K.L.P.D

She moaned and groaned, something must have clicked, I thought, I took it out and let it in again, still she made a hassling sound. I tried and re-tried to work on it, sweaty I was, tired I was, maybe she was too, I let her drink the cold water and then I made another attempt and inserted it again, this time, she didn't screech and the key worked and so, I closed the car door and drove off. 

(To Tell An Angel....) : "My entry for the Get Published contest."

Starting off with flings, starting way back in KG 2 (trust me…!); with 9 different girls at various stages of life, and ending up fixated on one, it’s been a hell of a bumpy ride.

Broke myself and fooled others only to realize the last standing fool is me. I kept switching from one girl to another and each time when I decided to get serious, either the luck would bring me down or someone else caught my eye, someone who was always there and yet I failed to look at her.

It’s about how lost opportunities become lost causes, how broken hearts can never be mended, how every tear drop that ever rolled can never be discarded and how falling for someone else while being in a relationship with the other can make you fall so hard, one day that you actually look at yourself with hatred.

The intensity with which one girl can make you go head over heels is numbing and from being a Casanova to end up like a “Devdas” or “Dev-D”. How someone becomes known from being unknown and how you put an end to everything and decide to be a one-girl-man.

How the girl whom I like, tied me “Rakhi” while we were kids and then just let it be an one-time affair and how the expression changed over her face when I told her that I was going to propose a girl and then how everything fell apart and all that remains are just the bits of broken trusts and unlevered ties.

She is the inspiration throughout the story. It’s the faintest of thought that drives me, and all because of the feeling of losing her has helped me find a closure with music, I changed, in short, Got into an IIT, made a band, learned to write stuffs, composed and recorded songs and all this for what?

So, that I could become at least something before I ask her to be my everything, and now I’m lost at the cross roads of life, I have options but there is none that I want to take that does not include her and slowly and slowly I’m falling apart, if I can’t tell her now, then I don't think i can ever.

She once told me while we went out, “ Isn't the feeling magical, when you read books like this and get to know what you meant to him, it’s the sweetest of all the feelings, I wish someday, someone does that to me.” And this is where I want to kick-in, if given the opportunity, I’ll want to do that for her, this way or another.

I know her answer will be a NO; I’m too late, but hey, if I’m going out of her life anyway, so why not go out this way.

“I don’t care if I’ll live to see the breaking of dawn after tonight,

if I’m allowed to stay with you just for the night”
(No sick feelings)
:P

This is my entry for the HarperCollins–IndiBlogger Get Published contest, which is run with inputs fromYashodhara Lal and HarperCollins India.

If you like it, then please do vote for it....(follow the following link) :-

http://www.indiblogger.in/getpublished/idea/270/

A ROAD-SIDE DWELLER

A ROAD-SIDE DWELLER

She was young but her body said otherwise
Tender hands were long gone, only rough patches remained
her efforts were not clandestine and vision had become bleak
She looked at her child sleeping quietly
and then set to explore her luck

Who was she?

A road-side dweller, trying to earn square meal for the sole child of hers
many a vehicle’s passed and mocked her sanity
many a person looked at her, showing no humanity
but very few did care to hold a thought for her suffering
but then again, all this made her believe she was disdain

She gasped for every penny, that we usually throw away
collecting litters in the meantime, hoping to meet her luck
that had eluded her for such a longueur
but still her fellow compeer’s told her to have faith
she smiled at herself and at others

Yet, another day passed without earning a single penny
she cherished, the long forsaken dream, which she saw
And along with it slowly dipped her child in the still water
just to watch her new-born gasping for breath and tears said the same,
and she cried and  whispered, “In some other world we will meet,
this world is much broken for you, it can’t be repaired.”
And after this, she herself jumped in the water, unceremoniously but peacefully
and yet the newspaper read, “Road-side dweller, kills one’s son and then in shame, does the same.”
And yet, no one could care less about the several reasons unknown…….

NOTE - It’s all fictitious…not aimed at anyone, so don’t draw any relations… :P  ;)  :P

A Crispy Apology

A CRISPY APOLOGY

“So what do you do?” , she asked me promptly, with a lingering tone of discomfort, carefully caressing the coffee mug , kept on the table.

I was feeling a bit bleakish and could clearly see this relationship not working through. She worked in a software company and how did we end up on date? Well, let’s say the mutual friends made this possible as they thought we both would be great for each other.

