Timing, a well known Bitch

      She hated the mirror that hung near the mantle in her drawing room. The mantle held quite a few pictures from her younger days, framed in antique brass skeletons. It reminded her of the split screen comparisons shown in TV commercials. Her youthful, lively, sexy younger self on one side and a careworn, dull, ordinary face that sported the wrinkles of her mid thirties on the other side. Marriage had slowed down the free spirit that Ana was, but it was the three hyperactive children who had completely halted the flow through her interests in life. She had divided her time between the kitchen, her cabin and the kids room that it left little time to pause and scan through, in search of her life. She believed she had lost it somewhere between the diaper changing and attending the numerous PTA meetings, after Dev had come into her life.

        Dev, the love of her life, that her parents chose. She had no romantic relationships before him so she had no scale to compare the love she and Dev had shared, but she felt no sparsity. He respected her space, loved the kids, took her out now and then, cooked the Sunday lunch, kissed her forehead when he left for office, made love when they thought it had been quite a while, stayed home with the kids during the holidays when Ana had an important meeting, balanced the home budget, sang quiet well as he carried on with his mundane activities. He was a well raised, honest gentleman, whom Ana adored. Love grew into their marriage, slow yet unwavering.

      After 14 years of wedlock, everything in their life had found a normal course, except Ana felt few things were going wrong in the recent days. She felt changes in their marital life, subtle changes to the third pair of eyes, but to Ana, they were glaring right at her. Dev was a little more cheerful, but it felt vastly put on. He had long meetings quiet frequently, going beyond midnight, atleast twice a week. He remained occupied with his phone and texting had improved quiet drastically but Ana found no traces of it when she peeked at his phone. That worried her more. His drinking days had increased a little and their love making decreased. The fore head pecks, the gentle smiles, the hugs from behind, the hand holding had almost become obsolete and the ones that came by  felt feigned.

     Ana was not the jealous or suspicious type, but the mirror near the mantle induced a paranoia. Her crows feet seemed a little too deep, her dark circles looked darker, her hair looked thinner and lighter, her age spots looked prominent, her skin felt loose, her breast looked saggy, her whole posture seemed drooped. She confined to her close friend about these changes as any worried wife would do and as any friend of a worried wife would advice, her friend assured her that this may be the menopause talking and probably Dev was busy at work but it doesn't mean her suspicions may be wrong. This left Ana even more confused. She feared the answer she might get, if she confronted Dev, but staying in this grey area of not knowing anything concrete seemed even more painful. That was when she came across the advertisement for a detective agency in the obscure little magazine she had found in the bunch of old papers and periodicals at the dentist.

   Ana fixed her appointment with the detective agency and gave all the information regarding Dev. She kept asking about the confidentiality of the investigation and whether Dev would ever find out about this. The private investigator assured that everything would go fine. It took 3 weeks of restless nights for Ana and for the investigator to get back with his report, according to which Dev was not having an extra marital affair but he had been consulting a therapist for his stress related health issues. All his business meetings were real and that he had not been straying. As much as the confirmation of the affair being non existent elated Ana, the lack of her focus on Dev and his deteriorating health shocked her and the very crude idea to doubt Dev shamed her. She went home that night and had a long talk with Dev, asked him about his work, the stress at office and many other things. She hugged Dev tight and said that she loved him more than anything in her life and apologised if she had been selfish and overlooked his needs. Ana even suggested that she could take a break from work to help him out. Dev was utterly confused at his wife's strange behaviour, but he welcomed the change. He kissed the top of her head as she wept on his chest. He felt it would be inappropriate if he suggested make up sex as he was not sure if they had a fight and reconciled and also as Ana's ride on the emotional roller coaster was still in progress.

   That night Ana had a peaceful sleep, knowing everything was back to normal. Dev stayed awake wondering what could have prompted this development in his marital life when suddenly his phone buzzed. A Text. He read it twice, smiled and deleted the text and went back to sleep.

"The 5 week vacation was fun. It would have been more fun if you had been there with me.
I miss you, your kiss, your touch, your cooking, Most of all, I miss us, together.
Can't wait to see you tonight."

