You could prick her with a needle and she would just sit there staring at the wall as if something would suddenly leap out of it. She was not sure what had led her to this. If only there was something she could put her finger on to be the reason for her to feel numb, if there was anything to it at all, it was routine. The same old set of motions to be performed at the same old time of the day...

Rushing back to her workstation after she queasily finished the chores, to log back into ‘New Life’*, she would watch and marvel at the pixellated caricature of Poseidon, creating tiny craters in the plasma while running her fingers over him on the TFT, breathing heavily as he moved across the room towards her, lousy, flickering animation notwithstanding.

She had waited long for that rush in her head, making her delirious with anticipation of being touched, shaken with that long forgotten pleasure wave. The large gaping hole between the virtual and the real had long been filled up with the ever piling laundry and unkempt dishes in her kitchen sink. It had not taken them long to find each other in this virtual world and it felt they belonged, even though they had promised never to let the veil of pixels reveal their real selves…

Out there she was a young, blonde, vivacious, polka-dotted Barbie with a magnetic smile to melt many a hearts. Out there she could be anyone she wanted to be, someone she used to be. It was her never land, it was her new life...

A gracious tall Texan, still some years away from resorting to hipsters to cloak the middle aged flab, cognizant of the little twinkles in her eyes that had managed to survive the years of household rituals, anyone could see that she had had a glorious youth. Yes, she still had it, to make a man want rest his head on her bosom and want to talk about his dreams and have his hair caressed by her long slender fingers.

Her confession was hardly a surprise or an earth shattering shock to her husband. And all he was capable of was managing a resigned, dilated look as she packed her bags. They had already run out of recipes to cook themselves any romantic make-up dinners. He wondered at his composure and the unexpected slice of relief along with the expected stabbing pain. He knew the marital mock drills taken their toll and there was not even pretence of promise for her to rejoice. He had work, she had chores. He wanted her to smile again, but knew he had nothing left to make that happen. 'You can always come back', he said, not sure if he really meant the way it came out!

So she set out to find her cozy sunset with nervous yet buoyant strides. She set out to find the never land despite its name. It’s a moment when you just do an ostrich, albeit all the experience and wisdom. A respite from reality and 'what can't be's'…a leap of faith, jumping off from a cliff, hoping against hope, for those few seconds you are suspended in thin air, the rocks will liquefy into a river, before you hit the ground with a thud.

Poseidon was a brawny, hirsute, cow boyish, well-built man, donned in leather jacket and ripped blues. Her mind quickly mapped the pixels to bone and flesh, alphabets to his husky voice and the flickering animated locomotion in the Newlife arena to his long airy strides and she was in love, almost, all over again, despite the oddities.

Poseidon was having a hard time mapping the polka-dot girl to this early middle aged Texan though, in spite of the exchange of statistics over the wire. He was still lost in his fantasy of a petite Barbie enrobed in kilt, who would come running across the lawn, jump into his tight embrace and be lost in his arms. He might not have run his fingers on the screen, but that Newlife Barbie just won't go off his head!

Wishing it to be a mere sheet of ice which will eventually give away, she grew restless in a couple of days sensing the reluctant hugs and embraces as he sat there on the beach, lost in the distant autumn sunset. It pained her to just look at him trying to be polite and affectionate.

She wanted to stand bare for him to see that inside, she was the same bubbly Barbie of New life. She wanted to smile mischievously at him across a dining table and brush his feet with hers. She wanted to get drunk and pillow fight. Wanted to go beach walking on moonlit nights, wanted him to kempt her hair. She wanted everything she had had in her Newlife. But all those colours seemed to have vanished behind a dismal blue screen...

Continued in comments....

Delhi MS Meet, 7th of June, 2009

They were all unanimously united against sugary candies and unanimous in their opinion that only I am bereft of any gooey insides and caramel coatings. I don't know what did I ever do to earn that reputation, but at that very moment I could empathize with Raju guide for being christened as the village druid and made to fast till death. And the guy who coaxed a wannabe out of her marriage, lived off her money and sentenced for fraud actually had to live up to it! That's what giving into hype can do to you!