“Well, I’m currently with a software company ‘professional’ but can’t really promise how long will I be associated with ‘it’, let’s see.” I tried to introduce “humour” in the sluggishly going conversation as a rescue element to save this effort made by our friends.

She smiled a bit, she knew what I was referring to.
“You know, for a software company ‘professional’, you don’t look so….”
I cut her in between her sentence finishing it with, “well-mannered or professional?”
She smirked and said, “No. I mean you don’t look so qualified.”

“Hah”, I said with a n egoist smile and shot back at her, “So, what kind of person will be eligible for you, ma’am?”
She instantly replied, as if she was waiting for me to ask her this. “You know, someone who is fun, sensible and….. Understanding would be nice.” She replied.

“Well you know, I’m fun and not so sensible and well, definitely not understanding, so, I guess you have boarded the wrong train and I guess I don’t qualify then and yet here I am, out with you, bonding over a cup a coffee and an impolite crowd.”

She smiled, again and said, “Are you trying to flirt with me?”

“Well, now that you asked me about it, I think yeah! We’re out with each other and we don’t know each other that well, so yes, I’m definitely trying to flirt with you and that goes without saying. What did you expect from me?” I replied/asked with a smile.

“You guys are all the same, one smile from our side & you think that we've gone head-over-heels over you but what you don’t accept is that it is the other way round.” She was prompting me to get into a debate.

“No, no, no!!! I completely agree with you and accept what you say but you know I find it my duty to make you feel the same and I guarantee you that, I shall accomplish that.”

Suddenly, what started as a disastrous date was slowly taking its due course of action and somehow felt heartwarming. I was starting to like all of it now.

“So, who spoiled you so much?” she inquired.

“Well, I would like to take this opportunity to blame my mom and dad for it, they have been a real inspiration and….” and just as I said it, I remembered, the only thing that Rohan had asked me not to talk about, you see, her mom and dad were just recently divorced, so I better not have said it but it was too late, she had taken it personally and thus it followed.

“Well you left me in awe there. You are so confident of yourself and so self-engrossed in yourself and your “so called smartness” that you forget to draw out the conclusion that somehow all this over-procrastinated comment is making me feel uncomfortable. Don’t.” and said that she stood up and went away leaving behind the coffee, still warm.

It lasted barely 20-30 mins. and in all that time I somehow managed to ruin everything, I think I liked her but it was just too late and she somehow saw right through me although it was not my fault all-in-all but still it was my fault somehow, just somehow. I didn't go after her, I think I should have.

Well it was all 3 years deep in the past and now, I was waiting for the same girl in the same place under more or less similar conditions and there she walked in, just in the similar way she did 3 years earlier and the only difference was that I was more decent now. She came up to me and landed a peck on my cheek, we were now a couple and today was more or less one of the most important days of my life, that goes unsaid.
“So, what’s up with you?” she asked.
“Well, firstly, I’m sorry about what happened here 3 years back and looking at the present condition, I've been thinking about it for a long time and…” saying so, I bent over my knees and took out a ring from the pocket and completed the question, “….wanted to ask you, ‘Will you marry me’?”

And with an impeccable smile on her face, she abruptly replied, “Yes.”

J   J

NOTE-  Everything that has been narrated is totally a work of fiction, no relevance to actual instance, although the idea has been drawn from a real-life conversation. :)

Of all the sins, may god oversee these..