   Dev had a peaceful sleep, knowing that everything was back to normal.




 

Vis Viva

"Energy is neither created nor destroyed. It changes from one form to another"
                                                                  - Law of Conservation of Energy


The seconds expecting a breakdown at the door was as painful as the bullet lodged in his gut. His breathing was heavy and uneven. He knew there was no escape from here, but the killer in him was half mad at the kind of end his assassin's life was coming to,a bullet from a rookie's gun. He thought he would go in a much grand way, like after a long fight sequence similar to a Tarantino movie or at least after a few rounds of shots fired, using up all the clips he had, the anticipation of a shot, hitting the target, feeling the heat of the gun, sweat in his skin, and finally give up to the bullets that would sieve him. He wanted be gone a legend after an intense gun fight. This, was pathetic. Damn the rookie cop with the unsteady hands. He ruined his "Glorious Exit".

His profile was impressive.More than two dozen hits, all clean with nothing tracing back to him or the ones who wanted the dead, dead. He was the best. He was the unknown and unseen strike that got you out. He was off the grid and it was as if he never existed. That's what he believed until he found the trace and now he was cornered, literally , at some random room in some random floor of some random  building, waiting for his Rain of Bullets. He had not one regret with his life. He was powerful. The scythe that reaped the lives. He knew nothing about the lives of the ones he had slayed and he didn't care for them. Yet with the final grains of his sand clock slipping down, he thought he would feel remorse, for all the lives he had claimed, the tears he was accountable for, the looks of terror, the pleas of mercy, the foul stench of death, and the vacantness that filled their eyes afterwards.

As he heard the hard soles closing around him, he recalled his every kill. From the very first to his recent one. He was proud of some of his work and thought he could have done much better at some others. The money, the life, the comforts that came with the blood, all brought a small grin. He was good at what he did no matter how evil it was. He could hear the voices now. It took them full two minutes to figure out the room he was in. "Good call Sherlock.Was it the blood trail that gave away?", he guffawed. They were taking positions as they closed in on the door. He felt it. He was there, the state at which his victims felt right before he made his kill. Death's cruel hand crushing down with a side of helplessness and a generous serving of fear. But, unlike them, he was not afraid of dying. He knew it would all come to this one day. His heart rate quickened, his body was drenched in his sweat, blood all around him. That damn bullet in his gut.

The door burst open ,a dozen black suits stormed in. All guns pointing at him. At this point, he was so vulnerable that the rookie who shot him can get over with this with an old musket. There was no need for twelve semi automatics pointed at his chest. They were making snide comments about how a "celebrated" assassin like him had ended up huddled in a corner like a stinking coward. He had a few witty comebacks, but the pain had broken the threshold and it was to the point that he was looking forward to the end. He wanted them to get over with it. Yet they kept talking. His consciousness was not slipping but pain kept clawing at his life and the blood didn't stop seeping. At last it happened, the black suits shot him several times as he thought they would as he made a move. A slight motion, that's all it took for his life to come to an end. His glorious life as the master of death. As the shots were fired, finally the thought came to him.

 What if?

It happened so quick he hadn't had the time to catch a breath. He knew he was crying out loud, but didn't know why. He heard strangers around him. There was a women sobbing somewhere around in the vicinity. He felt running water and a soft towel followed. He felt was being handled like a small doll. Suddenly he heard the sobbing women up close. He had finally stopped crying and ever so slightly opened his eyes. A worn out women and a balding man, of gigantic proportions were looking at him. They were laughing and crying at the same time. She mouthed something he couldn't comprehend to. It dawned on him, finally, and this thought came to him.

"Oh its on".

P. S. This is totally inspired. My own words but a borrowed idea.

The Day She Quit..!!

She sat staring at the bright screen and it stared right back at her with nothing. It drove her mad. She walked out of her cell that she shared with 4 other fellows, who were gifted enough not to plow through on the last day of the week. She didn't mind their absence. There were very few souls that inhabited her adjacent cells which was sheltered under a long holding made of thick glass and cheap steel. She identified herself at the first glass door and again at the second metal door to walk to the outer less polished corridor. Her fingers absently traced the cold metal railings of the corridors as she walked to the box in the shaft that sailed her down from the third level. The rough stone walkway led her out of her metal cage that was oddly shaped like a bird. A giant,ugly,steel cage bird.

