Saturday, December 17, 2011

Lost confessions of someone unknown



Please don’t mind the tape recorder; it is just for my reference. Look here I turn it off. No wires and modern technology. Let’s just talk like two people who are eager to know each other. You tell me whatever you feel like, and I will do the same. No questions, no answers.

"Yes, no questions, no answers. I am not answerable to anyone, am I? I am not. I will not be answerable to anyone. But what is your name?"

Name. My name is let me think. It can be Rajesh. Or Ratan. Maybe even Ravi. No not Ravi. I know a person named Ravi. Me and Ravi were in university together in our electives of Journalism. Last I heard he is in Delhi, or Faridabad, maybe Delhi. So maybe people will confuse me with him. Hence, my alias will be lost. Then what is the point of alias.

"Dear, you are new to this aren’t you? You want me to relax you a bit. You know maybe these breasts have sagged a bit, but still this bosom holds a lot of warmth for young blood like you. A good time. A money's worth."

No, thank you. No No, I dint meant to offend you. Yes, your breasts look enticing. No No that doesn’t means I have a thing for older woman, any kind of woman is fine for me. Not that I mean you are old. You are just mature in a soothing way. You remind me of my Asansol's aunt. She was soothing. And then she died.

But I guess we are deviating from the point. We are supposed to talk about you, your life, your beginnings, your endings, your..

"My life? Kid the biggest delusion is that they make you think it’s your life and it’s your choice. It was never about me. It was always about their happy endings."

Who do you mean by they? Wait. I don’t think it is appropriate for you to call me kid. It doesn’t have the glamour or mystique an alias name should endow. After all it’s a career choice. It is so tough to carve out a niche in journalism and a bland alias is almost a career suicide. Wait. I meant to ask who is they.

"Everyone is they. They are everyone. Why? Even you are they aren’t you?"

Me! No! Me! No I can’t be they, I have never done anything bad, leave alone you, but to anyone. Ah well yes sure it was me who poisoned Mr.Rastogi's dog but that was just because the dog was mean to me. And I never thought if you mix milk with phenyl the dog still drinks it. I surely can’t be hold responsible. It was the dog who was responsible, whatever happened to his exquisite sense of smell that he used so expertly to smell my crotch. That sniffling wet nose, can give erection to any hormonal adolescent. It never meant I have a thing for dogs. I had to kill it. But that doesn’t makes me they. I am sure they are worse. How you landed up in this unspeakable city anyways?

"Hope. What else do you think? Hope is Satan's way to get you wet in your panties, and after that there is no looking back. But mind you it was not greed, I was not greedy. I am not greedy. This flashy extravagance you see around me is just to cover up peeling interiors. It’s just an illusion of well being. Because the biggest trick for a man is to allude himself."

But hope is something nice isn’t it. I dunno what exactly hope is but surely at times I have felt hopeless. Maybe to be hopeful one needs to stop feeling hopeless first. But hope is nice. Hope is something that moves you forward. At least that is what Ranju Uncle says whenever we meet at our family gastro enticing gatherings. Though I admit I don’t like how his hand stroking my thighs somehow callously brushes my crotch. I somehow think his words have double meanings but everyone else seems to agree to him. After all he is in the Civil Services. But I mean is how your hope is different from our hopes.

"My hope is different because my hope was not celebritic; my hope was what you people take for granted as reality. But I was not ever granted that, I was part of age old chess board, where I was a designated knight. I can take two steps forward but they choose the next step sideways. Tell me did you ever rape anyone? How you men do it? Doesn’t the cruelty of it stop you from getting an erection?"