Of all the sins, may god oversee these

On a cold and chilly night, was roaming around, a woman, a woman in her prime 30’s named Marie. With every rush of wind, she held on to the overcoat even tighter and the teardrops were rolling down her cheeks, but she was wearing a smile, not being able to realize what she'd done. Blood was dripping down her hand and while she walked, she left a trail behind. The moon was hid in the clouds that night and being a remote part of the village, she wasn't able to see the next step that she would take. Driven by anger, she committed this horrendous crime. However, some would take her side.. those who lived what she was living through then and just when it became too much to bear, she snapped. She took out the knife from the knife stand and drove it right through his heart. It was all too sudden for the man to react and he froze momentarily, and so did she. Then she smiled and dragged out the knife slowly, mumbling a few words into his ears, “For all the times that you sinned, rest in peace”. She didn't have to push him back or something like that and all that the husband could manage was, “Y-o-u  Bi-t-c-h, go t-t-o  he-l….” and before he could finish his last words, his heart gave in. There he lay, at her feet like a lifeless creature. She was relieved and sad at the same time, but there was not a shred of fear in her eyes. She stepped back, the knife fell from her hands onto the ground, making a mild noise which was muted by the loud sound of the T.V. Her hands were still shaking, her mind trying to recover from all that just took place. She didn't wipe the floor or cleaned the blood stains on her dress, she just wiped her hand in the basin and let go of whatever happened. See, she was not afraid of getting caught; in fact, she wanted to get caught for the crime that she had committed. She was still in her senses, and as such, felt sadness for the lifeless creature lying on the ground, one whom once she fell in love with and hoped him to be her soul mate, but all that mattered no more. Her love, her husband was a fisherman. She knew there was no turning back and no point repenting what she had already done, so she took her overcoat and the knife in one hand, and walked past the room. She went out to venture in the cold outside, bolting the door behind her so that she gets at least a few hours to complete one last thing that she needed to do, before someone informs the local sheriff.

Many a times before, was she molested and beaten by her ungrateful, drunkard husband, who spent all the earned money on beer and other drinks. His beer tummy testifying to that, he always watched the game all alone, soaked in his own misery. He loved his alcohol much more than he had ever loved his wife. They have been married for 16 years now, yet they had no children. It's not that they didn't try, but every effort seemed futile and many would say that this was driving the man crazier. Her wife had been patient all these years, but she could take it no more. Her husband had lost his job and had been unemployed for the past 4 months,still no effort was made from his side to find another job. So she had to start looking for something, something that would pay her ample and would also involve pleasure, pleasure that she had been depriving for long, and her husband was an old-fat sack incapable of providing that. So, she did it. The first time, she was a bit shy, never being done this before.. but the bills kept piling up and she had to do it, no matter how hard it was for her. She said nothing and the man started what he paid for, the yanking sound of the bed was audible but her husband downstairs cared less. He didn't care whom his wife was sleeping with, as long as she kept the beers and the food coming. And to top it all off, she still received beatings and was beaten until she cried, crying loud enough to be audible to the neighbors, it had become a daily routine. She felt helpless. She possibly couldn't go to the police knowing that she'll be more or less dead, once her husband found out. Let's just face the facts here, the whole village knew what she was and what she did, and it wouldn't be long before the police themselves would be asking her for her services, summoning her every night without pay, and possible beatings worse than her husband's. So she kept quiet, for 4 months and all of this continued day-after-day-after-day, until one day she just couldn't bear it anymore, and did what she had to. That day is today, she wanted to make a point and that’s what she went to do.

Her customers were pretty much regular one's, most were unmarried while 2 were married. Even though their wives knew what their husbands were doing, they couldn't do anything to make them stop, because they were treated the same way Marie was treated by her husband. She knew what she had to do, it was all very clear in her mind. She visited the house of the two married and stabbed them to death. Although their wives didn't exactly applaud the act, they thanked Marie from within, for doing what they never could.

It was not long before the sheriff came to the crime scene. He was shocked by what he saw. He knew Marie, but never imagined her to be the violent type. Anyway, he asked the bystanders where Marie was and they all said, “She went towards the cliff, Sheriff”. And few whispered, “I think she must have committed suicide by now” and few were smiling and loathing Marie, that they couldn't stand up against their husbands.

The sheriff took his unit and headed towards the cliff. There she was, sitting beside the cliff with both of her legs hanging freely in the air, while she sat at the edge of the cliff. The wind numbed her thoughts and made her feel divine; the knife was kept beside her which was covered with blood up to the very handle. She shouted, “Hey Sheriff, what option does a woman in my position have, other than to kill that self-loathed bastard? He’d beat me the whenever he felt like, breaking so many bones in the process that I lost count. I sold my body countless times, hoping to provide for his comfort, and believing that he would change.. but nothing did. Not he, not his ways of treating me, not my life! What choice did I have Sheriff? What choice?!” And with that, she raised her hand in the air.

The sheriff replied, “That doesn't mean that you should take the law in your own hands! Besides that, you could have come to us anytime, we were there for you, and we are there to protect you.”

