Archive for the ‘Stories’ Category

11
Oct
2009

Kauffee Life

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The colors were not an imagination anymore, they were all around-brown, purple, red. The heels clicked their way, and in spite of all the chatter there was a silence she found. The silence she was starving for, a kind of calm to define which she couldn’t put in words.

Friends-she mused over the word as she watched familiar yet different expressions on his face. The laugh, the aura, the style, the chivalry-all was intact yet things had changed, the world had changed, she had changed or was trying to. For good or bad, was the question she thought she heard.

Couldn’t we talk, she thought of asking him-talk about all that I’ve been through, about times I really need you, about the bitter facts of today, about you and me, when we don’t remain us anymore.

And there were things she missed-small-stupid-silly-funny-but at the same time there was nothing better than the fact that they could still share a laugh, or coffee at times…

‘And it’s satisfying, well beyond it, the realization of the fact that yes; there -was-is- a man who loved you. It is a mean thing to do, to compare the part of love you’ve got with other things in the world or love itself-to weigh it-it won’t be a good choice, I feel’…she wrote down in her diary…

The shade of the evening got darker, the silence stronger and the taste of the coffee was wearing off. She combed her hair into a bun and wished she had let them grow.

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Posted in Autobiographical, Stories

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22
Aug
2009

Writing a story…

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I wonder when I start this story, how should I begin it? Should I bring in curiosity or switch to diastolic movement of time to picture it for you. Should the characters be as they are or should I change them for the credentials of privacy? Where should I bring in romance, is it this easy to bring in it anyways? Or should it just happen-just like that? Is it this difficult for every other person who narrates a story or writes words to make them into one?

I plan the beginning as unimaginative as it could be. Maybe, a simple exchange of phone numbers in which none was interested, or could it be an unintended festival greeting and later, a phone call in return.

Summers are too hot for anything, you just sweat. Winters get too cold to have warm feelings, rains bring in a flavor but autumn suits them the best. Autumns, when the circle begins and ends, the season in which they meet and depart.

What would the time be like? Would the time fly by when they are with each other, or they’d talk and talk of love and longing. There would be coffees, sighs, cheers, kisses, songs, mischievous ideas etc.

And then the question-how to give them a perfect happy ending?! Anyways, are happy endings for real? Or maybe a twist would do so much better, just one twist and the romance turns bitter, maybe a hideous affair, or some secrets, a lover from the past, or a fight against parents. So many reasons but I still wish somewhere to keep it plain, to keep it happy.

And that all would go into this unwritten story.

A story-a love story, a ‘short’ story!

Or maybe, some stories are as ‘endless’ as this one!

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Posted in Autobiographical, Stories

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16
Aug
2009

Partings

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If she had imagined it for a story, she would have made it a dimly lit setting, maybe the dusk-when the day ends only to leave darkness and shadows. But it wasn’t imagined, it was real, the sun wasn’t setting but it was an afternoon, though cold and misty.

There weren’t many things left to be said, by now. They were clear unlike the afternoon, in his head and in her heart. She often played with her cell phone, to distract herself from the heavy thoughts, keeping her brown eyes at it, for she was afraid a drop would steer down if she’d move them too much. He on the other hand, stared into abyss, stealing a quick glance of her face from time to time. He was afraid she would cry.

What could he say? What would she want to hear? He kept on thinking to himself about the times that had gone. She wished there were better times for them.

Soon, the silence was disrupted by the rattle of the rain drops on the red tin roof. She looked at the clock, it had been an hour.

‘Are you ever going to speak?’ she managed to keep her voice low.

‘Would it matter what I say now. It’s my fate and I’ve resigned to it’, he said looking out of the window for a change.

You’re such a coward, she said, picking up her bag.

As she made it to the exit, he rested his head in his palms. I would live with this; he thought to himself, finally feeling an uneasy comfortableness, something which he didn’t know what to name.

‘Fight for me’, she chanted the three words innumerable times under her breath and crossed the door.

A raindrop settled on her cheek bone.

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12
Aug
2009

Sunset(s)

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*I didn’t understand him much when he asked me not to judge people.