So here I am, typing a diary post about the MS meet I have just returned from, earning the wrath of my already cross better half (for ruining her Sunday), supposedly exposing the 'bitter truth' of the meet (The expectations are so amazingly high that I have to invent some sensational bitter truth if their was none!). As i said, I have given in to the hype. I won't blame you if you kick me out of your TC after this (please just quietly uncheck my name in your TC feed filter if you care to be little polite, please)!

Dressed to kill (or at least I thought so. I always think so when I wear black. High hopes, huh!), I land up in this labyrinth (they call it mall) about to burst with people on a Sunday afternoon SMSing Sujata (Faerie) for directions to Barista. A few are there (Sujata, Sonika, Shubro, Titu and family) and a few are on the way. Hellos, HIs, handshakes, looking for extra chairs around and we settle down. The second lot (Swati aka Aarini aka Niraa [Sorry Swati, if you were planning to have this open secret carry on for long, you are busted!], Sweety and Shalu) arrives soon after. The customary exchange of details of logistical information [complaints about traffic, heat et al] precedes the 'pretend to be busy with mobiles while someone starts some kind of conversation'.

Now this is why its so imperative to have the likes of Shalu and Shubro in the meet. I mean these guys can talk to a wall if need be! So while the rest of us are busy measuring up the mood and the right things to say, fiddling with our mobiles, Titu getting delusional with some GK MS meet which never happened, Sujata and Sweety capturing the most comfortable sofa, talking and smiling scandalously amongst themselves (that was a bit later actually), Sonika alternating her thoughts between the real and the imaginary (poor Piscean), Swati actually trying to do a LinkedIn (scouting for an operations guy for her 'event management company' (I get very suspicious of anyone who uses that term)) on the meet, these guys (Shalu and Shubro), thankfully start talking about MS!

One thing led to another (I have never seen that sentence being used anywhere else apart from when the Hero and Heroine end up having sex 'mistakenly' on their first date! Ouch!) and the torch turned to the fake IDs on MS! This is what I live for Man! Scandals! I didn't burn 300 Rupees of petrol to fiddle with my mobile, huh!. You know, it would be an understatement if I say I was enlightened today. Today, I saw how deep the drain goes! Today I saw the underbelly of MS! (Are you scandalized enough by now, or need I say more?!)

Believe you me, we took full advantage of everyone not present there. We bitched, we exposed, we mercilessly slayed anyone and everyone (who's who of MS) we could. I am sure no one even noticed how we were being robbed by TC&B (Rs. 102 for a cuppa tea!!) apart from Aarini as she had the most sensational secrets to tell! Shalu was not far behind. Oh! She had some boulders on her chest which needed to come off and come off they did! And it didn't require more than a 'Cummon, you can tell us' poke to get her started!.

All niceties fell apart and we were all ears! Which 'she' is actually a 'he'? Who is actually who? Who is actually not a who? Who forgot to sign off with the fake name he was signed in with? Fake IDs for self glorification, fake IDs to rattle the big ships, fake IDs to cause sensations, hypocritical indifference to stardom, shared ID (one ID - many people. I almost fell off the chair when I heard of that concept!). Oh! 'twas all there and the voyeur within me couldn't have had it better. It just ogled with an enlarged retina and ear to ear smile at the expose. My money was utilized, every penny of it! Yesssir, I had fun :)

Having tasted the blood, nobody was ready to leave. A quick photo shoot and the venue shifted from Barista to TC&B and the revelations just kept coming! Finally, with nothing left to expose, we all had another round of click-clicks and warm handshakes in the parking basement and dispersed. This was one MS meet, as a MS meet should be ;)

One fine day, I will disdainfully kick my blue office chair with my cherry-black shoes with raw beastly force, enough for it to roll on through the thin long aisle and stop in my boss’s cubicle gently kissing his chair, for him to turn around and ogle in a daze. I would then rise slowly above my cubicle partition, amidst the pin drop silence and hanging jaws. With a Schwarzeneggerusque composed, mean, don’t-mess-with-me expression, I shall roll up my sleeves and look around as a few spectacles start to crack and crumble in disbelief. I would walk down to the other corner and rescue my dream girl who is swooning by now, grab her hand, announce a time off to my trembling boss and walk out of the front gate with the guard frozen in the most duteous salute.

From that day onwards, I will only have head-turning, big-bang entries. Doors will fling open and office stationary will be dismantled and float in thin air and it won’t be before everyone I have passed across has been left gasping and I have settled down in my chair, would the office floor stop trembling. I, you a**holes, would have arrived! Just you wait!

