Once in a land not so far away there lived a woman who was known as 'the stone-hearted'. It was not her unkindness or her selfish demeanor that made her popular for this title but there was a reason far more surprising, and far more uspetting. She was immune from love. She referred to the euphoria of young lovers as 'elation' that would soon meet its fate : 'deflation'. This elation took lovers to an imagined higher form of existence in which they did not need to explain themselves to anyone and were convinced of having found their world in each other. Yet with these momentous leaps of joy there was always a significant risk of hitting the hard ground. Each lover found himself in the stranded position of a mid-way fall half-way up into the leap. The stone-hearted despite her apparent disregard for love, spoke in a way that would convince the listener of the sincerity she meant it with. All around her she was surrounded by people who were trying to connect the dots in their lives and trying to find love and affirmation in another person. Yet the stone hearted was of the belief that love belonged to everyone. That it could not be seen or expected from a single person, that the hope that one person could fulfill all the gaps and holes in your soul was an unrealistic one. Apart from her views the stone hearted was also famous for her remarkable charm. She had belief, the prerequisite of the task of convincing and she had yet another tool , beauty. The ultimate convincing tool. As the word about her spread , she found herself to be the receiver of many women and men who found her to be correct after deep exploration of themselves and their loved ones. Their evening congregations came to be a ritual they all sought their peace in. There were people who the stone hearted had never known but had heard of . And there were those the stories of whose love she had seen unfolding before her very own eyes, and there were those who had mocked her in their happiness. They all confessed to her that during the time they were in love, nothing else would make sense. that the grief of others could not melt their heart. That the happiness of others could not be envied.  That the cynicism or disbelief of those surrounding them only served to make them even more sure of their feelings. Some of them were disappointed that their lover blew the whistle on them, others found it strange that they themselves had blown the whistle. But nothing matched the wonder of those who hadn't heard the sound of a whistle announcing the end, or the sound of a broken heart on either side as they parted their ways. All of them however insisted that her theory of 'elation' was in fact, the truth of love. It was how love worked. All around her as she ran her eyes, she saw only proof. 
She had no need to explain herself to anyone anymore. She was accepted and she rejoiced this acceptance with her calm grace intact. There in the crowd was a man who would never speak about himself as the people around him related their stories. He never cried while the others cried and he always smiled the most heart-felt smiles. Days turned into months and people kept coming, each with his own unique experience to relate and they all always agreed on the phases of love. Then one day the storms came and rain fell down heard. Only a few people could make it to the congregation that day. As the stone hearted claimed her seat in the center of the crowd, the few people on the spot realized they had all related their stories to the crowd already. As an unspoken rule, there was always a new story to be told so the eyes of the crowd rested on the man who never spoke. On being asked who he loved, and why he loved, and what he wished at that point. He stood up, srurrounded by a halo of grace. In a voice that betrayed deep sincerity he spoke ' I have always been of the view that love belongs to everyone. It's not right to expect it from a single person and so , I have to disappoint you by telling I have no account of any betrayal or surprises in the journey of my life'. Then lifting his eyes to the stone-hearted he spoke ' I wish your title was in synchrony with your unusual generosity'
As the winds howled behind them and the rain fell hard, the stone hearted looked back into the eyes of the man.
The next day and in the months that followed there were no congregations and the despair of the crowd grew , only to dim out as embers of a strong fire that once was their anger on their ultimate betrayal.
 The stone-hearted  had not found any reason to explain herself as she ran away into the world with the man who never spoke.

The moment of peace

Smoke from the fire obscured her vision, stretching between her, and them , a thick curtain of concealment. The relief she got from the newly-acquired privacy was overwhelming, she leaned back into the chair heaving deep breaths, her breath  drier with each inhalation from the freezing cold of winter.

The small tears waiting inside the corners of her eyes could now slide down that smooth white cheek . The fingers which were icy-cold from resting on the grass could now tremble with ease. She could let go of all the caution because no one could see her. She was hidden and it was perfect : just the way she liked it.

