, after all, our anniversary."
   He smiled weakly. They had been divorced for nearly three years now. But she had refused to vacate a very special place in his heart. Three years. It seemed like a blur. Life was never the same without her. Her vivaciousness, her bold charm. They were madly in love, until their marriage could bear their careers no more. He missed her. But he never acknowledged that. Tonight was different though. "Do you miss me?" he asked, shuffling closer. He was surprised at his own words. Was it the whiskey or her... He was falling, failing too fast for his liking. She just sat there, taking it in.
   "I miss being constantly told how desirable I am by a man, who had me every night," she said.
   "You are...," he started.
   "I know," she cut him off, "but is she desirable?"
   "The problem is always the same, honey. They are not you," he whispered, drilling his gaze on her. He held her hand. It felt the same. Tender. A slight shiver ran down his spine. "They can never be you."
    She walked up behind him, slid her hands inside his shirt, rested her face on his broad back and said, "You haven't lost touch." A single tear rolled down her cheek.
    "Three years, baby. This fire, all this fire, and no you," he said, "I've missed you like hell." He took a deep breath and pulled her closer into a tight embrace. Tonight there would be no inhibitions, no pretensions. He kissed her. Those lips still tasted sweet and warm. He thought peaches. Vintage her. He wanted her. He didn't care.
   She half returned his kiss. Then, "No." She broke away. The pain had been too great to want it again. "We mustn't... I shouldn't have called you here," she said.    
   "Shhh...!" he said, and kissed her some more. "I'll go away again... just not yet," he said, undoing the zipper down her back. "I've missed this, love. I've missed you", his voice quivered, as pulled down her bra strap over her shoulder, and put his lips to her shoulder. His lips sizzled. She was perfect. He wasn't going to forget this couch in a hurry. She pulled off his shirt. It was lust and abandon like when they had first made love, except they now knew what they wanted and how to offer it. She ran her fingers through his hair, and led him towards the couch. The small table fell off, as they bumped into it, and so did the half full glass, breaking.
   She let him consume her, she let herself consume him. Passions danced, bodies writhed, time flew. The stars gave way to the sun, and the soft morning light bathed the reunited lovers. He stroked her cheek, as she opened her eyes.
   "I'm glad you came. I don't have much time left," she said. "I'm flying off to the US this afternoon. That's where Sunil wants to shift base. He has always wanted to..." she trailed off. She couldn't bear to look in his eyes. She got out of bed with a reluctant urgency. Her clothes lay scattered around the room, and his thoughts equally so.
   "Uh...you mean..", he stopped short, lit a cigarette and just lay there naked.
   "I remarried; yes," she said, avoiding his gaze. The way he had held her all night told her he hadn't been able to let go. "But I needed to know if I could truly leave here, without any strings attached."
   "And?" he asked as nonchalantly as he could manage, letting out a puff.
   "And I have my answer. Too many effing strings," she said wistfully. Their divorce was an ugly fact they had never really come to terms with. They were only lawfully out of each other lives. "I could never let you go. I can't. It's a funny game, this. Still carry your pic in my wallet, still want your arms around me more than anything else when I'm low," she said.
   He turned his moist eyes away from her, as he put on his clothes. His phone buzzed. It was his wife. "Hi honey... yeah, the flight was good... I'll be headed to the meeting in some time," he said softly into the phone.
   She dressed up too, in silence, and dialed room service. The broken pieces needed to be picked up. She put back the receiver, and observed simply, "You're married too. I needn't carry the cross of guilt alone," she added, planting another kiss on his forehead, and buttoning his shirt, just like before.
    "Some things never change. Perhaps some bridges are best not burned," he said, and flashed a broad, sad smile.
   She smiled back, as if at an internal joke. "Where do we go from here?" she asked matter-of-factly.
   He took a deep breath. "If you could, somehow, for some reason, for one reason, miss your flight, I would do away with all your dummies in my life," he said softly.
   Was she hearing him right? It was an incredulous line, coming from him. But so was this moment. Her mind whirred so loud, it almost made noises. Things were moving too fast, too awry, too perfect.
   "Are you crazy?" she said, and laughed.
   "Never saner. Wanna run away?" he offered.
   She picked up her phone and switched it off. Sunil would never know where to find her.
   "I do," she said; one more time.

(Co-written with Nikhil Deshmukh @red_devil22)

