The Quitter's Paradox

An early morning epiphany forced him out of bed. He hated to be forced out of bed. But still he always liked the idea of being forced out of bed. He figured it was like some nostalgic burp, leaving behind an aftertaste of childhood, teenage, mother, friends, lovers and hangovers.

Only when you have someone to love you, will they bother enough to force you out of bed. So however cruel it feels in those first moments of morning when your orientations are blurry and your time clock is unspecified, there still is a feeling of warmth that is associated with being dragged brutally out of the bed, by mom who slaps on your back, by dad who gives an angry growl, by friends who pinches your nose, by lovers who man handle your half erection, by hangovers that leave behind the guilt, glory and occasional puke stains.

But then again, an epiphany was the best of the lot, he thought. He liked to think a lot and sometimes between his thinking when he realized how he was over thinking a small thing like waking up in morning, a smile played out on his face and he used to start thinking about his over thinking. Thankfully, today was not the day.

He glanced soulfully to the heap of cigarette ash that was swept to the left corner of the room by the vortex of the fan. He sometimes wished he would smear the ash on his face and try to lose his identity. But then again he realised, he does not have an identity. He had a name but he cannot recall it as of now. Not that it mattered. What mattered was finally find something to write. It has been months, he had stayed idle and not a single interesting thought sparked through him.

Initially he believed that it he who was consciously taking a break from thought. It was he who did not want to again sketch another world of fantasy, because frankly, frankly nobody cared. It did not matter. But then when he tried to think, or build a thought, he could not.

Now, don’t get me wrong that he failed to think. Everyone can think. But he failed to acknowledge what he thought. His thoughts refused to stick together and make a bundle. It was like those wet sands, that should form a castle but the castle somehow just does not takes shape. You see other kids have already made their towers and now making the window holes. But all you are left with his a heap of sand that resembles more of a penis than a forsaken tower. He was somehow debarred to think, debarred to act.

But today was different, today the epiphany woke him up. Just like those days, when every morning he woke with a purpose, he never knew what the day would hold, but surely he held a sense of purpose, like a hand on the nape of his neck, guiding him through, gently but firmly.

How could have he missed such a simple idea, it was simple and elegant and it embodied whatever he wanted to cry out to say for all these days. Yes, he still knows writing it down doesn’t matter, and in the greater scheme of things, it’s more like taking a leak in Olympic size swimming pool. But still he felt he needed to write it down. He needed to write it to do justice to his thought, his character, and his protagonist. An unwritten thought is like a bunch of subatomic particle that is still uncertain about its position.

He walked over to his typewriter. Yes, he had a typewriter, and yes he knew it was clichéd. Only wannabe romantics typed on typewriter, but then again, he was always a wannabe wannabe romantic. So whats wrong with a typewriter where if you make a mistake, you just go back few spaces and typed 'x' over it, small case over small case, large case over large case. They were like books on knitting patterns.

He did a pretend dusting of the type keys though they were perfectly clean by his daily attempts to type out his frustration, which lately has been just typing one alphabet for hours over sheets after sheets everyday for 27 days and start all over again. Yes, someday he just typed out spacebars and full stops.

Then slowly character after character he started to build his story, his protagonist, and his muse who will from now play along with his finger clicks. He decided it was early morning in the story, no, not the sunny morning outside, but the dark, broody, overcast. That sucks out all possible excitement out of a person when he wakes up. He wanted to punish his protagonist for everything that was wrong with anything...he wrote

"An Early morning drudgery refused to provide any incentive for him to open his eyes and embrace the day. He could feel the heaviness in the air that hung around him. The humidity settling upon it, tiring it out of its free spirit. The air is meant to flow, freely in the crispness of the sunlight. But somehow this obese air refused to budge.

He opened his eyes and fixed his stare on the ceiling. Half expecting some hidden inscription to float out of the dampness of the plaster. It has been months now anything coherent has stuck to his mind. Scattered thoughts were like a stack of dominos always in search of its centre of gravity.

One stray thought is all it needs for the domino to tumble and imaginations to get lost. With great struggle he got himself off to his foot and noticed how the half burned cigarette butts was chasing around the room under the sweeping wind of the sun.

He always fantasized that oblivious to him, the cigarette buds had a life of their own. Each bounded by the vocabulary of the words taught to them by the smoker's lips for those fleeting few minutes, they tried to express themselves to other cigarette buds creating a environment of utter chaos.