It wasn't long before the sweet rhythm of her breathing sounds failed to mask that continuous train of sobs. 
She didn't realize how long the water from her eyes kept cleansing her of all the emotions, or how her melancholy figure stood out even from behind those clouds of smoke. She certainly didn't feel anyone's eyes on her , or if she did, she didn't show it.

Time went by, without any clock marking its passage with the characteristic tik-tok.

When her knees lost contact with her face, for the air to caress it in its cold, icy embrace, no one could tell that a storm had gone by inside. The ghosts of her tears were there in her eyes: shining like the stars on sky. Everything had calmed down, from the air to her heart; there was peace everywhere.

The smoke in front of her had cleared and she was standing there unobscured, strong as ever.

The last mail

This morning i got my death sentence.

The crime began 7 months ago, Some cells in my body got naughty and grew into a tumor. That tumor like a mafia, kept growing until it was deeply rooted into every organ of my body. But the doctors  told us that the war wasn't lost still, giving my stubborn parents a reason to go on, and more annoyingly urging me to go on along with them. I mean you get tired, with the chemicals that make you lose hair and make you feel sick and ugly like a century-old man.  I got tired everytime after an extensive therapy session, but the gleam in my parents eye, the layer of tears in their eyes which tear apart your heart and emotionally blackmail you into about everything , urged me to go on. It was today that this gleam went away.

It was today that the tears didn't have to be hidden anymore. The doctor told us that the tumor had made it to my brain , apparently into a cavity at the back of my head called fourth ventricle which was inoperable . A surgery at this stage would only cause me pain and perhaps prolong my stay in this world by a month at best, but the cancer cells will eventually raise their  head, which is to say in medical terms, metastasise again.

For the first time in a long period, I assumed an adamant tone, making it clear to  everyone that i didn't want a surgery. The war, in short was lost. and i did not want the remaining bits of it to be waged on my body which was already in a lot of pain.

Once the finality of my tone sank in, everyone cried so much that  i am sure they would have gotten themselves dehydrated had they gone on for another hour. They cried till they were exhausted. Then My father went to get some pain-numbing medicines for me and my mother went home to make me my favourite soup. My sisters and brother were there to look after me but something just occurred to them in middle of the evening and all of them went away one by one. Leaving the maid behind, and i, in my comfortable little bed. (Not so little now that i have shrunk up in size)

For the first time in a long period, I was thankful for loneliness. At least for the first ten minutes but then the reality of the news began to dawn upon me. I was going to die. My best and the only remaining shot at life was a week, or a month according to my doctors.
All the dreams i had dreamt , all the people i had loved, i was going to leave them all behind. And the worst part was that being a strictly non-religious person,  i didn't know what awaited me there. Or if anything awaited at all?

The uncertainty was so maddening that i pulled my hair in fists. I felt like a dark monster will grab me from behind any moment, hiding me in its cloak where it will be just an eerie darkness and no sound at all. This is how i had envisioned death in childhood. But now that it wasn't just a word in a storybook but my fate to be, it was all the more scary.

I sat huddled up in my blanket trying to swallow my tears .All of a sudden i felt so helpless that i started crying. Crying like i had never cried before. Crying until my tears dried up and all that remained was a choking feeling in my throat, the painful constriction which feels like a lump of tears and makes you unable to speak.


The maid tried to comfort me but i asked her to just let me be. I knew i had to be strong still AS soon as my family came back. Ironically, I had to support my family through their pre-grief period until i became the reason for their grief. I was going to die, but i had to mentally prepare them for what was killing me (literally) . I had to smile and tell them it was ok. It was ok to die . Though i don't believe in it. Though it scares me . Though the thought of death chills me to my bone, i cannot admit it in front of my family because it's not like me to be weak. I am the one who is looked up to for support and rationality of thoughts, i could not accept something as irrational as fear, no matter what the circumstances were. No matter how the word 'death' scared me a hundred times more than the monster in cloak had  scared me back in childhood..