By now, you should know who I am. Or maybe not. Maybe you haven’t even noticed even though I sit bang in the middle of the floor and I am always sitting there; even before you come in and even after you walk out. I complete my work before they put my name against it. I have arrived and already checked my mails before the clock strikes eight. Eight for me is start of work. Eight for others is the time they drag themselves to the shower! They have stopped putting people in the team I am supposed to work in. I am the team! I am the whole bloody team; a one man army!

Everyone is really friendly with me, you know. My shirt has faded at the shoulders by the sheer amount of pats I get on my back. That’s the way they all are with me. A pat, a ceremonial ‘How are you matey?’, a quick question like ‘would you know how this fuc*ing thing works’ and next thing I know is I am writing a step by step cookbook for them after that blank expression I get to see on their face when I have told them ‘that’s is the way this thing works’. And before I have pronounced abracadabra they are on their way shaking their head in disbelief. This carries on throughout the week and it took me a while to figure out why suddenly everyone seems too busy on a Friday afternoon that they don’t have any questions for me that day. It was the day when it hit me - ‘I am a bloody geek’!!

And you Mr. Stud, sitting next to me; I hate your guts Mr. Stud. I mean all you do is talk. I bet you took a training course to learn how to move a mouse and all the work you ever do is at the gym. But then, you are surrounded by all the prettiest girls, leaning over, drooling and laughing at your stupidest of jokes.

I sit there at my desk burgeoning with the thickest of manuals and left over coffee cups trying to look engrossed as they come and stand there at your desk like fifty times in a day smelling like fairies. Can’t you just sit somewhere, madams? I mean you stand with your distracting backside towards me which is way too mmmmmm and I am supposed to behave like you don’t exist which is kinda hard!

I wonder if they really think I am short at listening or my glasses are too thick for me to notice. I hear you bit**es (I won’t call you that if you gather around my cubicle instead), loud and clear. Your chuckles are a signal for me to feel my bum for a strategically placed chewing gum which is now decidedly stuck there, or a ‘I am a Geek’ placard stuck on my back. How could I even blame you for those degrading chuckles when even the boss has a hard time keeping himself from falling off the chair laughing!?

Sigh! I know nothing I will ever do will work. I mean, it will work for my bosses, work for my goddamn company but it will never work for me. Neither the weekend slog, nor the three in a row night outs or an IQ of 180. At the end of the day, I am a piece of precious office furniture which is supposed to be painfully undemanding. It’s just hopeless!

But I have had enough, more than enough! I know its time to throw those glasses out of the window, loosen up my collar button and roll up my sleeves. I refuse to be a part of a doomed species heading for extinction. One day, soon, I would have abandoned my loyalty to the geek kingdom. One day I would have crossed over, from a timid, workaholic, inconspicuous geek to a smooth-talking, go-getter office eye-candy. Just you wait!

Disclaimer : The usual coincidental resemblance to living or dead disclaimer. Yawn! (And yeah, I am not a geek :P)

So, you finally did it! Spent a quarter of your life mugging up those 2-kgs-apiece books to get yourself shot in that hallowed mortarboard (the mug-shot now proudly suspended on your living room wall) , managed to land up in a cushy job, and actually came out with flying colours from the nerve-wrecking marriage market with quite a ‘deal’. Then, braved the agonizing wedding ceremonies lasting whole three days too. And if someone was to go by what you are really itching to do at this point in time, it would be lead to an utterly horrendous conclusion that the whole extravaganza was eventually to get you laid! Just imagine, five hundred people making merry at the thousand-bucks-a-plate dinner you threw in the French gardens to announce it too, totally at your cost. You must be crazy! The world must be crazy too!

You are almost twiddling your thumbs to wait for all of them to vanish and be with your lady love/lady arranged. I know, I know – at this moment, it can well pass for the only reason for your existence. You will be officially left alone, just the two of you to ‘consummate’ (I love that word) your marriage, (to play bang-bang in a luxury resort room – if it were to be put a little crudely). And all that when you have never even had a proper first kiss with someone! Who ever said, you have to die to be in heaven? Don’t you feel like Alice in wonderland already, like a hungry child who has been let into a castle of chocolate? (Gen Y can excuse themselves from this page. I am talking about my generation here, please. We were supposed to be virgins at the time of our wedding. See, I don’t even mind you cocking a snook at me right now. I agree ‘twas weird).