He slowly walked up to his to his table. A heap of yellowing pages and his ink stained Waterman laid in languishing neglectance. Yes, he knew it was clichéd to calligraph each and every word of his using the ever draining ink of his Waterman. Only wannabe suicidal try to write their sob stories with ink pen, in hope that I salty drop of tear will smudge the ink somewhere leaving behind an ink stain. But he was always the wannabe suicidal, never conjuring up enough courage to drag the blade. He was always unnerved by the glint of his razor upon his pale skin with dark under array of veins.

He carefully unscrewed the inkpot, the lid dislodging dried ink-dust. And with reluctance he started to write another of his suicide notes. Not that he intended to kill himself. It was just another way for him to get started for the day. To make it survivable. To know that he is choosing to survive not bound to. He is making a choice, a poor one indeed.

But then he realized he does not have a name. More he tried to recall more elusive it seemed.

No, it was not that he forgot his name and just could not place it. It’s just he could swear that he never had a name and until now he never realized that. All this days, all these moments he spent oblivious of the fact that his creator, his god, his author has not granted him any name..."

...with a half comforting smile, he stopped the clickety clack of the typewriter. Silence, descended once again in his room and he could again trace the faint cacophony of the traffic inferno underneath. Underneath were the streets he liked to call hell. Because he liked the streets and he wanted to like hell.

He mused the agony of the man who could not remember his name. He felt the sadist calmness rising through it by denying his creation a name. He will have to suffer with the absence of the comfort of an identity. We all need identity but never justify its value until it is torn away from us.

He realized how disoriented it would be if he forgot his own name, his own tag of identity, he own self in this world of countable infinite.

He traced his fingers on the keypad to approach the keys of his name. But his fingers just fumbled across. Now what was his name? Oh come on, sure he knew it all these days, how could it escape him now.

It started with 'S' no was it 'M'. No no, it was surely 'P' it was P-something. Wait was it?

First drops of cold sweat broke upon his forehead. He had a stifling urge to throw away the typewriter, to make some loud noise, something that breaks the continuum. But he knew that's what he wants. That what his god, his author wants. He will refuse him the pleasure of controlling him.

He realised somehow he was just a story. An array of black and white characters, well spaced and equisized.

He felt the rising excitement of his author denying him every second the knowledge of his identity. He needed to prove him wrong.

He was the author, he was the god, and there can be no other god. He could not submit himself to this man's tyranny and he had to break free. In his claustrophobic urge he ran towards the door, but soon realized that he is just increasing the plot of history. He was just a puppet, in this author's novel.

His every move will add a page to this epic of his and that just can’t be possible. And with this weight of realization he took a step out of his window and gravitated towards his favourite hell.

But in the increasing cacophony of the street cars, he thought. What if the author was trying to write a short story?

P.S: Haha! I thought! it is sometimes just fun to play around with the emotions of your protagonist. Yea! a certain amount of vanity does comes with it, yea a little bit of guilt too. But you can always suppress guilt until you are murdered by a crazy blogophobe who thinks blogging is against act of god and your whole life flashes before you. But that apart, its great to be the pretend king. Because its all happening to them. I am perfectly sane with a proper identity "buckinfastard". 

Yea yea! their is a human behind it but that human kinda ruins it, a image is better than the object, a image never shits, never sweats, and a image without a face does not needs to worry about he profound ugliness that is embodied.  I am as heavy as my words are, and you cant kill me. Sure there is a sucker typing all this in the keyboard. But I m the image that infest him and make him do stuff and sometimes for the sake of it, makes him belly dance in front of mirror! You should check that out someday...its hi-la-ri-ous!!

Now just for the sake to make this post look longer a poem, 

~STAIN ON THE ROAD~

The first stab did not hurt,
It was cold steel in warm blood.
A slight tickle in my guts,
A left behind patch on my shirt.

The second stab was brutal,
It almost hit my spine.
The knife carved a pound of flesh,
The blood oozed out with leisure.

The third stab did pain,
punctured lung stuttered and strained.
Ever gasp for air was hard,
The darkness was descending fast.

The fourth stab was final blow,
Pierced my heart in one swift go.
Slowly the ground hit me hard,
The pain seeped out and peace conquered.

For the fifth stab there was no need,
I dont even know where it actually hit.
What was my legacy is drowned in the blood,
Now all i am is a stain on the road.

A Man who Certified Death

"He is dead" he said.

"He is dead?" They repeated.

"He is dead" he asserted

"He is dead?” they questioned.

"Yes, Yes, he is dead". He declared.

"He is dead", they admitted.