A storm of emotions that blow you off your feet after initial numbness in an unexpected situation had thrown me into centre of a whirlpool. My life ran before my eyes. Faces swam in my head one by one. Some of them i loved. Some of them i hated, Some of them hurt me, and some of them i had hurt. But there was just one of them with whom i hadn't experienced a connection of any kind. I had only seen him every day of my life, talked on occasions where talking had to be done. And never smiled. Never going beyond the bounds of faint recognition.

Though in my private thoughts, i had enjoyed the liberty of brooding upon him. In quiet hours before i got sick , i used to think about how things would be, if either of us perked up the courage to be with the other. Would it be amazing? or would it be disappointing? Would it fulfill my fantasy or shatter the dream world i was living in? I oscillated between decisions of talking to him about it and just forgetting about it altogether. I was not even sure he liked me, or if he did, did he like me enough in that way? Though i am a pessimist by nature and naturally my first inclination was that he didn't like me to start with, a stubborn part of me insisted that sif i knew anything, i would believe that even if our best dreams were mutual, meither of us would ever admit that. A big share of my time was spent  thinking about it ( Now that i think of it,  i wish i had done something more useful , gone to a beautiful place, done some social work maybe). And then i got cancer. And cancer puts an end to normal functioning of human mind. The teenage thoughts of love and fantasies are replaced by fear of the next chemothearpy session. Instead of thinking about which dress to wear, you face the task of choosing the most natural-looking wig to wear. Cancer, i am telling you , has worse psychological effects than the physiological ones. It snatched from me the dream which was so dear to me and it never resurfaced during the gruelling therapy sessions of the last few months. Only when i am faced with the reality of losing life, do i consider the possibility of taking chances with it.
A chance. Just a simple text saying : I like you. Or saying that after some formal chit-chat, asking about the weather, likes , dislikes...

My hands shake as i grab hold of my mobile. I Pause to consider the possibilities .

1.) I tell him that i like him but he doesn't think its mutual . -    Sad
2.) I tell him that i  like him and he doesn't like me but he has to be polite to me because i am dying so he says yes - Unacceptable
3.) I tell him that i like him, and he likes me too.  I die after a few days leaving him sad.
4.) None of these options.

I realize that i choose none of these options. I cannot still do in my new-found courage endowed by my death-sentence  what i couldn't do during the stability period of my life.  It starts to hurt. Until i remember something i saw in a movie.
A mailing service which mails your contact at the time you set up . That is just the best solution i think. IN my mind i perform all the calculations, put google to use on how long a person can survive in my condition, get opinions from different doctors worldwide. The answer, horrifyingly is the same, If i fight the symptoms of my disease to my death, now that the cause cannot be removed, a month is my farthest shot. I have made up my mind.

With my heart beating at its double rate, i type in an email. I put in my feelings. I tell him about how  i have felt all along. I put in my sadness, and my desperation at the news of my fate.
After an hour of writing, a three-page email. I remove everything and send instead :

' I love you'
 Saved at 6 : 05 pm  ( GST + 05:00)
 30/10/2012
( Reminder : 1 month till the mail is sent)

There's no time for after-thoughts because my sisters have come back, carrying a dozen of bags which suspiciouly look like gifts for their little, dying sister.
Maybe that, or this time there are no after-thoughts.
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30 / 11/ 2012

There is a faint cry of a baby in my ears. A dull drone-like sound of someone whimpering. My hand feels the pressure of a very firm touch of a strong hand, my skin hurts a little at the places it clings to my bones. I try to speak but my lips are difficult to move. My throat is dry as well and i want water. I open my eyes to attract someone's attention and to my relief they slightly open, though my eyeballs are swinging a little as my eyelids go up in mid-air. My first sight after three days of blackout is my father and mother standing next to me. Their faces so sad that it is hard to recognize them from the happy people they had once been. I try to smile and this time i am successful. There's a funny choking sound coming from my mother's throat and suddenly I sense a movement in the room as everyone moves closer around my bed. Holding hands, breathing quietly. Now and then i hear a cry but i cannot ask anyone to stop. There's no energy left in me for words. I just stare blankly at the drip injecting into me the finishing supply of glucose. A substance injected to give you energy. I am annoyed by its uselessness on me. I am annoyed at mother for not seeing how life has abandoned me, and how this drip gets to make such an obvious show of reflecting my helplessness in its own.