*He also told me- do good and forget it.

* He repeated- don’t expect. Not even a smile! But that shouldn’t stop you from giving one.

* He quoted people. He had his favorites too. But I never really saw him ‘dislike’.

* He read books. He gave me a few!

* He told me stories.

* He said ‘Kid, I love you’

***

He died!!!

I thought I would never meet a man like him again;

I met him…

He went away too.

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Posted in General, Stories

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04
Aug
2009

…

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She stared at her bags and then at the taxi-driver. His mustache was somewhat crooked and she was bothered by the speed at which he was driving. She was in a hurry indeed. But then she felt glad of being late and him being waiting.

She was angry at him for all the delays and being not-so-particular about things. I am tired of all this, she thought. Why should I always be ignored, why only I am making sure that everything is in place and on time? And then he calls up at the last minute only to say that he is already on his way, she built up her argument, knowing she wasn’t good at them, especially if the situation is least intended.

And then if something would go wrong, I would be the only one consumed in guilt for choosing it and hurrying on it, she lined a defense when her mind drifted to the excitement of seeing him in a kurta, which he loved for traveling purpose.

It’s his job after all; she confessed to herself but managed to resort back to a calmer annoyance about how things turned up that day.

Her line of thoughts changed again. She was wearing what he had gifted on her birthday and hoping that it would be liked. The taxi stopped and the driver opened the door for her as she paid him the money.

The drift of excitement was overlapped with annoyance again and she made her way through bags and people to reach him. She found him, struggling with a blue bag in one hand and coffee in other, with a look in his eyes which she knew meant he was looking for her. She took a deep breath and they walked to sit on the available benches.

She was looking for an opening where she could rant and rave, so she let him talk.

‘And I haven’t eaten since morning; this coffee is the only thing I have touched ever since…’ he said casually, speaking of the work pressure and the days events.

Aw honey, she thought!

In an instant she found her annoyance disappeared and she was left disappointed in self for being so unreasonable and selfish.

If only she could understand him better.

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20
Jul
2009

Hope

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red desires

Least, I find you in my dreams. Then, there, it’s nothing but us. The world dissolves in the oceanic wrath, the clocks no more play and we stand on the shores of the eternal sea. And when I wake up, I feel like taking a plunge down into the hidden sea and I wish, you could have been there too. I don’t find you along those shores and the feeling is never acceptable enough.  Say, there is always a sigh close to it. A mute, expressionless sigh…

It’s a sad feeling, the way our hopes find illusions.

I could wait there forever but I know that soon we’d become past as well. Time has stained us, and left its mark upon us. I brush aside my dreams but reality is as confusing. The distorted images in my mind play havoc yet I clearly remember the way your skin smells. These memories were to serve the foundation to the new ones but they are being buried, killed, would be a better word!

And there is a thing inside me which is all calm. I am no more vulnerable, the fight seems to have disappeared, gone with the moments you’ve kept me waiting for you. There was a moment when I felt like shrinking but sooner I realized its you who had been caught off-guard. Unexpected. I want to stay as long as your wounds don’t heal, till the ache doesn’t subside for I know you can’t do it on your own.

Men are, in one way, a part of women after all!

At times, frustration soars through me and I want to disappear. But you reach for me in such times and I feel helpless. My thoughts drift on, to times when it would require courage to stay while the sky gets filled with black clouds. But your nonchalance doesn’t promise, ironically, it doesn’t leave a single word. You would often start with an ‘if’ and use a ‘but’ and I’m left looking for an answer, carefully choosing the right words to express the right feeling. Usually, I go wrong!

‘Hope’, they tell me.

It isn’t that real, I can say.

Despite that, I cling on to it alone, tired and weary.

