Autumn...Nippy Evenings, Pakoras & Toe Socks ! :)
Sunday 21 August 2011
Friday 19 August 2011
Smug !
Sometimes, you find the perfect illustration of yourself and some more, and well, its sheer happiness...
Thank you Nidhi Chanani...
:)
Monday 8 August 2011
And Death Did Us Part...
Salur Ghats lay tranquil at the hour...The hour of the devil gradually paved the way for the stridulating piety of stray Bush Crickets at the 4am dawn...This end of the earth had had its share of darkness and was on the verge of turning around the corner to greet the sun...
They waited inside the car...He cautiously wiped the mist of his Camera lens while she poured a cup of Coffee from the borrowed Thermos with shivering hands...
"Why are we doing this again?", she sulked and gathered the blanket around her arms...
"Because I wanted to shoot the Sunrise over Vegavathi..." he replied and leaned over to take a sip from her cup...
"Sometimes, I seriously wonder that you love your Camera more than me..."
"He laughed and retorted, "You never told me why YOU fell in love with me in the first place !"
"Because you could spell 'Lose', that's why..."
"What?"
"98% of the men I meet cannot spell 'Lose'...And I am in love with the 2% that can...Dad and you..."
"Do you know you're weird?", he said...
"And do YOU know you're mine?", she replied...
Three months ago he had screamed his way into her life...Literally...She had been saying her Goodbyes at her Aunt's door when the shrieks of a girl from the neighbor's Flat reached their ears...The door was flung open and there he was, shouting at her with an aggression worthy of a better cause ! The screaming girl lunged at him with clenched fists but he simply shoved her away...Suddenly they realized they had an audience...The girl stormed off in a huff and he looked their way apologetically...She looked at him but looked away in embarrassment...Her Aunt and Uncle, conservative East Indians, were clearly at a loss of words...She hurriedly gave them a hug and ran down the stairs...She was hailing an Autorickshaw when he came running behind...
"Excuse me...",
She looked back and blushed when she saw it was him...He towered over her and for a wild moment she imagined that he just might hit her...She turned red..."Yes?", she managed to blurt out...
"Hey, look, I'm really sorry for what happened...She was cheating on me and I got furious...We'd been seeing each other..."
"Wait a second", she interrupted him, "Its ok, its none of my business, I dont need to hear all this...",
"But I need your help !"
"Why would you ever need MY help?", she was perplexed...
"You see, after this fiasco, my landlord might turn me out...I guess you're related to him, do put in a good word..." For the first time since they had met, he smiled...
She suddenly felt lame, her practical self demanding his justification and a silly part of her wanting to reassure him that her Uncle was way too concerned with the hefty monthly rent to turn him out...She smiled back, silliness deeming victorious, and said..."Dont worry, I'll do my best..."
It was to be a month before he told her that it had all been a ruse to talk to her...
"I pay your Uncle twice the value of his flat, he wouldn't dream of asking me to leave...It was you whom I wanted to meet, you'd stood there watching our antics, frightened and vulnerable and so damn beautiful that I knew I had to talk to you..."
They were in his Flat...
In the past month, she was suddenly frequenting the neighborhood a little too much...The Muffins at the Bakery below their Flat seemed to have gotten more tender and the Lady's Boutique on the street seemed to carry the exact color of Peach that she wanted on her Dress...And she had to return her Aunt's books, the ones she had been hoarding at her house for the past year...And then, couldn't she have a sudden urge to meet Family?What was so strange about that?Her Aunt and Uncle were clearly bewildered...
It was her fifth trip and her patience was wearing thin when he finally showed up...She was lounging outside her Aunt's Flat, making an unwarranted call to some random acquaintance when he stepped out of his...They both stood awhile staring at each other...He opened his door and signalled at her to come in...She did not hesitate...
It was quarter past five now...The skies were overcast, a dull grey when the sun rose over the Ghats...Golden shadows intermingled with the clear blue of the bountiful and glorious river Vegavathi...The nooks of the winding, treacherous Ghats cast awry shadows on the road...The backdrop was any Photographer's delight...