I know i am going to die this time because the excruciating pain in my body has stopped.  As if someone rooted out the pain centres of my body during the black-out, leaving a gentle insensitivity to everything. Now that the pain has gone,  i don't mind death so much. My only question to myself is that why is the clock ticking still?  Why haven't i died already?

As if answering a question,  i see a shadow behind the door. The shadow growing clearer as i try to gaze harder, ignoring the pain in my eye muscles which cannot take a strain of that kind anymore. This final act of putting in all of my strength is worth the effort because I am sure , i can tell apart this shadow, this silhouette against every other shadow in the room. My heart, just some beats away from its final beat goes into an overdrive. There is a frantic beeping of monitors around my bed. The shadow is getting clearer each second. Until i can make out the shoulders, the arms, the neck, the torso, the face. The face in my dreams...
Clear enough for my mind to register. Clear enough for my mind to hang on to the final thought it will ever think : Close enough for my ears to register the most beautiful words that made death more ugly and unacceptable than ever :
''I love you too ''

The last thing i do in this word is hope that cancer drugs are not hallucinogenic
.............................................................................................................................

....

Sometimes you do things,  so terribe in nature, so catastrophic in impact,  that their irreversibility  takes your life to a standstill: where regret and pain are the two parameters which inhibit your mental progress farther into the world of trying ; trying to be acceptable to anyone ever again.

Seeing her lying by his side , holding his finger ever so lightly , his heart swells to an enormous proportion with an emotion so profound that he has to blink away his tears. The tenderness she evoked within him with something as simple as a look or holding of a finger was maybe just the kind of love that lasted beyond the initial bouts of erotic passion in a relationship. The kind of love that stayed when wrinkles marred the  faces and soft, reassuring grip of hands turn into a helpless show of dependency on each other.

His hand shakes as his index finger breaks free of his gently pressed fist and traces the  side of her face. Skin shining like golden honey in the sunlight, soft as a rose petal.

But touching her today hits him with a jolt of guilt so strong that he withdraws his finger lest she should open her eyes feeling him presence. In the early days of their marriage, he used to marvel at the fact how she woke up into a smiling rose each morning, without any impression of tiredness or unflattering puffiness. Even a gentle breath close to her face would wake her up from sleep and she would settle up in bed alert and smiling the next moment. She would make him feel like a king from the moment sun rays from the front window lit up her face. Her every gesture, every word basked in glow of the love they shared.


Theirs was a marriage people called ideal.
When invited to dinner at their friends , they would sit apart from each other. Between the jokes and anecdotes, sometimes he would sneak a look at his pretty wife, who most of the time would be looking back at him. A look that penetrated him like a stab of pleasure. Suddenly, from an ordinary man playing cards with his friends, he became the owner of the most beautiful, the most loving and kind woman in the gathering.

(incomplete)

An ending of my choice.

Corridor meetings and stolen glances were a common occurrence in their four years, together. (Together here, not meaning the companionship but just existing in the same time and institution of two people) They walked past each other quietly and sometimes stayed for a quiet hello. That hello always meant business, with him representing a society or she , asking him if he was interested in fund raising. Having stated the purpose both walked away in resigned acceptance of the fact that they had nothing to say to each other. Like you go near the fountain and immerse your hand in the cool water but are scared to dive head long into the pool beneath.
He was scared to ask her out, scared of the things that could go wrong, scared of the nagging feeling that the quiet surface withheld tremendous storms under it, he was scared to take a dip into a person, he knew, was far more than just surface, scared of the things that could go wrong, of the things he could do wrong, to her.