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11
Jul
2009

in the wilderness…

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knocking on heaven's door

The mustard’s and greens of the fields are sparkling under crystal dewdrops while the sky remains overshadowed with grey. The blue isn’t to be found anywhere but only if you cross the meadow turning in like a wave in the sea and reach the cascade, where life sprawls and plays in all forms. It’s a jungle in its own, a small jungle…

You hear the old man whistling every now and then. His farm is a warm place on the other side. The forest vibrates with his tunes. His wife is long gone but he has a blue-eyed son and a daughter whose cheeks are as red as the apples in his orchard. His son often comes to fill water at the cascade while she strays off in the forest to collect pines, leaves, and twigs, to weave them together, to wear it in her hair- black as an amavasya night. You won’t find her wearing a flower ever but she would collect them all and give them to him. He doesn’t possess the beauty of his sister but his gaze is as reflective as mirror. Rabbits would often gather around him and he plays with them.

They play in the rains without a worry of spoiling their dresses; they sing to the tit-tat of rain drops while the forest echoes with sounds of their laughter and thunder of clouds. At night, usually he plays flute which even makes a nightingale to stop singing…

The night falls and there is silence as death, in the wilderness…

Posted in Just like that, Miscellaneous, Stories

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29
Jun
2009

Words…

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Beauty was what she always associated with others. It was a phenomenon for everyone, except her. She had never loved mirrors. Never had she loved taking rounds in a frilled skirt, looking at its flow, imagining the blues, the reds, the whites spinning into one. It was always like that, it had always been like that, no matter what anyone told her.

It was just another hour late at night. They paid attention to each others soft whispers, relaxing in each others arms as he played with her hair, listening to her stories. He held her face in his hands, kissed her eyes and said,

“You’re beautiful…”

For the next few minutes, that was all she could think about.

Was she beautiful?

But knowing him, she could only doubt her own vague ideas. For there were more days to come and go when he would whisper the same thing into her ears and she would believe him. She never understood what exactly beautiful was, but she could feel it all around her. She could like colors except black and white and greys, she could know a blue sky or a sky dotted with jeweled stars, she could know how life could get beautiful from a deserted, rugged journey to a story where there is a prince charming and his beautiful princess, she could find a meaning in the images, the words, the sounds, the colors and what not, a beautiful meaning.

Thus, she never got tired of hearing how he would always begin.

‘You know what?’

‘What?’, she would ask waiting for those words.

And he would tell her…

“You’re beautiful!”

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Posted in Just like that, Miscellaneous, Stories

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21
Jun
2009

Before sunset…

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For all she wanted to do at evenings was to sit in her balcony and watch the sun go down. Nestled in her own arms, she would watch the evenings fly by. The water blue sky would change its color slowly and get darker and darker not by tones but by the hues. The lights would come out but would not be noticeable first. The sun would settle above the hill usually and scrub its yellow across the sky and the whole scene would resemble a blue and yellow blanket. Sometimes orange, at times red too could be found here and there.

The evenings would come with a little breeze, the kind which gets inside your clothes and touches your skin. She would feel it, she would love it. Then the yellow would fade off the horizon and the sun would go down behind the dark blue hills in less than a minute. It would just disappear.

The sky would turn dark blue as well but remarkably, one can always spot the hills. The colors of the two are always close but with a distinction between them, they never intermingle. Then one can spot the stars of the hills. Yeah, lights come out before the stars in the sky but Venus never misses it spot. Soon, the two-hills and the sky are both starry eyed.

She tucks herself and wishes he was there with her, to watch the sun go down…

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Posted in Just like that, Miscellaneous, Stories

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16
Jun
2009

Young lust

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As he rode into the dusty sky, the heat had him dripping sweat. But he wanted to ride on for there was only one thing on his mind-her, whom he hadn’t seen for 12 years. City life had changed him and back then all he wanted to do was keep up with his friends. His newborn desires had given him other sort of wings, so much so that he had left her back. He had smiled when he saw her for the first time and he knew he was in love-his first love. But the reverie of it was broken as soon as he finished his college and moved to the city.

His father had told him that some things are to be prized forever-especially the ‘firsts’. His mother instead of being so protective about him had tried to make sure that he took her along.

***

As soon as he parked outside his dusty, green roofed home, his mother came running. He gave her a tight hug and waved at his father, who was sitting at the window, smoking his pipe. But his eyes were searching for something else. He knew where she was and he rushed inside the old barn.

There it was, covered in dust but still a beauty-his bike-his beautiful, old bike!!!

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