"Can I get a cup of tea while I write my certificate?" he enquired.

"What!" they exclaimed.

Manubhai Patel wondered at these exclamations. He wondered at the fact that a fresh bout of disappointment and despair fills people around him when he declares a person dead. Not like he kills them. When he is called for, the relatives already know the person is dead. They just need a certificate.

But still whenever he proclaims the well-established fact that the person in question is dead or mildly put, no longer alive, there is an expression of surprise and fresh grieve on those faces. As if had he not been that cruel and claimed that the person in question is not dead, he would get a new lease of life. He hated acting god.

Manubhai Patel started his career as a compounder to Zilla Municipal Hospital. His initial duties included prevention of unlawful entry of live humans inside the hospital campus and unlawful exit of dead humans outside the hospital campus. Sometimes he confused between the two that lead to heated arguments and infrequent suspensions.

Over the time on the basis of his matriculation certificate he rose to the ranks of clerk and then to medical officer's assistant over a span of 15 years. But what really bought out his craft was his ability to figure out the faintest of pulses or the mere absence of it.

The medical officer was quick to recognize and nurture this rare talent. In these confines of rural India, death is more frequent than diseases, and the certifying death is a nonprofit but necessary exercise.

But that did not in any way reduce the frequency of death. In a country of billion, too much of happiness called for death, so did too much of sadness. Death was a neutralizer, like an alkali for an acid. In the grant probability of things, it was the mean that kept Manubhai Patel and others busy.

Strange was Manubhai never experienced death. Now people like to believe that death is experienced by only those who die. But in reality it is quite the contrary. For the dead, the death itself is nonexistent. A mere botheration, a comma probably. Surely not a full stop.

But for people who loved him, or pretended to love him, death constitutes a whole chapter of their life. They were actually alive to experience death.

This simple fact was clear to Manubhai, but what puzzled him was how it eluded everyone else. Death is not the opposite of life; it is just a chapter of life. You have a fixed set of rules you need to play by when it occurs and then forgive and forget.

Hence, we come back to our original assertion. Manubhai never experienced death. He had seen people die out of old age, out of accidents, out of love and out of sheer boredom. But they just died without remotely affecting him.

He has sat beside dead bodies when they are shriveled in winter and when they emit a faint smell of rot in the summer. Still the deadness of being always eluded Manubhai like a morning mist after a humid night. One can always see the mist at an approachable distance, but as soon as one reaches that point, the mist conspicuously takes equal steps back to maintain a threshold between themselves.


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

That day the morning was similar, the mist was just outside the window of Manubhai's home. Outside the gates the mist stirred invitingly. And like wise Manubhai felt enticed. But with 40 years of knowledge by his side, he knew he cannot chase the mist. He sometimes did regret this surety of his knowledge.

But as soon as he begins to trace a path back through his nostalgia, there was an urgent beckoning at his door. Though it may have sounded urgent to you and me, but it was not urgent to Manubhai. He always wondered why people are always in hurry of sharing the knowledge of someone's death. As if it was not told within a certain limit of time, the dead will rise again, and question the lethargy amongst his relatives.

The dead will stay dead for the rest of their life or better say rest of their death. So Manubhai calmly got up from his armchair and took measured steps towards the door, like a schoolboy does while approaching the final steps of the school gate. As if deliberately delaying the entry to the school he can somehow magically, quicken the out time.

It was still daybreak when Manubhai dressed hurriedly with his briefcase with broken left lock clutched between his shoulders approached on his journey to nearby village to certify a death.

In first glance, she looked 17 or so, but that is just because the heavy makeup crusting her expressionless face. One careful look revealed she is not beyond 11. Draped in a starched cotton sari, which looked rich enough to respect the dead but not rich enough to be wasted on a funeral pyre. She lay at the center of the room, unperturbed by the commotion and squabble all around her.

Her half smile on face was like an inner joke she was sharing with death that we mortals were denied to know or understand. It’s kind of maturity that just comes with death. He knew this smile from all the dead faces he has scrutinized over period. It’s like a game they play with him, and once he stayed back till the person was charred to skull and few bones in the pyre before he wrote off the death certificate.

Two basil leaves adorned her closed eyes as guarding the last secret of her thought like hell hounds. Suddenly, he felt the immense urge to see her eyes, to understand that secret. He copiously looked around the ill-furnished hut to find a picture of her that will tell him the color of her eyes. He needed to know the color of her eyes, as if it is the ultimate answer to all the questions that need answers.