Rape! What! Rape! No, no! I never raped anyone. Why did anyone told you anything different? Trust me! I respect woman. I can’t rape anyone. Horrible. It must have been Shashank isn’t it? Did he tell you anything? I must not drink with him. Don’t know what all I blabber out. Look I don’t know what convoluted reality you believe. But I never raped anyone. What happened with her was just out of curiosity. We were just trying to explore each other in our attic. Yes I admit she told me to stop, she told me it was hurting her. But I can’t stop just like that. Trust me I tried to stop. But once you begin, you vision blurs, and your mind transfers all your common sense to your phallus. By the time I regained my posture. She was crying. But I did made her promise that it was fun. It was no way a crime. After all we successfully experimented.

"Yes, you people think with your penis. That's it. Even he thought with his penis. Told me he will teach me something nice. Told me I was too old now to just come to school and learn to read and write. Told me education was more about experimenting. Told me that learning was more about exchange of physical knowledge, and then threw me down on the table of the staffs’ room to violate me with his hand choking on my mouth. Strangely even today when a man explores me, that hollow creaking on the depilated table fills my ear and the aftertaste of the chalk dust rises from my throat. I guess it was the collateral of what you people calls the gift of virginity. All left of my virginity was a dried blood stain on the dusty table of staffs’ room."

Yes I know chalk dust can be terrible isn’t it? I recall my terrible allergy of chalk dust when I was kid. I guess it had something to do with the calcium. Every time Pandu Sir violently dusted the chalk infested duster by the side wall, I would indefinitely end up coughing like an addict on dope rehab for minutes at stretch and he would just stand there and watch me with amused silence. And then with a sudden start will come beside me and with a big paan stained smiled rub my chest to sooth me down, with his sticky fingers occasionally twitching my nipples and his other hand in his pant pockets maybe repeating the same twitching for his penis. Chalk dust allergies were surely terrible.

But you could have complained to someone, couldn’t you? After all that person was supposed to be you guardian after your parents, someone you can submit yourself with trust. But I guess you were too ashamed to come out with your truth.

"Ashamed? No I wasn’t ashamed. Why will I be ashamed for the hunger of a mongrel that you men get overpowered with? I cried and shouted to my parents, to my brothers, to my neighbours. All they said was it was nice to know that master-saab was taking interest in our chutki. They even told me how lucky I was to be loved my someone of such stature and qualification. And when he came to our doorstep to ask permission so that he could take me out of the shackles of rural rust to modernity so that I can succeed on the platform modernity. My parents felt privileged to hand me over to the person who raped me so that he could give me a glorious future in your despicable city."

But surely you could have ran away, after he bought you here I am sure you could have ran away. After all the doors are always open. A step out of it and you can rush out to a life of dignity.

"RUN? Out of these doors. But dear this door maybe opens, but after I get out of this door, the doors on your end is closed. The doors of your society will be closed isn’t it? I won’t be allowed to get inside your door. What kind of independence is that? At least my doors don’t let people through judging them on scales of honour and respect. Your doors are cruel than mine. But I did try to let go of everything. I did try to chase out life. Gulped down a can full of kerosene. But the effect was only nausea and loose motions. Even death cums inside me and leaves me with a sticky notion of orgasm."

Oh, why would you do such an awful thing?

"Self sacrifice is not as awful as you think when you don’t have any self respect left."

No, no, I don’t have anything against you killing yourself. Not that I want you dead, please don’t quote me. Last place I want myself stuck is in an investigation of a dead whore. No No, I don’t mean it in a derogatory way. Dead woman sounds more tuned. But I never meant you dead. Death I can understand. But why kerosene, when there are such beautiful devices to die. Dead people are much more attentive than the live counterpart. They are patient and serene as if they have achieved all there is to achieve and now just resigned to the pouring calmness. Though morally it’s wrong when covering a crime beat I do occasionally try to cup a feel of those cold and firm breasts of the victim, and occasionally give myself the pleasure of a quick erection. But they don’t complain. Maybe they are too happy in their own death to realize a violation. I like dead people. They are less of a nuisance.

I think there is something gravely wrong with me. Some error in the architecture, some malfunction.

"Haha, there is malfunction is both of us, actually most of us. Most of us are just a faulty product of a good species."