So, here we come Bahamas, Switzerland, Mauritius, Goa and Shimla. We are ready to paint the town red. Oh my! I go weak in my knees just imagining the candle light dinners, beach walks holding hands, scuba diving in blue lagoons, bon fires with mouth-watering Arabian belly dancers around, cuddling up in the ropeway trolley atop the icy mountains, zipping through in a crimson convertible amidst the lush green pastures (yeah with herds of snow-white sheep grazing in them too), lying semi-clad (or unclad wishfully) on a beach on a moonlit night with a whole crate of beer bottles at your disposal. And of course, the best part, to just be there under that gauzy linen on the hotel bed with your partner in crime and just ‘do it’, all night, all day long! Crushed roses, stained satin sheets, jingling red bangles, warm husky whispers, feverish moans, melting bodies and unbridled steamy passion - Honeymoons – aren’t they the most beautiful phenomenon man ever treated himself with?

But, hey! Hold on for a sec. Isn’t this like too good to be true, too rosy to even exist? Damn right, it is. Well if you had an arranged marriage (like most of the lesser mortals) then you just threw the dice in the air expecting it to land up showing a perfect six! Chances of that happening – one in six. You get the drift? Ok, let me illustrate.

Second day into honeymoon, poor you are walking hand in hand on the beach with wind in your hair (if you have any left) and crimson waves kissing your feet, trying to feel that perfect walk-into-the-sunset moment and you suddenly hear “Honey, what have you thought of buying for my dad/mom?”. And as the days/weeks/months/years go by you will realize that you will never EVER want to walk into the sunset with her. Evenings, for her, are synonymous with shopping! Did someone say, love is all you need? He is rightly buried now, at some dilapidated graveyard.

And do you even want to get me started on the virginity fixation. Imagine a guy expecting to marry Nutan and in a flash realizes he married Helen instead. How would he know? Oh he would, in a second!

And this is even worse. You just can’t get it going the first few nights. Guys, you know what I mean, don’t you? Gosh! That looked so easy in the movies you saw in your hostel days, so natural, so totally for granted. You probably couldn’t see the tiny disclaimer at the bottom of the screen “These ‘stunts’ are performed by experts and should not be tried at home”. At that moment it does feel like a ‘stiff’ stunt you just don’t have the ‘strength’ to carry off.

Continued in comments...

Its one big messy Cartesian join, this world. I mean, just look at your ever-growing list of contacts in your mobile phone for once. There isn’t enough to set it apart from a list of the ill-famed I-need-to-double-my-money-in-a
-fortnight applicants who applied for the crazy DDA lottery. And then you talk, each one of you to each one of you. Find yourselves those corners of the room which you never knew existed, ram yourself against the wall, covering up your mouth, look at some distant nothing and talk.

You have become one big ear and one big mouth. Jubilant cackles, maudlin whispers, feverish confessions, sloppy tales, anguished boohoos, cacophonic bawls and the works. It all gets thrown around to be chewed, swallowed, digested and excreted. Like a daily shot of cocaine you just can not do without, you just HAVE to talk and you just HAVE to hear someone talk.

There is something strangely alluring and addictive about that someone somewhere, wrapped in a cloak of mystery. You become just a compulsive voyeur waiting for that baronial cape to open up and drop down, for you to have a peek inside. But its actually when you take a moment to think that you realize, it’s the magnet inside you want to wind an extra loop of wire around to pull more, pull the heavier, pull the immovable which makes that someone somewhere intriguing. The urge for them to helplessly shed that cloak, and stand bare in front of YOU, is really what is intriguing.

Its never about them, it’s about you. The lure of playing the agony aunt or a confidante which people will exclusively shed their dirty linen to is quite overwhelming. That dreaded sound of silence is killing. You need them for you to exist. Pain is a sweet pill. The more painful it is the sweeter. Others’ pain always tastes that way. It infact aches if they prefer a shoulder other than yours. You could well be a billboard screaming 'Confide in me!' But after a while they are whining and not talking, about the same old things, about their same old worthless lives. And you need someone with a fresh new cloak, and then some more. Keep them coming….