She did not know what was to become of them...But she somehow knew that she wanted to spend her life with this intelligent and level headed yet often rude and unromantic man...
"But he loves me, doesn't he?", she questioned herself often but had to make do with a quiet, "I dont know"...
Though she stayed back in the car, her eyes did not leave him for a moment...Everytime he lurched over the edge, she felt uneasy...The Salur Ghats were known for Landslips and with the November drizzle the Ghats had turned even more deceitful...Tragic thoughts crossed her mind...A vague sense of premonition dwelled upon her...Shaking the feeling, she stepped out of the car...She was never one to enjoy the winter, her fingers turned numb, her nose pink, her breath came in short, painful gasps...
"Come and see this sweetheart, its breathtaking...", he called to her...
She gave a bleak smile, wishing he'd know it wasn't only the view that was taking her breath away !
She limped across the road and grabbed his arm, leaning in to see what held his rapt attention...He casually dislodged his arm from her grasp and got busy taking pictures...There wasn't a soul for miles...
Disappointed, she turned back towards the car...Illegible words had been scribbled on the walls of the erstwhile mountain which had been carved into the Ghats to construct the highway that ran on it...She wished he would write her something too, a sign that they had once been here, in this dreadful cold, young, very much in love...
She hugged her arms together and gave him one last look...He must've sensed it because he turned back suddenly...The sun was behind him and she couldn't see his face...It was still quite dark to ascertain his expressions, but the optimist that she was, she believed that he was smiling...She smiled back and turned to walk towards the bend...
It had barely been a couple of seconds...It was less of a scream and more of a dull thud that made him turn around...As he rushed towards the sound, a truck came hurling and whizzed past him into the next dark bend...
"Oh my God ! NO, NO !", he was frantic...
She lay there on the road, a grotesque, mangled mass of flesh...Her petite body was crumpled and distorted in anatomical abnormalities...There wasn't too much blood but the pool that formed beneath her head and soaked the gravel said all there was to say...Her face was calm and pale and her lips were slowly turning a morbid grey...
He wasn't looking at her, he was thinking furiously...
"What if she's told her friends that we are here together?Ofcourse her Aunt and Uncle dont have a clue about us...Shit, shit, how could she be so careless ! What will I do now?"
She couldn't read his thoughts and rather misread them...A moment later, her senses would fail...In that last moment, she watched him walk over to the car and she knew he would fetch the blanket and cover her with it...He would know how cold she felt...
Mercifully, she had died before he reached his car...He gathered the blanket and her bag...Her cup of coffee with a few last dregs, stood eerily on the dashboard...He looked at it and a cold shiver ran down his spine...Hastily he picked it up and threw it away...He walked to the edge of the road and hurled the blanket into the uncaring Vegavathi...He then looked into her purse and grabbed her cellphone...The purse followed the blanket...Merely 5 minutes had passed and yet it seemed like ages...He walked back to where she lay and remorselessly wondered what clues he might have left on her person...
Suddenly, he heard the sound of a motor...He did not have the time to start his car and drive away...He thought fast...Keeping her cellphone in his pocket, he waited for company...
The young rider on his bike had definitely not bargained for such a sight on the Salur Ghats...He braked when he saw her lying at the edge of the road...
"What happened?", he asked, clearly distraught...
"I dont know, I came by just now"...
"You see, after this fiasco, my landlord might turn me out...I guess you're related to him, do put in a good word..." For the first time since they had met, he smiled...
She suddenly felt lame, her practical self demanding his justification and a silly part of her wanting to reassure him that her Uncle was way too concerned with the hefty monthly rent to turn him out...She smiled back, silliness deeming victorious, and said..."Dont worry, I'll do my best..."
It was to be a month before he told her that it had all been a ruse to talk to her...
"I pay your Uncle twice the value of his flat, he wouldn't dream of asking me to leave...It was you whom I wanted to meet, you'd stood there watching our antics, frightened and vulnerable and so damn beautiful that I knew I had to talk to you..."
They were in his Flat...