Yes, maybe Darwin will come to rescue and over the time olibrate the weaker ones, and our legacy will be rejection in the survival of fittest.

"Dar...who?"

Never mind madam. I shall take your leave now, the night is crowning out and I am sure you have a business to attend to. I shall find my way out of here. Don’t worry once upon a time I too was a regular. Now though I have a wife.

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

P.S: what is the ideal threshold of absence...i guess when i feel like a intruder in my own space...like an abandoned house..where you come once in a decade and find that it may have been your house..but now its a home of flora and fauna and probably homeless creepy guy...and u are nothing more than an intruder in ur own space....blah blah apart...i feel like an intruder to my own blog...it feels familiar but now own... so what changed in this past months...well people used to say "get a job...get a life"...i got a job, the latter one refused to tag along....so 9 to 5 in formals...i lost the informality of my blog...and when i got down to write down what i felt like writing...all came out was bitterness...pent up bitterness...and it overflowed that somewhere i drew a line....and hence came out this...if this post doesnt makes sense or disgusts you in anyway...then u would have found me disgusting anyways so bother not :) most likely my last blogpost from this despicable city of mine...i still wonder at the enchanting warmth of this city that makes me hate it but love it all the more....a lot more is still left to be said... not one of my fav blogpost...infact i m happy atleast i wrote something...so if u hate it shout it out...and if u like it...whisper it once atleast....2011, you are a disappointment!!

Thursday, June 16, 2011

Ballad of a Blind Man



Darkness has many shades, maybe even more than colors. Yes, you can call me a deluded fanatic behind my back because I never knew color, but then again you never knew darkness. What you recognize as darkness is just momentary absence of light in your neon lit world. But I have lived in blindfold of darkness all throughout my life and I do have the authority to claim my truth.

When I was born, a comment on my medical report stating 'damaged cornea' destined me to a world of oblivion. But little did I care. For a newborn, life is itself excruciating punishment served on the platter of celebration like the fine print of some insurance policy. By the time you realize the selfishness of those sugarcoated promises, it is too late to rewind. But it will be hypocritical of me to claim that I did not enjoy the excess attention, the fake care and the hushed tone of people around me and their desperate attempts to make me feel inclusive to their colorful world.

But I could feel the mockery in their voice pinching through my skin every moment, their claims of superiority was always a hollow justification of their miserable existence.

''Mr. Chatterjee....few more hours. In afternoon we will remove the dressing, but let me assure you the operation looked promising. The replaced cornea should not be rejected by your system. If you are lucky you shall reclaim your vision today'' the nurse said.

''Haha, who told you I am unlucky sister. But I am pretty sure my luck won’t be destined by the vision, but still it would be a privilege to see your world and it’s so called grace''

''My world?? It’s your world too, isn’t it? Don’t you want to see it?''

''No sister, my world is not that shallow to makes judgment on basis of the colorful glitterati. I tend to rely on my other senses more for a more accurate judgment''

She mouthed an audible laugh and walked away.

My mother died when I was 7 years old. And suddenly the cushion I had from the vulgarities of the world wad torn away. People used to say my mother was very beautiful. But what i missed was that damp charcoal smell of her that slowly stuck to her skin after the long hours in the kitchen stove of our joint family.

My father married soon after that, and no it was not as cruel as it sounds. He married because somehow he was not equipped with rearing his blind child. And you can’t blame a person of being cold hearted just because he can’t feed and clean his blind son. He thought a new mother could do that for me, but the only fault in her was she used to bath with those imported soaps every day after cooking. The 7 year old me could not just let a new mother touch him if she doesn’t even smells like mother. But somehow people took it as my arrogance, and i never bothered to correct them.

