The elope

She was a brahmin. He was a Muslim. The world was two parallel contours. Their world would never hold. They decided they would make it hold.

They would elope. They would elope when the sun rested in the pits of the ocean. They would elope tonight, when the world reprieved from their peccadillo.

The sun fled, tired of illuming the world; Tired of clearing obscurity from the sinister world.

She woke from her slumber. The frightening silence spread like gloominess in the murky night.

She soundlessly carried her bag and walked past her room. She walked past the hall, the kitchen, the prayer room. She reached the main door. She inserted the Copied keys on the rusted lock. The key declined to comply; She struggled with it again. The lock smirked disobediently, as if having a life of its own. She struggled in the darkness, sweating profusely. The key is stuck inside the old, rusty lock. It refused to open, as if conspiring against her elope.

She wondered. She stood thinking. "What would happen to him? What would be of their union, the elope, all the intended life together, as one".

She heard noises. Her father grumbled in sleep. "Would he be awake?"

She returned to her room, unsure of the future. She sobbed, waded by the bulky pillow; the darkness shadowed her emotions.

Soon it was morning. The sun spread its warmth; waking the world, reminding of its obscurity.

Her father walked hurriedly towards the door. He was late as usual; the qualms of the accustomed world apparent on his face.

He tried to open the lock. "The stupid, rusted, old lock".He cursed the lock.

The lock couldn’t stand the sturdiness of the Iron Hammer. It broke after a brief resistance. Father gave a hard stare at the worthless lock and threw it into the trash.

The lock shed its last tears; having tirelessly served his master until the very night, distraught by the ungratefulness of humanity.

The end.

The Monalisa Smile.

TRING, TRING !!! his mobile is ringing; but his sluggish brain realises it only after several rings. Then the phone dies.

He opens his weighty eyelids with intricacy. He stares hard at the mobile screen and finds the missed-call number and suddenly his sluggishness disappears into heightened alert.

“Why does my wife have to call me at this unholy hour?” He mumbles to himself and turns his attention to the clock.

“Oops, its 11? How come? I had set an alarm for 8”, he realises he had set the alarm for 8am, but without switching on the alarm. He himself was ashamed of his Inanity.

This is how he woke last Friday and Fridays being a holiday in his part of the world, he escaped dire consequences of his notorious inanity. Of late, he had come to empathize with his father; It was true when he called him, “the laziest of all bums to have walked the planet”.

“Am I forgetting something?”, he felt a strange sensation of bewilderment. He appeared like Aamir Khan in Gajani, in the climax scenes. He scratched his head hard, yet it yielded no results. He gave up pondering.

He switched on his laptop and allowing it to boot, then sleepily walked to the loo and after emptying his bursting bladder, came back to find a popped chat window. It was His wife with an unpleasant greeting.

“Badukoose”( a Kerala way of calling someone an idiot ),

“What da, my darling, my life”, he replied.

“No, don’t talk to me, you again forgot”

“Did I? What this time now?”

“See, that’s all about you. Your responsibilities end the moment I am Pregnant, huhh. After that it’s all me, right?”

“honey, why so much fuss. What happened? You know that you shouldn’t take so much tension. God’s sake, endu patti(what happened?)

“You don’t remember?”

“Of course, I do remember, but. Tell me”

“I was supposed to have my checkups and Scans today morning and you promised to call, didn’t you?”

“Oh, I am so sorry. But you won’t believe what happened”

“What happened?”

“No you tell me, how did it go? How was the scan? Sorry, I couldn’t sleep the whole night thinking about it.”

“Liar, you would have snored the way to morning. Everything is fine. No worries. What happened to you this morning?”

” What happened!!”His sounded puzzled.

“You said something happened.”

”Ohh, ya, my boss called me and asks me to finish that report and e-mail him urgently before 11 am. Some urgent meeting it seems. I was tied, darling. Sorry that’s why.”

”God only knows the truth. I am sure you would have forgotten the significance of this month. Already Haven’t you?”.

A momentary pause; he tries his best to recall.

“Whats so special about this month? Oh, ya, Eureka, Eureka,I remember.” He speaks with excitement.

”Valentine’s Day, Right? how can I forget. I was planning a surprise this time.” He thanks heaven that this chat happened.