“Really?! Protect me, my ass! You know what would've happened if I went to you, you would have shoo'ed me first and then, after a few days you would have taken advantage of me just like they did. Then I would have to kill you as well, adding to my already long list of crimes. So it seems, I saved your ass, Sheriff!”, and saying that, she took a dive into the running stream of water flowing beneath the cliff. Before the sheriff or his department could do anything, she was out of their sights. She left behind the murder weapon, which was lying there with blood covered all over it.

Sheriff didn't know what to say. Deep inside, he knew what she said was indeed right. So all he could manage to say was, “Tag that knife, that’s the evidence!”, and saying so, he disappeared into the dark road. A teardrop did roll down his eye, but just a drop and the chaos at the crime scene continued..

NOTE- AGAIN, ANY RELATION TO DEAD OR ALIVE IS PURELY CO-INCIDENTAL. THIS IS A PART OF THE AUTHOR'S IMAGINATION. SO MAKE PEACE WITH IT FELLA’S!

'Til Death Do Us Apart.....

‘Til Death Do Us Apart

When I closed my eyes, all I could see was the wheels of a car. The car rushing towards my face and just as I kept watching, it smeared my face and it was painted blood all over the road. This was the last thought that my mind was able to visualize before I was awoken by the little drops of water in my face and as I managed to open up my eyes, I could see that it was the rain that broke my sleep. I turned around my head and saw my room-mate still awake, I checked my watch, it was 15 past 3 in the morning. He bluntly said, “Nasty drops eh?”
I smiled and answered back, “Yea, you still up?”
“Yep, that’s what it looks like, this crazy girl man, just won’t sleep and won’t let me, what woke you up sleepyhead?”
I snapped back, “A bad dream, a sweet feeling, I guess”.
“You cocky bastard, always need to say something gayish, don’t you?” and smiled.
“Yea, right, pass me the cigarettes man.” I asked.
“Here you go” saying that he threw the cigarettes at me.
I took one out and lit it. Although it was dark outside, few street lights shimmered, trying to stay lit. The dogs ran from here and there to escape the rain. I smiled from within and kept wondering whether or not I should venture out. I leaned back smothering the pillow by the wall and the smoke kept engulfing the whole of me. I passed the box of cigarettes to my roomie and he kept complaining about his new fling and all this time I had only one thing in my mind, I kept thinking about her, it had been just a few hours before she broke it off with me because of unknown reasons and I hadn’t even broken the news to my roomie as he always thought my girlfriend or ex-girlfriend as a slattern.
 Many a times, he said he had seen her cozying up with others but I preferred to ignore. For me she was the perfect one but for her I wasn’t.  It was all well and good and then suddenly this, I also for a little time thought of her as a whore but then again we all keep cursing each other in a relationship if that  fails.
“Man, this girl, I’m telling you, she is a slattern.” My roomie suddenly infiltrated my thoughts.
“Why the heck do you always think of every girl as a slattern man?” I snapped back
“Because they are, and if it’s about Neha, then I tell you, I really have seen her with others, why don’t…”
I cut him off by replying, “Man, we broke up.”
His jaw dropped and all he could manage was, “Holy mother of god, finally, finally you listened to me” and flaunted a broad smile.
“It was her man, not me” I replied.
“No worries, it’s good that finally you can again start dating girls and not slatterns.”
I wanted to hit him but then again maybe he was right so I just kept mum and took another cigarette out and started puffing out.
He closed the lid of his laptop and turned towards me and said, “Phew..! Finally she let me go. Hey look it’s still raining, why don’t we head out and enjoy the early morning and besides there’s no office tomorrow. So you wanna join in?” and said that he reached out for his slippers and took out a smoke. I wanted to go out but was in a dilemma and now since I had a companion, I agreed to. My roomie was feeling ecstatic and started humming the lyrics of the song “Holiday” by “Green Day”, and he kept singing, “hear the sound of the falling rain, coming down like an Armageddon flame…….”
We raced out like children’s did when it rained and I really felt great and was happy that I came out,
I felt great, the pain indeed was going away and the felling of paranoia was clinging me slowly but strongly. I stretched out my arms in the air and let the pain go away and the smell of the wet earth felt sweet but just as I turned around I saw a distant light approaching me and then suddenly the next moment, the sweet smell of the wet earth and the pain that was in my heart was numbed suddenly when out of nowhere I saw the car rushing towards my face and just as I kept watching, it smeared my face and it was painted blood all over the road.