Everything around her screamed of conformity. The neutral shades may give out an aura that this means business but it clearly shouts to the lot here, "Comply and you shall believe that you are thriving". It reminded her of the colours of the shackles that had clasped her souls. She is one of them. She has been one of them for four long summers and four mildly cool winters. She had the coin, not complaining at that front, but this is not who she is. She is a free spirit. She wondered when she was tamed and it scared her. It scared her a lot.

She walked to the eatery to get something to quench her thirst and settle the the rumblings of her heavy breakfast. Her black stole took the direction of the wind. She tried to curb the garment but failed miserably at the act, so much she let it dance in the air. There was no one around anyway to judge her modesty for she had let her stole fly around. She looked down at her dress. Black with white and brownish green threading all over. Her friends mocked that this dress of hers looked like a thousand crows had shat on it. She didn't like the comment much as this was one of her favourites, but coming to think about it now, it does looks like crow shit. She smiled. Something that hardly came up these days.

As she walked there were less din than the other days of the week. She grasped none. It was all white noise around her. She was able to distinguish them though. A power provider's grunts, a mason's strikes, a loud girl's high pitch laughter, a few distant musical notes, the kitchen noise from that other eatery on her way, the splash of water from the green hose, held by a garden man in green clothes watering green leaves that were there apparently for no good reason. They were supposed to appease the mundanity of the cages, but steel grey and bottle green were never the colours of excitement. She heard all the noise but failed to pay any heed to them. She was going deaf to the life around.

The eatery that served her needs was three steel cages afar. She kept her head bowed. Not in submission but in curiosity. She saw the stones laid on the walkway. As a child, she used to measure her strides so that she did not step on the edges of the stone, something she always did with so much involvement that her head found her forerunner's arse many a times. Yet she did it. In her every walk. In all her journeys. But somehow she had stopped measuring her strides. She wondered why. It was just a queer habit that she had lost with time, like most of the things she enjoyed doing. She thought she would do it now. But the walkway stones were longer and it would look foolish to walk with long strides that even involved a few hops. There were not many around, yet she wouldn't do it. She hated being held back.

Her quencher was a brown effervescing drink that neither quenched her thirst nor settled her stomach. She walked back to her bigger cage, took the box up, then to the corridor and  then to her glass holding and then walked back to her cell after identifying at the two doors. She was a bit nervous to bring the quencher to her cell, as the guards were intolerant to anything edible in there. But her cage was not well guarded that day. May be the safety compliance of her steel cage was laid back on the last day of the week.
She realized her fear had stemmed out of her bent back.
So bent, she was even afraid to look up at anything around her.
So bent she let her life waste away staring at the ground.
So bent she thought her mind was rusting to normality.
So bent she forgot her last free opinion.

 She went back to her staring. Her relentless, pointless staring at the brightness in front of her.

That's when she heard a scream from within.

Broken window in the Red bus

I knew not where I was.
I knew not where to go.
Amidst the crowd of strangers,
I stood alone like a shadow.
Spotted a bus at a distance.
I climbed aboard the red beast.
Nothing around made any sense.
Time seemed to have ceased.
Behind two unknown souls
I found my battered place.
Rusted window and broken glass.
A faded leather solace.
I saw the dusky city scene
disappear behind me.
Gazing through the frosted pane,
streaks of evening colours faded rapidly.
Lady who lost her love
crooned away her distress.
Through the radio waves
to all who lent their ears.


Looking back at today
and all days gone by.
As life snatched away my dreams,
It all seems like a grand lie.
A sudden short drizzle
calmed the mind a little.
Sneakily trying to efface
my mask of sanity away.
"Hold on to it "cried my head.
Alas! My eyes couldn't carry on
It did at the end betray.
Tears gather at the brink of my eye.
Tears of disappointment.
Tears of failure.
Tears of hatred.
Tears of the fallen griever.
The cool evening breeze
stole them all away.
One by one,
drop by drop.
The ones I wanted salvaged
with my mother's hug,
by my father's hand,
through my sister's love,
alongside my friend's laughter.
Yet, all alone I lost my tears
to the suburban air
One by one
drop by drop.
Is this all how life gets to be?
No love near by,
so hard to breathe?