These unspoken boundaries stayed till the last day he saw her. There were balloons and confetti, there were hats and gowns, and a graduation ceremony. Amidst the crowd was a girl in blue, distinguished in her quietness which was a striking contrast to her shining black eyes.

A temporary look at her, like a fish flashing silver beneath the surface just for a second, made his heart resonate with an impossible frequency.
He could swear she looked back, returning a gaze as intense as his had been but averted his eyes the moment he sensed the heat of her eyes on him. Not yet, he thought.
Cries of mirth changed into neat smiles for the photographs, morning took its steady course down the road to become evening and the ceremony ended.

Under the evening twilight, both of them walked away from the building they had studied in for four years, with two degrees and a profound incompleteness.

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

It was as if she had disappeared. There wasn't a magazine he hadn't read he knew she used to write for. He dutifully attended the fund raisings organized by his old institution but there was no news of her. He even tried to ask the girls he had seen her with but with no success, everybody was just as clueless as he was. Apparently, she did not have any close friends to speak of.

Then one day , over a bottle of wine and some non-addressed love letters, he gave up on her !

His mother wanted him to get married and he wanted a fixed point in his life. The wedding happened in a rush and he came to be content with the woman in his life with time.

Yet a fleeting sensation, like the fleeting glimpse of a face in the crowd mingling into thousands of people the next moment, a thought struck him. No woman would have the refinement of character that she had.
It struck him hard.
Being with her would have been like drawing water from a well whose supply would never end up. He could never get enough of her, everything about her seemed to run so deep into herself. Her thoughts well-reasoned, her choices well-made, she was eccentric and had opinions for her eccentric-ism. It was the biggest appeal for any man in the world, a woman he would not get enough of.

And it had been better than just fantasies for him. She had returned his gaze and most of the time, he was sure he had not imagined it. She had spoken to him in a form of communication some deep recesses in his mind had perceived.

Yet, he had let her gone by. But the scent of that woman had stayed and it rejuvenated each time he drew his wife close to him.  He could catch a whiff in the air of the rose essence she wore with the red dress..when she had asked him about a fund raising for school...or hospital, what was it?

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


I am at the Munich airport waiting for my flight when i see her.
She is an arm-length away from me, this nominal distance between us is satire to the emotional turmoil inside of me. I can extend my hand and pull her in my embrace if i like. Though i am seeing her face after 11 years and a half, it looks like some part of me has always remained stuck there in a world, where she was the woman in my life, where i had wanted to wake up each morning to find her pretty face smiling upto me, her lean arms propped on my tweety-bird pillow, she, in a silken gown of my choice, her aura of pride somewhat receded by the knowledge of our intimacy, that there was someone privy to her deepest secrets, someone who knew about the secret moles on her godly body. Someone who had sipped from the storehouse of passion she hid behind her serene personality...
 All that is my imagination , of course. She is as untouched and preserved as she had been  in another time , and on my part, the desire to conquer her is stronger than before.

I turn to my side as if responding to an invisible, divine call and our eyes entangle.

Tremendous power of a strong gaze cannot be denied.According to Physicists,you can move objects if you focus too hard. Mystics say it is possible to bore holes into your spirit with a glance, you can take life, change someone, make hate, make love.  What she does is , all of them at the same time. There's so much emotion that my knees go weak. I open my mouth to speak but i find myself looking hard at two jet black diamonds embedded in serene white pools, my mouth hanging open like a gaping fish.

You would say I should bridle my thoughts running wild like a mad horse. I have a son and a wife and my heart is brimming with passion for another woman, the one who has no right on me yet challenges all the rights i have given my wife with just a look in my eye. It is not fair to my wife.
It is not fair to the home she has built with me and the beautiful kid she has given me.