The more you listen to them, the more you forget about yours. And your linen suddenly looks all the more aglow without you giving it a tiring scrub. You just let it be, because that’s the way it is and there is worse out there. And someone close to you keeps looking at you, legs crossed, waiting patiently for you to turn away from the corner, waiting for your restless steps to halt and turn back, waiting for you to come and sit near to him after you had cut him off at that phone ring.

They never had a gold-threaded cloak to wear but have a lot to say. They share the linen with you which you let lay after you woke up in a jiffy at the ringing of the phone. They lie there denuded underneath that thin linen and wait for the day when you would look into their eyes, caress their hair and say “Confide In Me”….

It's almost like resting your sore, tired butt on a fleecy cushion and let is sink a few inches into it. And then being handed a martini to get your cerebrum to dilate and puke what it was finding hard to digest...Bloody reality! But I was just being given time to unbend. That's what they do to the new recruits. It was then when the silken pixie by my side pointed her finger towards something down there. I leaned and peeked from the tip of the cloud and almost fell over. It was me lying down there, flies buzzing on the gray matter that had started to squeeze through my pulverized skull.

I turned to her, aghast, my jaw touching the ground ..err cloud ..too stunned to utter a word. "But how???" Her expression instantly made me realize the futility of it and I looked down again. It was unreal, to express it conservatively, to see myself lying there on the concrete sidewalk amidst a huge mob, who didn't want to miss the freak show.

So is this the end? What next? Do they collect my brain splattered out over concrete and carry me to a morgue? Cut me down and sew me up on the autopsy table? Wrap me up in white cotton sheet and garlands and march up to the crematory carrying me over their shoulders? Put me on the logs and fire me up? Why don't I shudder at that thought anymore? After all its my body, MY. MY.... Why does that word feel strange now? Earlier I would look down when I thought about myself and I saw a torso and I knew I was talking about something in bone and flesh. Now what? What exactly am I? Bloody hell!

"It's time", she quipped. I unglued my curious gaze and looked at her again. She had that receptionist's smile at her face, the kind you see when you walk in for an interview and you are left wondering whether she actually knows that you are about to shit in your pants. I had a feeling I was about to have some real tough time soon. My list of sins was pretty lengthy!

Past that august golden gate I used to imagine elysium's doors to be like, walking on the clouds past the cabalistic strata of fog, I was led into a lyceum engulfed in mist. And there they were, the Shangri-la's version of the jury, sitting on a raised dais. Clowns, I thought. I soon realized that they knew everything about me, I mean EVERYTHING. The number of times I had hit that sissy in my neighborhood, the number of roaches I had squashed under my boots, the number of times I had fantasized about that English teacher, times I had pretended to be unwell to skip office, pretended to be truthful, cursed, helped, cried, laughed, had sex, fallen, shaken, feared and other miscellaneous stuff which better be left alone. With time, date and duration stamped against each act of mine arranged chronologically and aggregated for statistical purposes I had nothing left to do but nod. Open and shut case!

But I was in Zion and I deserved some miracles. And I got one! "After a thorough review of your case, though you qualify to be reincarnated as nothing more than a duckbilled platypus, you are just in time for a promotional offer we are running for the male middle aged suicidal cases."

"Why for this category?"

"They are the sleaziest things on earth and we want to encourage them to hurry up on their way up here! Now, this offer is called 'Choose your life'. Are you interested or you would like to earn the distinction of being the only mammal to lay eggs?"

I didn't quite like the idea of laying eggs in cold highlands of Tasmania and I eagerly looked at the three cards they spread out on the table reading the obvious on my face – whoever refused a freebie as good as this, ever?

"Choose one"!

Three cards bearing a snapshot of my potential reincarnated self lay in front of my eyes.

1 - Me standing, holding a large piranha, on the deck of a private yacht, like – 'What a catch!' I look rich, with a little paunch, sun shining on my rather large temples.

2 - A newspaper with my photo on page three. I look pleasantly different in long kurta and jeans. Wearing specs as well! Grinning amidst all the Ramanis, Thakrals and Shankars. I seemed to have made it big in the filthy patronizing creative world.

3- A stolen photograph from one of my albums. They had been doing their homework! Her arms round my neck and we pulling off that funny face. Of course our hands in each others' back pocket didn't get captured. So did the secret little bum squeeze.