Despite my hazy vision, I could see a lot of things around me, my ears were deafened and all the screaming and barking of dogs slowly went mute and then my eyes shut out.
Although, I could hear my roomie shouting out to me to stay alive and my vision was switching back and forth from clear to hazy, amidst all this chaos, I lay there and my mind tried to cope up with it but nothing was as before, that magical feeling was venturing out in the rain turned out to have faded now and my heart was desperately trying to pump blood, somehow so as to stop itself from going out just like the shimmering street lights did but then it was all silence.
As I came to, my body seemed to have given up on me, I felt as I was not inhabiting it anymore; an out of experience. I realized as my phantom self-stared at my remains, on the road, blood splattered and immobile that I had been in an accident!
Yes, I was injured and then something clicked, I indeed was injured and I was no more.
What was real and imaginary?
Death Is real, my thoughts about my ex and all that was a mere figment of my imagination and was a distant thought now.
And as I stood there, my phantom self-concluded, to die is the most realistic experience you’ll ever have,…solid…stable…permanent…death becomes us.

DISCLAIMER – This post is vent for the author’s frustration, nothing on this post needs to be taken seriously and any relation to dead or living is purely co-incidental.
#Peace Out…!! J J

.........................

Frankly, on a personal note, I’ll prefer love marriage over arranged marriage because of the many reasons known (well, mostly are known) and unknown.
Now, close your eyes and just think how would you want your wife to be?
 Tall or short?  Intelligent or dumb? Understanding or nagging? Independent or dependent? Fair or dark? Virgin or non-virgin? And there are many more criteria’s that can be added to the list.
And now, ask yourself very frankly that will be able to know all this the first time that you meet her or say the second time?  She may not open up to you or she even may. But, in the end if she doesn’t and then few years from then when you are Mr. & Mrs. And then suddenly one day she tells you that she loves someone else and so she wants a divorce or even worse than that, she says that she has an illegitimate child of her own with her lover or the worst someday, she just drops the bomb on you and says that originally she is a male and had gone under sex-change. What then? Your whole world will come crashing down. I’m not at all implying that any of these is actually ever gonna happen especially that sex- change one, but neither am I ignoring the fact that if not the third point, the other two might happen and before you realize what she just said, you’d want to jump out of the nearest window. There are chances that all these might also happen in a love marriage.
The thing is that, the world is now divided, one part is formed by our parents and the latter, us. Back in their times also, “cheating” among partners happened but the proportion was less and now it just seems to be increasing exponentially and this is a matter of concern because all that a man or a woman desires is to have a “better-half” with whom he/she spends rest of their life and that’s all that matters but in this present world, there lies this high requirement of “pleasure” that every partner in a couple desires and sometimes when one of them is not able to provide, the other seeks to find pleasure in other way and that is what leads to the ultimate end of a relationship.
Let alone, cheating and stuff, what about “household violence”?
When a girl gets married all that her father wishes is a better life for her and this what I say have witnessed in our village, girls are married off in an early age and then sent to her new home and there, she barely even knows that person but yet she is confident of the choice that her parents have made for her but what if in the future she comes to know that her husband is a drunkard and to top that she even gets beaten because apparently his mood is not good. So, this is one of the drawbacks of arranged marriage and this as we all know is very common. If she would have known her, she wouldn’t have ever got married to such a “human”.
You, see in love marriage people know each other and keep knowing each other until they are confident enough to walk to the altar or to become one from two and this improves the “trust-issue” among them and she knows his likes, dislikes, comforts, discomforts and an awful lot than a person can ever in a single-meet. The thing is that if you are dating someone then it is like a trial, if it doesn’t work, then you don’t buy that stuff or in this case don’t get married to but the direct leap to the marriage in arranged type does not guarantee that you two are perfect for each other and what if it fails? Then there are only two options left “live it” or “leave it”. This is the basic difference between these two “genres” of marriage.
I’m not all saying that arranged marriage is always doomed (in this present world) but just saying that if it comes down to comparing to the chances that a person would take, then I guess most will choose the second option i.e. love marriage or at least that is what I’ll choose.
This post was drafted in response to the contest "Love Ya Arranged Marriage" (http://www.facebook.com/LoveYaArrange)