Only person who I could not manage to dissuade with my anger was my cousin Sreelekha. She was 4 years older than me, but she never showed a little bit of pity on me. I guess she was jealous of all the excess attention i got over the time and as a result my every effort to push her away from me was responded with a slap out of nowhere. I admit at those times I surely felt the loss of my vision crippling my independence. But slowly I did not mind losing my independence to her and she in turn became my new guardian.

No one in the family protested because by now they were fed up of my tantrums and my behavior. But in our society the blind child with a dead mother has social apathy as his fundamental right, and I was exploiting just that.

No, I did not go to a special school. My father simply did not know any and did not bother to find out. But that did not stop me from learning. I always had a private tutor at my disposal who would read out my lessons to me and I learned about the world though his words. But writing was a whole new challenge, though I could write perfectly well but my teachers could not make any sense out of it.

On my 13th birthday i got my first typewriter as the birthday present and surely i found a new best friend.

''Mr.Chatterjee, can you please sign this form I have?'', the doctor said approaching in a hurry.

''Ah...Dr.Das, don’t you know you can’t just ask me 'blindly' to sign anywhere...its illegal''

'' Funny Mr.Chatterjee. I assure you that at the age of 72, I won’t scam your money off. It just a affidavit that states you won’t sue us off if things don’t work out as planned.''

''Aha..you don’t have to worry about that...I am planning to sue god for my blindness after I die. I have heard heaven anyways have a faster judiciary system.'' I said scribbling my illegible signature.

''Very well, Mrs. Chatterjee is completing the formalities downstairs. Within few minutes we will be back to remove your dressing. Best of luck'', and he walked out with the aloof arrogance i could always sense in the walk of doctors.

The peaceful silence of our home in those sultry afternoons was soon ruined by my incessant clikety claks of typewriter. Though no one mouthed any protest against me, but mysteriously my typewriter used to disappear from my cupboard if left unattended and again used to appear out of nowhere during evenings and mornings. Finally, people were learning to exploit my shortcomings and i was pleased. Till now my arrogance against normal people in general was like a unfair fight. Now the humanity in form of my fed up family, my uncles and aunts, my step brother and Sreelekha came back to draw blood. It felt fair and gratifying.

My typewriter was my way to get back to world. To shout back at them till the point the clicks drown the cry of my mind. I have reached puberty and I wanted to break free. I began with documenting everything around me, the sounds, the voices, the breeze, the screams, the cries. I typed pages after pages to be swept to garbage in the morning by the house maid. But slowly i learned to listen to one voice that was drowned in all these noise. My voice, voice of my thoughts. I typed down every passing thought in my mind and my typewriter was the patient listener. Initially I could feel sreelekha hunched at the corner of my room, reading silently my private thoughts inked on the strewn pages on floor, but she soon could not keep track and lost interest. I did not mind, she was not that smart anyways to decode me.

''How are you feeling? Nervous?'' she whispered slowly near my left ear, moistening it with her fragrant breadth.

''Not as nervous as the day i got married to you under all those disapproving eyes burning on me'' I replied a bit startled at her ability to always cheat my alert senses and stealth beside me.

''Mrs. Chatterjee, ask your husband to at least fake bit nervousness. Else it robs us doctors of our proclaimed godliness of miracles.'', the doctor slowly walked up to us.

''Ahh Dr.Das, I might as well call you a thief of robbing me of the comfort of my darkness. You better make it a miracle.’’, I replied almost choking over my laughter.

''Mr. Chatterjee keep your eyes closed as we remove the dressing and don’t open them until we ask you to.'' I felt the cold steel of the scissors cutting slowly through the gauge.

I was in my early twenties I guess when Kolkata was swept with one of the worst heat waves of the decade. The slow fan of my room on attic was fighting a long lost battle with the sweltering afternoon heat. I lay on my bed slowly tracing the trickling sweat down my neck, channeling through my chest. Sreelekha busted into my room with a suppressed excitement in her voice.

''I got a letter from the editor for you, came just now by mail.''