But i will tell you something. I haven't been fair to myself either, and i won't be  if i don't go upto her and fall at her feet right now. If i don't hold her and infuse into her what i feel, somehow convert the unspoken words into memories of us.

-There's a woman on the intercom, i cannot hear too clearly but it must be the announcement about the flight i had to take.-

Her lips are curved slightly, at a very vague indication of a very faint smile. I can count the laugh lines.

-I can hear my name being called , a far-away sound, fading, fading..-

Her nose is pert,  and there is a black ring hugging her nose , i wan't to pull it off and kiss the sides of her nose without the uncomfortable feeling of metal against my skin.

-Maybe its my phone buzzing. Maybe its my wife..my wife? What is my wife, next to my life, next to me?-

Her eyes are as resonant as before. But now, there is a seductive touch of sorrow in their depth. I am saddened, not seduced. I want to know what made her sad?

-There's a man  behind me coughing politely-

Her eyes are shifting. The color is draining, the shine is materialising into stony hardness..Her gaze is averted.

-I turn back abruptly. The man behind me points to my phone on the floor. 'Wife calling' flashes on the screen.
A woman, faraway, is calling my attention.
A woman next to me holds my life in her hands

The muscles in the neck are tensed. Her shoulders protracted, head held up high. She is an epitome of elegance even in turmoil.

-' Lets go' Gruff voice from the man behind me.But, the man? Why would he speak to HER like this? There is something like shattering glass..inside my chest-

Her eyes are closed. The oyster has hidden its pearl.
A tear marks a trail across her chiselled cheeks.
A remnant of the pearl, is thrown out of the oyster.

I dive to absorb it in my thumb, i am ready to dive head long into the pool today, unafraid of the consequences.
................................................................................................................

From dance, to love

He had never seen such a dance. His eyeballs swayed with the swift movements of the girl in the navy blue gown. Her movements were graceful, fluid almost. Now and then a hand in the air, the gentle rocking of a bare midriff, an eager display of a seductive toe would set his heart on fire. With each slight move she made, he could feel liquid passion traversing his veins, it was not blood anymore. It was not the world he had known. He was above the world and every petty fight he had fought there. She was now moving in slow circles, her head held up high. A thick black curtain of hair tore the air around her. She did not lift her feet from the ground and went on about, mutely

' what a babe' someone next to him said. One moment of solid fury was followed by reminder of his commitment to himself. ' He swallowed and settled back in the seat. 'I would like to take her home. This one right there'  A drunken voice dulled his senses. There was a loud smack as his hand went flying across the man's cheek.

Impulse had beaten reason. Heart  had beaten  mind.''Son of a --''

Fuming, he sat there contended and still. He did not move even when two important looking officers came upto him with furious eyes. Did not say a word when they dragged him along.

He was back after a slight discourse with the policemen. There was a cigarette in his mouth emitting grey bursts of smoke in the already dull surroundings. Dull, except for the girl dancing in the middle of the stage..

And boy, she was a thing of beauty.Her hair which covered her back occasionally gave way to reveal a tiny waist whenever she turned around. She seemed to defy the laws of gravity as she floated and glided across the floor , sometimes inching her hips forward, shoulders backward like a fashion model. In the next moment her gait would be untrained yet elegant like that of a woman in desert looking for water.There was opera playing in the background but he was sure that her dainty feet would be making no sound even in the absence of this music. He did not know long this show would last, but he could sit there till the end of his life and just look at her dance. Scattered bits of information, incidences from childhood, all the tragedies life had inflicted upon him and the crimes he had committed,   took places in his mind like soldiers queuing up for a battle. Slowly and gently, on the surface of his troubling thoughts was laid a smooth layer of calm and peace. He did not hurt anymore. The bleeding in his heart had stopped. Her dance had done what years of yoga training and meditation could not do for him.

The bowing of her gentle form represented his willingness for the evil. Her delicate hand undulating  in the air reflected his journey with its ups and downs. The to-and-fro rocking of her body but represented his oscillation between right and wrong, good and evil. The lifting of that delicate face infused into him the hope of a better tomorrow. All his troubles had been recognized, owned and explained. Soon,  the dull ache in his heart was lightened as she danced to give expression to his pain.