I felt a lump in my throat as I gazed at her pearly whites, her disheveled hair in that cold morning breeze. That was the last photo of us together taken a fortnight ago. My hand started to move to pick up the third card.

"Yes, she was here a week ago" – quipped the seemingly oldest one in the jury…"and she did not take up the offer.....”

The image of the rag picking tin box has still not left me. It makes me smile every time I think of ‘Wall-E’. Who would not surrender to his innocence? Poor fellow goes about doing his chores, looking for those tiny little treasures, picking and tucking them away in his own tiny world hidden away from the malevolent world. No one is around to see that the tin box has a heart too and that he dreams as well.

And one day his world is rocked. It is turned upside down as Eve arrives in his little world. Smitten and totally bewitched by this curvy, slick lass, he can not help but be hopelessly charmed, unguardedly admit his wonder and awe going ‘Evaaaaaa!’, lying totally vulnerable to this futuristic beauty. He stands no chance against her superiority and sophistication. Still he manages to get Eve to step out of her slick cast and fall for the rustic him. Sheer innocence!

What a luxury! To have someone ready to lay his life at the drop of your hat. To be hopelessly in love with you like you were the only one in the whole wide world. The security, assurance, unconditional commitment. To be the centre of someone’s universe. Deep down we all want tin boxes for lovers, who are there for you no matter what. Tin boxes, who don’t throw tantrums. Who wait for you when you walk out on their face saying obnoxious things in anger. Who pamper you, care for you. Who understand your mood swings, hear unsaid words. Respond to your touch and words like magic. Who miss you, remember you, relish your company.

So the movie ends, Wall-E and Eve pretty much walking into the sunset hand in hand. Happy ending, huh? However, it left me thinking. What afterwards? One day, the tin box will stand there and see Eve jetting around in all her slick glory, blasting things and doing all those wonderful acrobatics she is designed for. That day, the tin box will ask her not to go too far, too often as he does not have jets, he has just a pair of rusty old chain wheels. He feels left out while she flies. He is left behind with just a roach to talk to. Eve frowns. She is puzzled, taken aback. Her eyes narrow in interrogation. ‘But didn’t you fall in love with me for what I were? Weren’t you spellbound the first time you saw me like this? So, why do you want me to be a tin box now, like yourselves?’

Tin box doesn’t know what to say. He is silent. He has no answers to her questions. He is hurt and his heart cries. All he knows is that he wants her by his side now, to walk along with him. He wants all those things from her which he has in his heart to give to her. He secretly DOES want her to be a tin box. Her slick, curvy appearance and her boundless flights leave him lonely and insecure.

The stupid fellow should simply say it to her, I would say. Plain and simple. Maybe she doesn’t realize what he wants. Maybe. But then, shouldn’t she have realized it by herself? Maybe not. And after all, is it fair to ask her to walk when she can fly. Will she be happy that way? How long would she walk along with him? Hmmmm. I think its unfair of Wall-E to demand such a thing. She will feel smothered. Allright, Wall-E’s insecurity and frustration is misplaced. End of discussion.

Ummmm…not quite! As luck would have it, Eve despises his rag-picking. He still keeps stuffing their place with all this garbage he thinks are a little treasure. Irked, she starts to sleep outside of their little condominium. ‘What good are these pieces of crap you keep piling up?’. Wall-E looks at her in utter bewilderment and disbelief. ‘Didn’t you use to find this habit of mine adorable? Wasn’t this, what made you think I had a beating heart inside my tin body? Should I stop collecting it?” She won’t utter a word further. Too proud to ask him for anything that might go down as a favour. She prefers to sleep outside instead. I think she should have said it, plain and simple. Maybe he doesn’t know how she despises it. Maybe. But then, shouldn’t he have realized it by himself. But maybe……blah blah blah.

Maybe it is a mismatch. Maybe Wall-E and Eve are not meant to be together. But maybe Eve would still have wanted an Adam to become Wall-E, had she had one. Maybe Wall-E would not have realized his desire for a tin box had been hooked up to a (f)Wall-E..….. Maybe, we all want tin boxes for lovers but we never want to be one ourselves….

You know that you are a very good girl, Lola. Don’t you? Now don’t you stand there and look at me like that. And don’t you frown at me like that too. It makes me feel that I have grown up to be my father. Yuck!