Lovesick

   As she lay there, bleeding, every part of her hurting, doctors and nurses hovering around her - their faces covered, their eyes worried - she could remember only one thing.
   His face. Vengeful. Red. Unlike the face she knew and loved. Playful. Naughty. Besotted."Why, Jack, why?" she had managed between breaths. Her vision getting blurred with each passing moment. She sank into an indescribable blackness, as she felt the knife go through both her hearts - flesh and feeling. "Stay awake!" the doctor kept saying. Her eyes felt leaden. The pain wasn't exactly alien. She knew how it felt to be butchered. On the inside. Her feelings often left to hang out dry after brutal assaults on her character. She kept floating in and out of consciousness as she heard shouts of "Don't give up...Don't give up!" She felt like she was being sucked into a vortex of memories.
   Jack was obsessive love personified. But he was a gentle lover. It was unimaginable that the hands which loved so tenderly, could want to kill. But hadn't she always known that? On the night they had first met, he had almost sniffed the life out of the goons, who had tried to harass her. He then took her home, and healed her with a love she didn't know existed. As she fell back on his large sofa, shivering, he brought out a swab of cotton, and cleaned the cut on her arm. He had wrapped her in a large Pashmina shawl, and stroked her head, saying "You'll be fine." His smile was so reassuring. She felt nice, warm and fuzzy, as she watched him brew coffee for her in his functional kitchen.
   One thing led to another, and before she knew it, his functional kitchen and home was hers. But moving in with him was perhaps the biggest mistake of her life. The realisation hit, when she found all the messages in her phone erased one day. It had surprised her at first. Only Jack could've done it. 'But why?' Questions swirled in her mind. Was he snooping on her? Didn't she love him? Why would he be scanning her phone in her absence? There were a few messages from her friends, harmlessly signed 'Miss You' or 'Love You'. Wait, was he suspecting her of infidelity? She thought he knew better. She started watching her back. Sure enough, Jack appeared in dark alleys, in parking lots, in basements, always in the shadows, shadowing her. His love for her grew everyday - alien tentacles holding her tighter each day in a vice-like grip.
   Some nights he would brandish his favourite Swiss knife, as they lay in bed. He'd run the knife down her body, tearing away her gown with it, as she watched frozen, in strange fear and fascination. He'd laugh at her nervousness. "What's love without a little danger?", he would ask. His would move the knife close to her face, as he kissed her with a manic intensity. It was unbearable. Unbearable, yet addictive. The cold of his knife and the warmth of his body made her swoon. She could not bear nights without him making mad, passionate and painful love to her. But mornings would bring back the greater darkness in him. She would often wake up to find her purse ransacked, her laptop scanned, her phone checked. Yet she could never question him. She needed him. Needed his strong arms, which would protect her from the whole world. Needed that baritone to tell her he loved her. For all his flaws, he had filled a vacuum no one had. But now he questioned her. She tolerated the suffocation only for those nights of love. But now she questioned herself.
   "Jack, do you remember the first time we slept together?", she casually asked at a dinner one day.
   "Of course I do, baby. Why do you ask?" he asked.
   "Do you believe our love was born that night?" she persisted.
   "Yes. What are you getting at?"
   "Do you believe I've loved you and no other since that day - mind, body and soul?" she urged.
   He looked away.
   " Answer me, Jack."   
   "I don't know. But what I know is that you are mine! I own you. Every breath you take is mine. I cannot bear to see any man come close to you and sense your scent. I'll pluck their eyes out, if they lay them on you!" he said, with a strange gleam in his eyes. He dug the fork into the table. She gripped her chair in an instinct. Some bells started to ring inside her.
   "You cannot control me!" she screamed. "You cannot stalk me like this, Jack! I cannot take this anymore! You..." A plate came crashing on the floor, and then several others. Jack drowned her first confrontation in a violent pandemonium. "You're mine, bitch," he growled. "You don't know what you signed up for, baby," he laughed a spine-chilling laugh.  
   The whole restaurant had their eyes fixed on them. But he was oblivious. "What's this?" he yelled, holding up a cheap lighter in his hand. "Who the fuck does this belong to? I got it in your purse!" "It's only..." she couldn't complete her sentence. Ladies rushed out screaming, and their men watched in horror as Jack screamed "Shut up, you lying whore!" and flung a pitcher at her. 
   Drenched in beer, she started running, screaming in fear, horror and pain. What had she done? Who was this person she had been living with, sleeping with? Thump, thump, thump... Jack was closing in. She ran up to a dead end in the dark alleyway. She could see Jack's teeth gleaming white from where she stood, and he could see shiny beads of perspiration on her pretty forehead. She fumbled to open her purse. 'Good Lord, where is it?' She rummaged desperately looking for that one thing that could possibly save her... Jack was inching closer. "What are you scared of, baby? Come to me. I won't hurt you. How can I hurt you? Don't you know, I love you...?" he rambled with each step. She prayed, as her hands searched the insides of her purse. Jack's hands fondled the knife in his pocket.
   "I couldn't help it, baby. I just couldn't see them around you! Know what, I thrust this knife inside that cashier friend of yours. That was his lighter, wasn't it?" She muffled a horrified scream, as he said that. 'He had killed Aakash?' She sobbed violently, as she crouched behind a bin, still groping inside her purse. She could now smell him.
    Her phone lay on their bed, ringing, where Jack had been checking it for messages from Aakash, while she got ready for dinner. Her heart sank, when she couldn't find it in her bag. Suddenly, she was yanked up by her hair, and her eyes met his. He was crying too. "What did Aakash have to tell you? What big fucking secret did he have to tell you?" he yelled in her ear. She dared not tell him the warning signs Aakash had given her. "Be safe. Be well." He had texted her often in the evenings. She had no idea those four simple words were so loaded. He had never told her directly for fear of hurting her. He had meant to warn her about Jack; his shady past, his ex-wife, who had mysteriously disappeared. It was a small town. News travelled fast. "I should have listened to his warnings Jack, I should have," she managed. She winced in pain as he pulled her hair harder. Suddenly, that comforting cold metal inside her purse...
   She couldn't believe she was carrying Jack's gift in her purse. She was carrying the same purse on her birthday last month, when he gave her a .22 pistol. "Shoot any bastard, who tries to hurt you," he had said. "After all, I cannot be there, watching you all the time." She smiled, as she began to fish out the gun. But before she could summon her fingers to do the job, he summoned his. He began to throttle her. "You must go, so you can stay," he said, his eyes bloodshot; his face vengeful, red. "Why, Jack, why?" she cried, as he drove the knife through her chest.
    Bang! The noise rang clear in that empty lane, as two bodies slumped to the ground. The bullet had entered his neck, and out of his skull. "You blow my mind away," he had tenderly said, after their first night together. She had meant it in a different way now. And there she lay, her heart broken, literally. He lay beside, his hand over her chest, just the way they had lain many warm nights in their bed. She could hear sirens in the distance...
    Blackness. Then light - cold, inhuman, surgical lights. "Don't give up," they kept saying. She wouldn't. Jack had loved her zest for life.

(Co-authored with Nikhil Deshmukh @red_devil22)