It could have been hours, or a few minute, for him time had flown like sand from an open palm and at the same time he had experienced an eternity of longing and loving.
 There was to be a next dancer. The girl in the navy blue dress had to make her way out of the stage. He, RAN like a maniac. His jacket and muffler flying about him. He wanted her. He wanted her at any cost life had to ask of him. Running as fast as his legs could carry him, trampling over a chair twice , he had now reached the stage. He could see her. Make out the gentle curves of her elegant form much more clearly now. He did not know her name, he did not need to. Some communications demand a childlike impulsiveness. He held the hem of her gown like a child and tugged with a little jerk. The world froze in the next moment when she turned around to face him. No one inhabited the planet except them. And this girl could be the God of the universe for all he knew. She made love to him in a deep, penetrating glance. Her smile purified his heart which was the heart of a monster.  And the whole world, if they could read the deep secrets inside the hearts of people would understand that why there stood a killer , a kidnapper, a merciless man , at the feet of a dancer in an ordinary theatre.

Sky had something to say about this because precisely at that moment, a falling star made a kid in the audience pray. ' I want a fairytale to happen'. The kid must have asked.

For right in front of her, there happened one.

 And they danced their way to love as the brown, artistic fingers of a goddess found the white,manly fingers of a criminal.

The man with the steel lunch box

Rain is splashing against the windows of the college bus i am sitting in. I am on the corner seat and friendless. Ear-splitting rock music is giving me the feeling of being detached from everything before my eyes. I can see the lips moving, the girls laughing, the driver occasionally turning back to inform the passengers of their destination , all in a mute fashion. That is when i see a middle-aged man with astonishing blue eyes coming in. My eyes that had been lazily scanning the scene uptill now are alert. His deep blue eyes warrant attention.

I take off the ear phones to blend in with the surroundings. The tap-tap of the rain is melody to my peace-deprived ears.

He sits to the left of my seat. In this part of the world where  i live, men and women avoid physical contact with each other as much as they can. You will never see any public demonstration of affection between the two sexes . The routine practice for any man, if the only vacant seat in a bus is beside a woman, would be to keep standing. Hence, It is natural that he maintains his distance.

Having found a new interest, i forget everything altogether and start studying him. There are many people in the bus but there is something about him that sets him apart. He is unique, distinguished almost and the fact that i am unable to give a precise name to his aura is annoying me. Maybe explaining his appearance will help.

He is a fair man with hair neatly pulled back and parted on the left side. His cotton shalwar kameez, though clean, looks like it has seen more years of display than it was made for. His peshawari-chappal ( common footwear for men in Pakistan) shines outstandingly . Mother once said that if you want to assess the true personality of a person, look at his shoes. She did not mean which brand of course. She is a simple woman with simple criteria of good and bad, and according to her if someone doesn't have a speck of dust on his shoes, he is a very well-mannered person and i should not be hesitant to befriend such nice people at school. I remember rubbing my shoes vigorously with shoe polish since that day, for a long time and the 'shoe-indicator of someone's personality' served as a useful tool to choose which people i should be polite with. According to this long-forgotten rule, this man still falls in the category of a gentleman. He is unaware of my askew glances and goes on looking about and around.  I look more closely and find him holding an orange polythene bag of an economical bakery in lahore, And in that bag is a steel-lunch box. Any moment now, i know, he would take this lunch box out and take a peek at its contents.

My study of human behaviour enables me to reach the right conclusions and my hunch is once again testified as he takes out the lunch box and does exactly that. His nails are neatly trimmed. (Another hygienic habit mother stresses upon) He smiles and what a genuine smile it is! So much more different from the girls smiling around me. So much more meaningful than just the lifting of corners of one's mouth.