“No. See.”

” Your parent’s anniversary?” He makes a wild guess.

“I won’t tell you, find it yourself” She gets very emotional.

” I remember, I do, I think your sister’s anniversary, right?” He tries his best to sound funny.

“Arun, you should never do this to your wife, never.”

” Shalini, what happened now? Why are you making me feel so guilty and terrible? Tell it to me; you know how much I hate suspense.”

“You forgot. Seriously? I don’t believe this.”

” Now, tell me, Honey. You know all these stress, tension with recession. My memory has become week.”(Recession is indeed such an exceptional excuse).

“Tell me honey.” he begs to her, trying to cheer her; He understands how important it’s for her to be cheerful. She was 6 months pregnant.

”God, I pray to god that you should be born a woman in your next birth. It’s your wife’s birthday this month, for god’s sake.”

He is stunned. He looks at her framed photograph beside the laptop, marvelling her enigmatic smile. The Monalisa Smile.He ponders for few minutes and then calls her.

P.S: I was looking at the painting of Mona Lisa, and the reason behind that puzzling smile.What would be in her mind when the portrait was being made. What would be her thoughts. And then this story.

Fatherhood and my Father.

Note:I was checking my Hard disk storage device for some old files and chanced upon this story, which I wrote on 20^th Feb 2009, the day my daughter was born.I felt a sense of wistful nostalgia. I remember the day, when my Father-in-law called in the morning to break the news and i was absolutely baffled. I was having breakfast, immediately lost all the appetite for the day. It was a sense of utter bewilderment. I was like a caged lion, confused whether to sit, stand, lie down, eat, and be awake or to sleep. I wrote this story on that day to ease my tension a bit.

Travelling back home after 5 months , he was too excited to sleep through the night. He disliked the plane journey, the long still night, waiting for the dawn and suddenly night felt like one long stretch of timeline, almost infinite in its duration.

A pretty airhostess served the diner and the lights were dimmed. Everyone around him looked deep in sleep, but Arun’s mind slipped into deep thoughts, and he slithered through various timelines of his life. Very strong emotions clutched his muscles and he felt extraordinarily stiff, developing into a strong headache and he tried hard to focus. Slowly he breathed, methodically to control his mind and emotions, but ineffective and bringing no end to the profound thoughts.

Years ago his mother abandoned him, killed herself without any clue as to why. Later on, after almost a decade, he knew about her depression. His father did nothing to stop her, his hatred for him started with that. Then started a string of deeds which incessantly increased his revulsion for him. His second marriage, sending his only son to a hostel; the strict disciplined life for the most sloppy of all boys. Arun remembered how he hated to come home for vacations; his father would pull him out of the bed and bark, ‘I tell you, I have not seen a lazier boy in my life. Get up and go get milk from the booth’. Scared of being spanked he would run towards the bathroom, brush his teeth and hurry to get the milk, all mutely, shivering in the morning chill.

He loved Shalini, his wife of 3 years and love of 5; more so since he thought he had no other vent to release his love. Who else could he call his; he didn’t have an answer and now he was going to be a father. He would love his son/daughter like the way he loved his wife and not how his father loved him .He made a stern resolve.

When he watched TV, father would come running and switch it off, saying, “ Nothing else to do? Go study, You Idiot”. He would go to his room with a heavy heart and wish for his mother. That was when he hated even his mother.

Shalini came as a fresh waft; life, for no reason appeared so good earlier. He had difficulty behaving with her love, almost alien it felt. Her parents behaved like they were his own. Her mother would take pain in making his favourite food; he didn’t know what his favourite was until Shalini came.

She would ask him, “ Arun, you should share whatever hurt you have, I would make it go away from your life.Ok?” he would nod.

She would say, “ I cant believe what you say about your father. He loves me like his own daughter. I can see it in his eyes. That glimmer of love.”

His distance with his father grew and it reached a face when he hardly spoke to him. His step mother was gravely ill few years ago, and he just called 2 or 3 times during the 2 months she was in the hospital. Her death didn’t have any jolt on him, He felt strangely unemotional hearing it.