A piercing eye caught my notice.
That of a child wearing a smile.
Like a ray of light in all the darkness.
The smile was pure.
Nothing in the world appeared wrong.
A moment of hope,
A measure of love,
A twinkle of life.
Everything felt light.
A sign of being, that smile gave me
I knew this ain't the end,
I knew I had a shot
At happiness, I will see. :)


                                                                         

JaNe EyRe, A FeW WoRdS

The name says it all. One of the most cherished leading ladies of English Literature. I happened to befriend her recently and as much as I fell in love with the unadulterated charisma that is Edward Fairfax Rochester, I fell for Jane as well.

Quoting the wise words of Rachel Greene, this book is definitely light years ahead of its time(well not the Robot part). Feminism was the part which had captured the mind of the few with whom I happened to discuss this book about. What caught me the most was Jane's honesty.

To let go of the love of your life because it is the right thing to do takes much more than mere mortal courage. Especially to one who has never apprehended the pleasures of love and had just been handed an abundance of it. The greatest power in the world is definitely BATMAN. But when it comes to emotions , Love is Batman and dear Jane walked away from Batman.  It may not matter what the world would think, there was no one to stop them, yet she made her decision not to stay.

That requires more than just courage...!!

You mam, deserve a salute...!!

PaReNtS and PaRaNoiA

I have successfully reached the age at which general paranoia is attributed to lack of matrimonial commitment. At 25, I am exhausted, aimless and getting borderline schiznophrenic, more like the female version of all the antsy characters played by Woody Allen. Solitude makes more sense than company now. Believe me, this is new. In school and college, I was always with a big entourage of friends or fr-enemies or acquaintances. Lately, I seem to quiet despise company and have begun doing most of the things alone by myself. Things I always required a friend for company. Being an introvert who hates change, I assumed this sort of behaviour is beyond logical and normal human nature. But now, I am venturing to places I have feared to go alone. Why? I ask myself and others.

My parents have a theory to explain this. All of this "madness" can be explained by the fact that I am not married. Yes, a co dependent relationship with a bossy, lazy, controlling, narrow minded man is the answer to my paranoia. This is not a generalization about men. The men in my life are pretty okay, but as husbands they tend to be examples for one or more of  the above mentioned traits, to their wives.

I fail to comprehend as to why all problems in an unmarried woman's life immediately points to the lack of a husband. Marriage, according to me, is the the day I boast to the world that I have found love, who would stand BESIDE me and not ABOVE. Such love is very rare to find in a place where mothers breed their sons with extra dosages of "MALE EGO", assuming the general consensus of heterosexuality in my case.

My parent's love choke me and I think I would feel like an ungrateful parasite feeding off of them if in finality, I end up exercising my free will without considering their feelings. As a child with a submissive disposition, I , like many women fall into the snare of arranged marriage and are given the ultimate parental advice. Not about having a joyous and loving life, but to adjust to any difficulties posed at the In-laws place. Yes, that is exactly what marriage is all about.

The most unsettling aspect of this arrangement is that I am uncertain if I would have anything remotely close to love in the marriage that is fixed.

I am a good human being, a good daughter but I may be a terrible wife. This is something my parents fail to see as they perceive all  creatures of the female trait are hard coded to be perfect wives, hetero or otherwise.

The thing is, I am a lazy bum and I am proud about it. Its not exactly an ideal life, but what exactly qualifies for an ideal life. It is pretty objective and my vision is to live the way that makes me happy.There is a catch here as a free female mind is always looked at as an arrogant aka bitchy one, while the same traits in a man make them either despicable hipsters or impeccable gentlemen.

Take a 180 degree spin....

On the other hand,
I hope I am just over thinking things.
I hope everything goes well.
I hope life is not as  screwed up as it appears.
I hope I can mend it if it does screw up.