In the past month, she was suddenly frequenting the neighborhood a little too much...The Muffins at the Bakery below their Flat seemed to have gotten more tender and the Lady's Boutique on the street seemed to carry the exact color of Peach that she wanted on her Dress...And she had to return her Aunt's books, the ones she had been hoarding at her house for the past year...And then, couldn't she have a sudden urge to meet Family?What was so strange about that?Her Aunt and Uncle were clearly bewildered...
It was her fifth trip and her patience was wearing thin when he finally showed up...She was lounging outside her Aunt's Flat, making an unwarranted call to some random acquaintance when he stepped out of his...They both stood awhile staring at each other...He opened his door and signalled at her to come in...She did not hesitate...
It was quarter past five now...The skies were overcast, a dull grey when the sun rose over the Ghats...Golden shadows intermingled with the clear blue of the bountiful and glorious river Vegavathi...The nooks of the winding, treacherous Ghats cast awry shadows on the road...The backdrop was any Photographer's delight...
She did not know what was to become of them...But she somehow knew that she wanted to spend her life with this intelligent and level headed yet often rude and unromantic man...
"But he loves me, doesn't he?", she questioned herself often but had to make do with a quiet, "I dont know"...
Though she stayed back in the car, her eyes did not leave him for a moment...Everytime he lurched over the edge, she felt uneasy...The Salur Ghats were known for Landslips and with the November drizzle the Ghats had turned even more deceitful...Tragic thoughts crossed her mind...A vague sense of premonition dwelled upon her...Shaking the feeling, she stepped out of the car...She was never one to enjoy the winter, her fingers turned numb, her nose pink, her breath came in short, painful gasps...
"Come and see this sweetheart, its breathtaking...", he called to her...
She gave a bleak smile, wishing he'd know it wasn't only the view that was taking her breath away !
She limped across the road and grabbed his arm, leaning in to see what held his rapt attention...He casually dislodged his arm from her grasp and got busy taking pictures...There wasn't a soul for miles...
Disappointed, she turned back towards the car...Illegible words had been scribbled on the walls of the erstwhile mountain which had been carved into the Ghats to construct the highway that ran on it...She wished he would write her something too, a sign that they had once been here, in this dreadful cold, young, very much in love...
She hugged her arms together and gave him one last look...He must've sensed it because he turned back suddenly...The sun was behind him and she couldn't see his face...It was still quite dark to ascertain his expressions, but the optimist that she was, she believed that he was smiling...She smiled back and turned to walk towards the bend...
It had barely been a couple of seconds...It was less of a scream and more of a dull thud that made him turn around...As he rushed towards the sound, a truck came hurling and whizzed past him into the next dark bend...
"Oh my God ! NO, NO !", he was frantic...
She lay there on the road, a grotesque, mangled mass of flesh...Her petite body was crumpled and distorted in anatomical abnormalities...There wasn't too much blood but the pool that formed beneath her head and soaked the gravel said all there was to say...Her face was calm and pale and her lips were slowly turning a morbid grey...
He wasn't looking at her, he was thinking furiously...
"What if she's told her friends that we are here together?Ofcourse her Aunt and Uncle dont have a clue about us...Shit, shit, how could she be so careless ! What will I do now?"
She couldn't read his thoughts and rather misread them...A moment later, her senses would fail...In that last moment, she watched him walk over to the car and she knew he would fetch the blanket and cover her with it...He would know how cold she felt...
Mercifully, she had died before he reached his car...He gathered the blanket and her bag...Her cup of coffee with a few last dregs, stood eerily on the dashboard...He looked at it and a cold shiver ran down his spine...Hastily he picked it up and threw it away...He walked to the edge of the road and hurled the blanket into the uncaring Vegavathi...He then looked into her purse and grabbed her cellphone...The purse followed the blanket...Merely 5 minutes had passed and yet it seemed like ages...He walked back to where she lay and remorselessly wondered what clues he might have left on her person...
Suddenly, he heard the sound of a motor...He did not have the time to start his car and drive away...He thought fast...Keeping her cellphone in his pocket, he waited for company...
The young rider on his bike had definitely not bargained for such a sight on the Salur Ghats...He braked when he saw her lying at the edge of the road...
"What happened?", he asked, clearly distraught...
"I dont know, I came by just now"...
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