''Ok keep it on my study table.'' I already had a pile of such letters on my study table. I don’t mind the fact that they don’t find my book suitable for publishing, but what I hated was the pity they felt for the blind struggling wannabe author. I was not struggling for got sake.

''Don’t you want me to read it to you?'' she said almost with firm conviction.

''Something tells me you did not wait for my permission to read it. So why don’t you go ahead and recite.''

She came and sat beside me and whispered to my ear, ''Well if you insist on knowing, the editor of Rita Publishers incidentally found your book a fabulous account of a beggar in a world that is much more colorful and optimistic than the one we live in. He finds it’s almost a fable of inspiration and fantasy.''

Though i failed to understand how a struggle of a beggar in was bland world that I tried to describe with fake metaphors was optimistic for him, but I was too overwhelmed to care.

I might have cried unknowingly a bit because all I remember was she hugging me and for the first time i touched her sweaty back and chill passed through me. She kissed me and I opened my mouth to the moistness of her lips.

My hands were kneading through her softness as a blind man struggled to discover new secrets of her feminity. As she undressed herself and guided me to herself there was an unusual calmness in her and I realized how beautiful she was. I traced those pointed nose, carved collarbones and her soft breasts. Every curve and troughs in her body that had accumulated pool of sweat for me to discover and taste.

I lay on my back while her hands tore every off every piece of fabric that separated us before she climbed over me and claimed her every right over me as if I was her trophy.

She pinned me down and took me inside her. I felt her warmth spread through our loins to our soul. In a moment I knew all those hidden words we never said. I reached out to inhale the musk smell of her neck before I exploded with such vibrancy that it felt like the New Year fireworks all over again. I loved her and she was mine.

''Mr. Chatterjee, now slowly open your eyes, Mrs. Sreelekha Chatterjee is standing in front of you. Calmly open your eyes.'', doctor said.

To hell with being calm, before the last layer of the gauge was removed, I could already feel the burning sensation of brightness. The darkness was already fading, and literally world was just a blink away.

Slowly i opened my eyes and light like an angry mob busted through my pupils. Bursting into my inner confines light was winning the battle against the darkness and insanely erasing every trace of it.

I opened my eyes to whiteness, burning whiteness pricking my eyes like a million needless. For a moment i thought as if this is all you people mean by vision, stark bland whiteness that overpower your every senses to blur your ability to judge.

Then slowly the colors erupted, I don’t know what colors because till now I only knew them by mythical names of greens and blues. They drew outlines on my white canvas, outlines that took shape and maybe even meanings.

When the confusion receded, the blurriness sharpened to make her shape. I saw her for the first time, i saw my wife for the first time, standing there with a pleasant expression on her face, which something told me was expression of happiness. I saw her, I saw Dr. Das, I saw his stethoscope. I saw my hands, my legs, my bed, my white washed walls, my glittering bottles of medicines and it was mediocre.

I so wish they were brilliant, vibrant and exquisite. But more I tried to over value them, mediocre they appeared to me. I kept staring for more, for something new to happen, but I guess that was that of the miracle I had in store for me. No more splendidness waited.

I gazed at her, trying to recollect her from my memories. That lushness of hair that tickled me was replaced by a dull bunch of hair that did not shine as they told in stories. That pointed nose of her, I used to pull, was little crooked to left. The small mole near her left ear that used to make her different was no more than glaring imperfection. She was nothing those women i met in the books I was read to, or I imagined her to be. She was ordinary.

I felt the walls closing in; trying to squeeze me in this normality I was gifted. I needed to breathe, i needed to falsify myself. I rushed to the window to breathe as all of them stood there failing to understand my dilemma.

But they say when you wake up from a dream, reality strikes you hard. It was not the fragrant world i write about in the books, it is a world filled with stark clarity. The green lush trees were not meant to be dull and sparse. The sky was meant to be serenity of blue, not scattered yellow. The brown soil was grey and black. And when I saw my reflection on the window panes, it was not me.