He grappled a bit for her left hand under the sheets of shroud. Her cold palm still retained a bit of the moisture that death forgot to seep out. Etched deeply were the long lines of life and fortune that failed to keep their promises. Still with a frantic hope Manubhai punched on her array of veins to chase an elusive lub dub that he believed existed. She could not cheat her of the secret, she needed to tell her everything she knew and he needed to know. She was the lover he never had, she was the daughter he always craved, and she was the teacher he wanted to obey.

But there was calmness in her veins, there was a silence inside her that wise men down the ages wanted to own. But for her it was just everyday silence, which comes with the responsibility of holding a secret.

A tap on his shoulder made him conscious of his surroundings. With the rising heat of the sun, the body was starting to rot, and it is time they will take her away from him. Even the eyes of customary mourners were running dry. He knew the only thing stopping them from carrying her away was his signature. She was not dead until he proclaimed her to be.

He was her god; he needed to let her be dead for her death to be complete. But sadly, there was a gap between death and life, and as much his power be from stopping her for being dead, he was powerless to drag her back to life. It was just an infinitive existence in between, a limbo.

So Manubhai Patel sat there with a bunch of coarse papers and a pen full of ink, when he realized, they who pretend to worship him has the power to take away life, he was just granted the power of death. So it will be he who will have to grant death to his lover, his daughter and his teacher, because he was the make believe god of death.

"She is dead?” he questioned.





P.S: Shhh...I am like hiding from bullshit in this mystical city of Gujarat known as Vadodara...Wonder Wonder...bullshit still follows me around...so i got nothing better than to share it up with you.

You know solitude can force a man into great depths of thought...actually every person always passes out into his or her thoughts, but most of the time an outside intervention jerks him off to reality...but the best part about solitude is the absence of intervention...which leads you to drown inside certain darkness you dont want to intrude...i guess thats why people daydream most on toilets...toilets are therefore greatest invention to mankind..

imagine...we were perfectly happy species doing out chores in the field and day dreaming...and suddenly one day we found that privilege snatched wen our neighbour cam to the fields and hunched beside us...and then start talking about last night's dinner...i mean who wants that kind of intrusion...hence we build ourselves a toilet just so that the first thought of the day is reserved in solitude...

But i am all alone here...so i do my business with the toilet door open and its self revealing...its kind of dramatic too...anyways back to the point...lately i am thinking a lot about death...getting scared with it and den getting desperate to the point that i want to get over death now and here...and den again..i m curling myself up in a ball and sleeping on and off...but i guess thats normal...now thats normal..isnt it? please dont tell me otherwise...

and wen you think about death, you write about death...actually writing is the best way not to think about death, because wen you write about death, you start to think about the plot and then stop thinking about death....but now that i am done with writing and publishing the post...i will have to think about death all over again...but den again i can just kill myself and stop thinking about death...but den i will be death already...kinda loses the point...anyhow...jabber jabber!! wat do u think?? wat i wrote above..is that even fiction or does that even meant anything to u? critic me please, will you?

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.

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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!!

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.

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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.

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"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.

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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.

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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! :)

A stranger, an old whore and a city to die

I am going to tell you a story. I guess that makes me the narrator. I always like being the narrator. Because then I can be god. I can be omnipresent, in and around my characters, my protagonist. It is appeasing to see the dilemma of my protagonist, his tears, his amused smile, because he has no idea how it’s going to end, his story is going to end. I am the one who peels it skin by skin.

It’s late in central Calcutta. Shovabazar traffic is thin. The street lights sprayed its orange light on the rain washed streets. The uninhabited Rajbari cries silently in the nostalgia of its lost grandeur. The rikshawallas were sleeping in the shadow of their hand-pulled rickshaw to find peace in the darkness of its shadow. Mongrels tired of fighting over the city roughage also curled up to hide their face under their half filled bellies. Chotka is again drunk today, sat by the lamppost singing songs of Dev Anand and Uttam Kumar. And I stand on top of those depilated buildings of English-era that serves as slum in today's world. Its high ceiling rooms partitioned by cheap cardboard to give them fake privacies often violated by the small holes at the edges.

But they don’t concern me as I stood on the roof and saw my protagonist down on the street. In the stillness of the night, he walked with a hunger in his eyes. Such was the longing that it showed as pain on his face. His pale face and his black eyes. He walked carefully avoiding the glare of the street lights, as if the light intrudes his dark inner privacy. His long overcoat scraped the dirt of the footpath, making noise as if a snake slithered.