Soon, it was dawn and the plane landed. His father was at the airport to receive him and also was His Father-in-law. He wondered if he should go to his father or Father-In-Law. He opted his father-in-law and sent his father back, promising him to visit in few days. Shalini was at her house and he wished to be with her soon. The doctors had presumed the child delivery by 27^th, , which was just 3 days further on.

On 26^th night, the pain starts; a curious warmth in the beginning, spreading to her abdomen and then the tightening sensation. She calls her husband and is rushed to the hospital. After several hours of labour; then the shrill cry of the baby, the instantaneous spread of thunderous joy.

Arun First lays his soaked eyes on the baby almost minutes after she was born. He felt a sudden rush of blood to his face; he blushes and his face turns pink when he holds the little Ananya in his hands. He kisses her on her forehead; so delicate her skin felt. So tiny she appeared. So angelic her facial expression was.

The baby is passed on to his father-in- law and then to his father. He watches the vindictive man turning into a saint, or his vindictive demeanour giving way to a pious suppleness.

His hatred for his father coming back to him instantly. He stares deep into his eyes; the frightful eyes of terror , now a pale reflection of the yesteryears. Ananya passes hands of his mother- in- law and then back to the waiting nurse.

The short vacation is further cut short by Little Ananya; the time spent watching her move, blink her little eyes, Shalini breast feeding her. He wished he had more time and wondered how the next three months would pass. Shalini could travel with little Ananya only after 3 months, and those 3 months would be the longest in his life.

The heavy heartedness starts 2 days before the date of journey. He felt he would never get enough of watching Ananya. Shalini understanding her husbands anguish, comes and sits next to him. She runs her hand over his hair and stare into his eyes. And she says, “what da, you and Ananya, i wonder who is the baby”.

The moment of departure was the toughest Arun ever experienced. Departing Ananya and Shalini was absolute heart break, he cries, not giving-a -damn to the watching crowd.

Sitting in his seat and after the diner was served by yet another pretty airhostess, he closes his eyes in an attempt to sleep. Several images of the past month unfolds before his eyes and the kaleidoscopic images stops, at once, at his father.

“The old man of sixty five, a speck of his old self, the dreadful bloodshot eyes and then the way he appeared with Ananya in his hands. His vindictive demeanour giving way to a pious suppleness, A saintly tenderness; was that a figment of his Imagination?”

He wondered if he would ever know. He wondered what Ananya would perceive about her Father.

He decides to call his father as soon as he lands.

P.S:I wish Myself a great fatherhood.

A manifestation ( a Flash Fiction)

The spider slinked on the wall--A black, ominous creature with certain hex in its walk; like a gorgeous serpent budge. Its glare, like reflect of sun's radiance.His ogle pored over it, absorbing its grandeur to the bound. He begins to desire it. If he becomes it, he could stir to the next house and panorama Geetha's unclothed body. Geetha: his neighbor and the enchantress.

Abruptly, he is transformed, for he by no means noticed the passing conjurer of the murky magic. His each hand, slashed into four, to form four each on both sides. His body raises dim, like the spreading mystical. He is altered to the analogous spider. He moved to the adjoining home of Geetha.

There she goes, hastily to the bathroom. He trails.

Slinging on the wall, he peeks downwards. She hangs the towel on a hook and unbuttons her blouse; the first button, the second and then the last. He gapes with the lustfulness of a rapist.

She unclothes her brassiere, her delightful breasts on flaunt. She untangles her underskirt and it plummets on to the ground. Her last bit of obscurity is removed; her ambiguous, clothed self, transformed to a palpable manifestation.

Suddenly, he is trampled by a powerful bite. He, in heightened cupidity of the moment failed to notice the larger marauder, lurking in the backdrop. The pain was inconceivable, numerous drops of tears dropped on the floor, unobserved by the tininess of it.

The lizard ingested the spider, delighted with its catch and the subtle savor of its body fluid. It licked its gluttonous lips, unaware of its kill; the kill being its own sibling. He too had wished on that fateful afternoon; out of enormous thirst for the spectacle of a nude feminine body.

"Triiiiiing, triiiing, triiiiing."

The far-away resonance of an alarm clock ringing, and then a loud scream, "Sasi, O Sasi, Getup now, its six, this lazy boy, he will fail again this year."