It was a stranger who was tired of living, tired of the lies I was webbing in the comfort of my darkness. I was disappointed with myself for the first time. The arrogance suddenly felt all so fake, overcome by humility of reality. The velvety stubble was an overgrown beard covering an expressionless face as if documenting my failures.

I stared at those confused faces, perplexed by my sudden aggression and disappointment. Somehow I struggled to my bed and kept hoping for a sudden surge of rewind to take me back to the day when I first got my typewriter and learned to dreams. Then I realized dreams were nothing but god's way to laugh at our disappointments.

''Mr. Chatterjee, please talk to me. Tell me is there any problem? Are you feeling sick? Are you fine?''

'' Yes doctor I am...no actually.. no no, I am perfectly alright. I just need some time alone.'', I tried a fake attempt to smile.

''Take your time; we will be waiting outside, just in case you need us.'' She said in her always reassuring voice, with that smile with a hint of melancholy, I knew she understood.

''Sreelekha? Why dint you said to me before? Why dint you said they all wrote lies in their books?''

''Maybe I was jealous of your dream world. Maybe I wanted you to shatter a bit'' she said without looking back.

''Can you please switch off the lights on your way out, please'', I lay on my bed and closed my eyes.


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

P.S: I am getting lazy day in day out. Dear future me, if you are reading this and if you have turned into a workaholic (which i seriously doubt!!), kudos to you, you did it. And if u are still this good old lazy bum, then, kudos...atleast you survived till now...u shall keep doing it...amen!!

Now about the story, it was written on my phone all over kolkata, sitting at parks, footpath, coffee shops, buses and autos. Hence it means a bit more for me, coz it was fun writing it :) But also apart from that I tried to write something which I dont have any experience with, I always wonder about people who cant see, and their perspective of world. Maybe they have completely different perspective, but it was just my take on it...no hard feelings. I also refrained from giving my protagonist a name, coz then his identity wud have mattered, and i dont want that to matter at all...he is just a medium..his perspective is the source. Enough Said!!

Monday, February 28, 2011

My New Queen




He woke up long ago. The bright orange aura of light has already infiltrated into the closely guarded darkness of his room, but he just could not get up. He felt no need to get up. The curtains conveniently kept the glare of the sun hidden. Only streaks of sunlight escaped through the cigarette burns in the curtain and illuminated bright spots in on his naked body lying on the bed. One on his left thigh. One below his belly button. One on the right shoulder just below his neck.

He instinctively reached out for the curtain with his cigarette bud and as if in response another bunch of virgin sunrays hurried to make a new spot on the hollow of his chest. He felt like a cheetah preying silently in the folds of his bed, ambushed and strangely erotic by the whole idea.

He instinctively reached out to his growing morning erection and masturbated thinking of nothing in particular but everything. It was more of mornings exercise now, a mere attempt to look alive. The orgasm was nothing more than a chasm of relief.

He was a very ordinary man. He has a name but neither of us has bothered about finding it out, it was not important. But like most ordinary man, he did not know he was ordinary. Though he had no delusions about his insignificance, but he still did not know the definition of ordinary. Neither do I know the meaning of ordinary, but I guess if there is really any criterion, he would not be far off.

A small cubicle that he called his home was a partitioned corner of an abandoned English barrack in the outskirt of Kolkata. He laid back and tried to follow the broken conversations that floated through the thin walls of the neighbouring cubicles. All occupied by ordinary people, who refused to believe they were ordinary. But unlike him, they do so because they do not have the time to decide if they were ordinary. Still I am sure given aplenty of time, they would not. People are scared of being insignificant. Little they knew.

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

Calcutta has no bus stops. Or maybe they are there hidden somewhere, like a great treasure hunt that no one played cause no one knew the rules. No one has the treasure maps. Mostly no one cared. The buses were always lost in their way and it was a snake ladder game to find them. So when you did find them you could not let it go.