"Ohh look who is sad, should I make you happy", she snickered.

She was squatting under the closed shutters of the Homeopathic shop. Hidden in the darkness she was witnessing the nakedness of the city under the neon lights.

He stopped for a bit to find the source of sound. And abruptly without raising his face, he quickened his pace.

She smiled at herself. It was Monday night. Less business. Apparently most of them are religious enough to abhor non-veg and women for 1 day. They thought that made god happy. If only god cared.

But the nervousness in his eyes betrayed him. She could sense he needed her. She has got her prey for the night.

"It is indecent to ignore a lonely woman in such a dark night", she shouted back.

He turned and looked at her for the first time.
The kajal and the foundation did a very bad job hiding the visible wrinkles of the onset of old age. The red lipstick, the kind they sell on local trains was smudged at the corner of her lips that now smiled broadly at him. The thinning hair overflowed behind her.

Her fake chiffon, with the silver glitter was like a distant city skyline of high-rises. The deliberately pulled down sari oozed out her ample cleavage, where the sweat and talcum made ripple patterns as if to camouflage her identity.

"It’s a very dark city, the kind that kills you. Kids like you shouldn’t be roaming around alone. Let me invite you to my place, it’s just around the corner”, she declared mockingly

"No thank you, please don’t bother me", he tried to squeeze out the words so it does not betray his growing pain.

The hunger was not spreading throughout his body. The pale skin felt like parched earth in mid July summer in Gujarat.

An uncontrollable giggle erupted from her, echoing in the darkness around her.

"Am I bothering you? I don’t think you are roaming in the darkest alleys of Calcutta in the dead of night, in search of god"

She regretted it as soon as she said. She can’t afford to lose his only hope of income. If she doesn’t pay Rana da in the morning, he will again beat her. For the past few months she is losing deadlines. Maybe old age is forcing her into early retirement.

"I like you kid. Tell you what. I will give a discount rate. Come with me. Haven’t you heard some sick man is killing off beggars and lepers on the street? This city is drowning in blood and filth"

This time he sniggered.

"This city is not drowning in blood. It is getting drained of blood"

He could smell her blood, gushing though her veins like a whirlpool. He could almost feel the warmth of her body engulfing him.

But he knew he could not do it. Those beggars were different. When he looked into their eyes for the last time, he could see the gratitude they felt of being relieved of this punishment of life. He just helped them, but I guess people don’t understand that.

But she is different. She is fresh; there is something about her that repeatedly says she has not lost hope on life. She is the warrior-kind.

"You cannot satiate my hunger. Leave me alone", he was getting tired of his efforts to save her from himself.

"Is it so? Kid. There is no hunger in a man which I can’t fulfil. When after a day filled with hypocrisy, men comes to this underbelly of the city, I have fulfilled their true animal hunger"

"What if I say, I want to slowly dig my fangs in on the soft and moist skin, below you ears, and drain you of every bit of life you have inside you. SO that you are left behind as a dry and lifeless body and a bad aftertaste in my mouth.” he sniggered.

"Hah! You have to pay me double than. My aftertaste is worth it", she tried to be bold, to hide the uneasiness building inside her.

"You don’t get it do you? None of you humans ever get it. I did not kill them; those amputated pathetic creatures, which you "humans" shunned out of your brightly lit high-rises. I just sucked their life out of them because it fulfilled my hunger of blood and their hunger of death"

The horror slowly descended in her eyes. The first beads of perspiration started to appear from nowhere on her forehead. He could sense the slight shifting of her foot, which looked like as if she was floating away from him.

He smiled satisfyingly, he liked predictable people. Who feared him and loathed him. He liked to act monster in a world of monsters.

She did try her fair chance to run, but no one can really run away. I saw as he dug his fangs on her soft flesh. I also saw the first trickle of blood from the corner of his lips. I did not missed to see the teardrop rolling down his cheek, because he knew he liked her, he knew she did not deserved it.

But still he could not let her go. Maybe he too was selfish. Maybe there is a little bit of human hypocrisy in every vampire.


P.S : Before u judge me, I would like to mention that I am trying to write in a new kind of fiction which has active narration, as in the narrator is the part of the story and also some dark sarcasm. Hence I felt pretty awkward writing it out of my comfort zone and cant quite judge the quality of it....So i request the junta to let me kno dere honest opinions in the comment section :)

Btw sorry for being such lousy and irregular regarding my post.....its not dat i am busy or sumthing...i m just plain lazy!!! :P