Hoping for the best.
Amazing part of being a human is you get to hope that things are not always as bad as it seems and to figure out that single ray of extraordinary prospects that you may end up having, in spite of all the pessimism that mounts up around you. In spite of all the things that could go wrong, all the things that could turn bad, the thought that there is a possibility of things could go your way, always pulls you to that extra mile and that extra mile may be the the life changing one.

ThE DeScEnT Of ThE DeCeAsEd

DISCLAIMER : THE FOLLOWING POST MAY BE INSENSITIVE SO WHATEVER.

Death. Something that used to be dark and gloomy. I believed it brought about great deal of misery, for the loss of a loved one could be unimaginable and loss of loved one being the key word. What happens at the death of a not so good person? Some one who was rotten to the very core but pretended to be sweet. Even though everybody saw what kind of a person he/she was, yet never made an  attempt to confront them about their wrong doings merely because they were older, richer and had a tad more power than the confrontee. This is about such a person. Her death neither stirred a great deal of grief or joy among her near and not so dear.

I happened to be there, at her funeral. Well I am technically her relative but our relationship was never cherished. Well she was supposed to be a big part of my childhood, but she simply didn't care. Before I go ahead explaining about the funeral, I would like to recount my previous funeral experience because I do not want to seem insensitive or inexperienced when it came to funerals. I had been to two. My mother's brother and father and they were full on funerals of the countryside. The traditional women-in-huddle "opari", sounds of waterworks all around, men discussing how the departed will be missed, family trying to get a hold of the things happening around. One could easily cut a slice through the grief that lingered around the place. After such grim experiences, this was a.. how can I say it.... weird  experience.

 I was walking towards the house were funeral was held. A few houses away, I could see my destination quiet clearly and there started the weirdness. I heard no "Tharai/thappatai" and I assumed it was too early. I heard no crying and I thought people were tired of crying for a very long time, but it had just been a few hours since she passed.  Mind you, this is not a woman with very few relatives. She had 5 step children, 4 sons of her own and a brigade of grand and great-grand children. All I heard was the noise of conversation. Men having men talk and women sharing women thoughts.

I retreated to the wall on the opposite house to observe the proceeding. Suddenly, the people stirred and looked down the street. A family of four were walking towards the house. A respectfully dressed elderly man, an elderly woman, clearly the man's wife and two other women who were most likely their daughters. I knew the gentleman was the dead woman's step son, to whom she had successfully cliched the role of a step mother. As soon as he appeared at the threshold of the funeral house, his two sisters started their lament almost instantaneously. The timing was so accurate that even trained actors cannot start crying on cue like they did. They scooped their brother in a huge hug and led him in. He was not sad or for that matter he reflected no emotion. This death did not affect him, for he made sure her life didn't affect him in any way.

This routine continued for a while . As new mourners turned up, the sobbing sisters engulfed them in their lament and after a threshold period of 2 minutes, they went about their business. The dead lady's own daughter in law, looked thoroughly annoyed, not at nature for depriving her of a mother in law but the number of people who turned up to pay their respects to the dead, adding to one more fake pleasantry that she had to deliver.

The proceedings were dull, not in a grim or nature of death, but people looked extremely bored. Nagging kids all around urging parents for something more fun than a funeral and that's when the most curious event of my observations of the funeral began.

An elderly woman, whom I learned  to be the cousin of the weeping sisters, came rushing in, crying a high pitched lament which was further encouraged by the sisters in distress. The three got together and started crying and the tricky part was when the sisters reached their threshold 2 minutes but the cousin still continued "oparying". They sat there for another 10 minutes not to seem rude , but the cousin was unstoppable. After a about 15 minutes past their threshold period, they left the cousin to grieve alone, and resumed their usual funeral talk. After another 10 minutes, the cousin  came out, finishing all the verses of the lament and joined the sisters to complain about the frequent power cuts.


     What amazed me the most that day was that a human life had ended. Any form of physical existence of the woman ceased that day but the impact she had was so little that it was near miserable. The state of events of her funeral made me feel sad for the life she had more than her death itself.