And just look at your legs. You should have at least cared to change the blade in your pink razor. Your long beautiful legs. I can’t take the eyes of the sheen. No one can.

Last night, you thought I was asleep. I was not. You needn’t have tip toed across the Persian carpet. You couldn’t have woken me up. I heard the click of the silver handset, I heard the whispers and I heard the click on the cradle again. I heard you tip toeing to the loo. I saw you stand there for a while and I heard the flush too. You shouldn’t have flushed, Lola. There was no need.

I hated the cold sweat and hated pretending that I was asleep. I felt sick in my stomach. Felt like getting up and rushing to the loo. I don’t know if you looked at me as you slid into the quilt. The bed stopped squeaking after a few minutes. Guess you had gone to sleep. How could you sleep, Lola?Oh! You told me you were tired when I kissed you. Have you been tired for long? I should have noticed. But did you want me to notice?

You used to hate mornings. But today you stand in the doorway even before I have read the morning newspaper. When did you buy that black skirt, Lola? And how come I don’t know about your new dresses anymore. I guess it would have been an impulsive buy. It’s so easy to get tempted on that scented, dimly lit floor they have at Harrods.

Its too early in the morning. You might not get the 47 from West Croydon. Should I offer you my car keys, Lola? Where do you want to go? Would it be okay if I drop you? I will just hop out in my sneakers and tees. You don’t want me to look good this early in the morning. Do you?

Oh damn! I have been talking too much, I guess. Asking too many questions. You would be getting late, Lola. I will be all right. Someone is waiting for you…….Run Lola, Run……….!!!!

For me it's a bi-monthly affair. My going to my hometown, that is. Its 'different' to my usual existence here in my power-backed up, vitrified floored, security-guarded, 'thou art a stranger, albeit thou art my neighbour' 10th floor abode. It doesn't feel like moving from one town to the other. It's more like moving from one country to the next. But hey! It was Diwali and the visit was inevitable.

It's always been like that since the last few years. I am always greeted by that scornful gaze from Verma Aunty next door, as I park and disembark. The gaze is the impeccable "Aa gaye sahab!!" Can't blame her for this look now, can I? Considering that we (read the rowdiest bunch of kids of 80s) spared nothing to let her know how we felt about all those plastic balls, which she scampered to pick and hide away as and when we managed to launch them into her porcupine-grassed lawn adorned with her solar cooker (which she loved more than her dear life) while playing our 'domestic' version of cricket.

At least we can do something about the other gaze in waiting, which is as impeccably denouncing as the former. We are wannabe bindaas urban species and that's where we are stuck since last few years…at wannabe!! Hence, there is an implicit agreement to adequately tone-down between me and my wife as we head home. She knows her attire well. In go the noodle-strapped, see-through tops, low waist jeans and knee length skirts. Out come the more acceptable suits, kurtis and sarees. Now you don't want the street dogs go insane with unfamiliarity either, do you?

Anyways, I hop out for morning walk and NO! That guy!!? The one I used to beat up at will and he would go hiding in your mammi's pallu wiping his nose from your thaan wali shirt.!!We sheepishly exchange that 'I wish I never get to see your stupid face again' smile. Why does it always happen that you cross all those rustic fellows at a point, where there is nothing to look around at, and you have no option but to stare the moron right in his face? But wait! What is that luxury sedan doing there, parked right outside your gate? Hello! This is a big mistake. I am supposed to be driving one, not you!! Weren't you supposed to be like selling cotton blouse pieces to fat middle class aunties in Sadar Bazar? You nose-dripping sissy! Now I know. You made the most of your father's stint at PWD. Consoling wisdom dawns - anything can be bought in this knavish world. Sob! Sob!

And then I return, dejected and crestfallen, to see my father enthusiastically waiting for me to go and handover those mithai ka dabbas to all those rishtedars, who I have no clue, as to how they are related to me, till date. All I know that my back will be sore from all those charan-sparsh by the time I am back. And do I actually want to come back, is the more serious question I have to scratch my head for….….I have not been known to be a certified atheist in my khandan for nothing. I cringe with discomfort of the most extreme kind just at the thought of hawans and aartis. Mother has half a dozes pages bookmarked in the aarti book for the evening and I sulk, knowing there is no way I can escape this onslaught.