He saw her through the shutter windows of his D-47 bus. The rain was splattering on the tin roof of the bus, like the angry knock of the landlord, and through the dirty khirki of his shutter window, he saw her. But she was soon left behind before he could open the jammed shutter. But he knew she will wait for him the next time.

Next day he waited, patiently by the window, scanning every shop, every display. He knew she will be there and he will recognize her. She kept the promise. She stood by the window in the maroon sari with black border. Same as yesterday. Exactly same.

She was not like every other mannequin on every other shop window. She wasn’t just another plastic mould of cheap white plastic of the thrown away refuse. Maybe the mould of her face was broken.

She smiled, rather tried to smile to imitate her other neighbours those graciously flaunted the best of the displays of the shop. But she had a smirk on her face, more of a scorn. A broken smile, a smile that was once proud but now realised that she is just another hollow plastic mannequin.

And he kept staring. That marble sheen of her face, and those hollow eyes with white eyeballs. She refused anyone the permission to see inside her soul. She refused anyone to draw attention towards her face. Maybe she was revolting, angry at being normal.

A small part of her lip was chipped away. As if even the artist was scared to make her perfect. Maybe even he knew perfection is a myth of consumerism.

She stood straight, unashamed of the stark baldness of her head. Unashamed of the conventionalities of being a woman. And he knew how much he loved her for that. He needed her. He understood her and she said silently, even she did.

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

"Sir?" The broad fake smile disappeared from the face of the salesman as expected.

"I need that maroon sari mannequin, I want to buy it", he stressed unable to understand what was the fuss all about.

"Sir you mean you want that maroon sari. I shall get it for u"

"No No...Ok I want the sari and the mannequin, both."

"But sir we don’t sell mannequin, I can give you the number of the dealer from whom we buy our mannequins."

He laughed silently at the salesman. Another mannequin. Surely this person has never fallen in love. What will he do with another ordinary mannequin? It will not be her. He wanted her, he wanted to earn her.

"Arrey, get me your manager, just give me that mannequin with the sari, I will pay for it. You buy another one, I don’t want another one."

They finally gave off the mannequin for free. Maybe out of pity for his desperation, or maybe out of mockery. He could hear the hidden giggles when they put her and her brand new sari on the dusty floor the motor van.

They had tried hard to persuade him to pack the sari separately. But how could he let them strip her in broad daylight to stark nakedness. Animals, they all were animals.

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

People did stole glances at him as he dragged her through the narrow stairs of the barracks. But no one was bothered enough to ask, strange things happened and they have seen stranger things to be amused.

He marvelled at her lightness, as light as an angel that will shatter under the tight squeeze of his grip.

As he carefully laid her on his bed, he could have swore that broken smile had got a new shine in it. He knew she was happy, she was home. Away from the glare and afternoon sun of the display case, she was no more a whore to the eyes of the world, but in the soft darkness of the room, she was a woman who is proud to be a woman.

He sat on the chair scared to go near her, scared to get her scared. He did not want to impose, he never imposed.

The streams of sunlight through the burned curtains now formed the same patterns on the flimsy chiffon and filtered through it on the whiteness of the belly.

For hours he stared at her chest, for the slightest of movement. But her white eyes never blinked. It never betrayed the presence of life that she hid somewhere, not sure if it could disclose herself to him so soon.

Maybe it was late in night, almost midnight when he realised the street guard has started his hourly tapping of his stick to the steel lamppost, playing that lonely game he did every night.

He walked up to her and in a moment of acquired courage, planted a soft kiss on her cold lips. His eyes closed so that she cannot judge him.

Then with a sudden overflowing weariness slept beside her, with his shoulder touching her. Nothing less nothing more.

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

The first time he touched her, it was magical. The late afternoon sun was on the other side of the apartment, no part of the outside world infiltrated their life apart from the radiating warmth. It has been weeks and they have orchestrated and new rhythm of their own. The new curtains did not allow a bit of sunlight to touch her marble skin.