Albeit all this ado I am subjected to, there is always a reason to go home. I enjoy those little stories about my childhood which my father sometimes tells my wife over tea. I love the tiny sparkles in Riya's (my daughter) eyes at the prospect of her meeting her dadu and dadi, the laid back, gentle trotting pace people spend their time at, like chewing each moment to savour it before it will slide away into yesterday, the smile and the handshake that you get greeted with by those old familiar neighborhood shopkeepers. It still feels like coming back to warm cosy quilt I used to cuddle up inside with mother on cold winter days in the night, tucked away in a little nook, safe from the unforgiving chill. There will always be a reason to go back. It will always feel like home coming….

The chanting echoed around the hilltop every evening. The devotional baritone soared loud, high and wide, reverberating from the walls of the luscious valley. The entire valley froze for that moment of enigmatic peace resonating from the majestic clanging of the gigantic brass bells. Tiny, lanterns would light up amidst the low hung banana leaves and the woody fragrance of burning sandalwood sticks, flickering in the evening breeze.

Every eye inside that wooden fence would be fixed on his face, enamouring his numinous persona as he sat on the sandstone podium set against the sinking sun. All heads bowed in accord as he stood up to say the final prayer. The sun wrenched its last rays along with it, which kissed his half bare Herculean silhouette and chiselled face, to plunge into another world. He was the God himself, or so would they ardently believe, standing there bewitched and awestruck…

..He quivered ever so slightly at the feel of tender touch on his feet. He opened his eyes and looked down at his feet where he could see a head half-covered with a black sari. He gently put his hand on her head as she looked up. Something shook inside him as he saw a hazel, watery pair of eyes look up to him. She had pain and anticipation written all over her angelic face. The saint stood there soaking what those eyes wanted to cry out to him, without a word. They were the wounds of betrayal which bled through her eyes, which made her travel thousands of miles to the saint, to muster the strength to get through…to start believing again.

He was the healer. His deific words and his celestial touch would cure every pain of mind and heart that was known to man. They would flock to the ashram from farthest corners to momentarily escape from the drudgeries of urban jungle, to get rid of the boulders of sins that lay heavy on their chests, to cry out their hearts and bandage the stabbing wounds the ruthless world inflicted upon them. Yes……he was the God himself.

She sat there in his feet, sobbing and gasping, looking at those flickering lanterns while everyone else slowly left. He sat there, his eyes closed, caressing her head with his fingers, as the tears on his feet started to dry. It occurred to him that it was unusual, him wanting to console anyone…like that… for so long. He had always done it with a sense of aloofness, for he was The Saint. But today, he wanted her to sit there and sob all night and the thought made him nervous.

She stayed back at the ashram in the night, as most people who came from thousands of miles did. She went back to her hut, as milky-way itself seemed to have descended on the valley. Her heart felt a little lighter and she started to revere his balmy touch as she lay there looking out at the starlit sky from the tiny window. She wondered what would have caused a young bewitching man like him to take up sainthood. They were not wrong, she thought. He can not be a mortal.

But he? He was unsettled, for the first time in all those years. He could not think of anything apart from those hazel eyes and the touch of her silky hair on his fingers. His hands grappled with the pages of the Upanishad as he struggled to keep his eyes fixed on the manuscript, but it felt like grappling with sand which itched to squeeze out of his skittish fist. He felt suffocated inside and rushed out in the moonlit night.

“How could this happen to me?”.He was screaming to himself in his mind.
“How could I think about a woman? Hadn’t I swam all the way to the surface, against all the currents, to see this light? Hadn’t I cleansed myself of love, lust and desire? Or, was I ever really above the surface? Had I seen the strongest current yet?”

He caught a glimpse of her as he walked passed her hut. She lay there on the cot, her eyes closed, her angelic face peeking through the black silk, imbued in the fiery hue of the faint kerosene lamp. He felt weak in his knees and stood there frozen, looking at her. He knew right then, that he had been flung off the ground by the strongest tide he could have ever imagined.

He found himself walk up and open the door of her hut. She was woken up by the tiny whimper of the door. It took her a few moments and a look at his face to realize what had happened. She stood up from the cot, petrified, bewildered and blank-faced as he walked up and stood right in front of her.

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