They did not talk much. He talked a little bit, but she never replied. I think it is but natural. But nevertheless she always has an expression on her face to let him know her point of view. A soft nudge maybe, which could almost go unnoticed.

First time he placed his hand on her chest, he could almost feel her pulse and she smiled, almost smiled as if adjusting her pulse with his so that they never go out of rhythm again.

Beyond the drapes of sari, was her perfectness, an expanse of whiteness that traced every curve of her body. Her breasts smooth but firm refused to budge under his fingers, defying him but still coy under his grip.

The seamless edges were crafted not with eloquence, but with love of creation. Maybe god sometimes should reconsider taking a lesson or two about creation.

The sari slipped off and the rest was just a formality. And there they lay stark naked beside each other, as if comparing themselves and their own master of creations.

The humid afternoon sweat came out of his pores and shined on her plastic skin. They slipped on each other, laughed on each other but held on to each other. She was stiff and he was clumsy, somehow in between they found a way to melt into each other. And then with a sudden burst of multitude of emotions, came heaven.

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It was still dark outside, he knew with his eyes closed. The brightness of the rising sun has still not created an aura over his eyelids. But something was just out of place. It was like unknown warmth, which scares you of the impending chill to follow.

By the time he got his senses in place he could sense the burning smell, the distinct nausea of it has already hit him. But he was still not ready for reality. With closed eyes he could savour darkness for another minute or two.

She lay beside him with not a single complain or frown on her face, as if nothing have happened. She was brave and daring. Even the burning smell of plastic failed to nauseate her, she was plain indifferent, maybe blind in love.

The cigarette lay in the hollow of her stomach, the smouldering glow magnified in the darkness. The plastic slowly curling within itself, as if suddenly dancing with a life of its own. The white flesh of her, shrivelled under the heat of addiction. What was left behind was a gaping hole of imperfection. A mark that took away everything that was special about her.

He was neither sad nor angry, maybe just plain indifferent. They sat looking each other and they knew something has broken. It was not love but it was the comfort of love. Someone decided to pull the shades off, and the daylight of reality was no more stopped by the curtains that love has knit.

As the sun climbed through the windows and alleys of suburban Kolkata, and through that small hole in her stomach, her life seeped away. Today the sunrays felt no resistance by the curtain those were torn in the darkness of the night. And as they streamed through like a gush of water, with the darkness her life was dissolved in the soft morning sunshine.

What left behind was a plastic mannequin with its imperfection. Suddenly she was tainted and ugly. Did not someone say beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder? Maybe beauty also dies in the eyes of the beholder.

He got a small blunt knife and stabbed her in that hole of stomach and slashed her into half.
Then he slowly cut her into pieces, first her stiff fingers, then her hand, then the limbs and then her neck, in small and large irregular pieces of plastic. But she offered no resistance. She did not cry nor did she flinch. She did not even care. There was just a broken smile on her face, a hidden sarcasm maybe.

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P.S: I felt weird and comfortable while writing this one. It was skewed for me and if u felt it was skewed and somewhat sick, i know exactly what are u feeling.

But again sickness is a very personal opinion. And personally let me tell u i am a very sick person. Not exactly proud of it but then again, there is no point of lying, is there.

I always had less people to talk with in my life, partly by choice partly because I am tab bit uncool and uncomfortable. Glare of existence irritates me. I like sunset more than sunrise. The diminishing lights are always a comfort.

The whole idea was to write something that conjoins two of my most treasured feelings, loneliness and love. If u could not relate to it, tell me where exactly u lost me, and if u could relate to it, tell me how exactly u found me....but talk to me...i am bored of talking to myself anyways!!

I wont say i will be more regular, coz i am a sucker at promises!! Ahh 2011...ur not dat great anyways, stop pretending!!

Sorry for the length btw...i hate long stories, too much extravagance...so if u have read through the whole of my story....i already like u! :)