Exactly at the same moment, As if feeling my intense gaze on him finally, as if replying to the attention he was being given, he turns his head towards me and his smile freezes. I find the answers to all my musings about him in that one moment i can never recapture. His eyes, dripped with an energy, a positive energy, a shine , a sparkle that was a bigger compliment to his face than the astounding blue color of his eyes. I have never seen such happy eyes and such a happy smile except those from the new born babies. In that one moment of absolute silence where all i could hear was the tapping of the rain against me and beating of two hearts, it dawned upon me that he was in love.

In love with a wife who had beautified his existance beyond his resources. A wife who cleaned his shoes each morning until the shining clean surface reflected her face. A wife who cooked for him and packed his lunch each morning despite being tired after a pleasurable night of mindless wanderings.

And there between us, in the single moment of eye-contact and ever since then, has existed a connection. A connection between the understanding and the understood. A connection no less frail than an autum leave with its dried up branch.

But a connection none the less.

For me he is someone looking at whom makes me believe in love.

For him, i am someone ...someone who understands.

I am sure he wants his true love to be immortal. I want to make him immortal with this writing he would never read.

I want to tell him that his aura has been given words and his capacity to love, recognised.

Winter sets in

• 22 October 2011 . A dark , fierce night in Pakistan.
  

• The transition time between winter and summer has arrived. The goodbye-summer-air is pregnant with winter. Soaking up the hustle and bustle which is characteristic of summer, and the beads of sweat on the faces, and the violent tempers which are hibernating. Though for a shorter period than frogs do. But still hibernating.
• Weather has an undeniable impact on moods and people. I make an observation and store it in the back of my mind where it finds its place between the unasked questions, doubts , many x-rated , criminal and some holier-than-thou thoughts.I am walking with my hands in the pockets of my jeans, rolling around the hundred-rupee-note in my dried up palm. The sky is clear of any clouds and the moon is luminous and round. Round like the mehendi-design girls decorate on their palms before eid-day or for wedding occassions. I have a habit of drawing numerous tiny stars around the periphery. But moon isn't like that. It's lone. Stars are scattered and moon is there like leader of a scattered army.It's how reality is different from imagination. In imagination , you have the power to create the world of your liking. In reality, someone else has that power, or shares that power with you. That is why reality isn't perfect. Because the people you share it with have a different idea of perfect. Like, not everyone would want the stars to be aligned in a perfect circle around the moon. They may prefer the scattered arrangement, If we sit together ,and, suppose, have the power to re-decorate the sky, we will disagree on arrangement of stars. We will probably draw half a rim around the circle and rest of the stars will be scattered. A whole picture which contains 50 percent of my picture and 50 percent of someone else's picture. An imperfect, compromised, distorted reality. And an ugly sky.
• A little stone in the way brings me back to 'reality'. It isn't cold so it does't hurt. My toe i mean. Winter has just begun to settle in. Like an airplane which makes circles before it lands and hovers feet above the ground. Winter hovers over ground. It's cold clammy  wings impatient to drape the whole city in its embrace. There's life on the streets. A life less lively than it had been in the summer but a life none the less. There's a couple standing outside the glass-door of a small coffee shop. And motorbikes. And cars, very few of them. Rich and poor cars. Old and new cars. Happy and sad cars. There's an old man walking like his weight is too much to carry for himself. He's dragging himself on the road in a mechanical way. There's a cigar in his mouth emitting thick wisps of smoke which blur the clear transpernt atmosphere like the grey-ghost-images they show on tv. The door to the shop closes as a young boy with a pack of cigarettes walks out of it. With casualness of his age, and awareness of his rebellious-yet-cool attitude, he acknowledges the presence of the old man with a curt nod and changes his way. The suffocating silence between an old, mechanical dad and his young rebellious-yet-cool son is interrupted with the voice of laughter coming from the couple standing in front of the glass door. Hands in Hands now. The guy breathes close to the glass , leaving fog on the glassdoor and makes a heart on it with his index finger. The girl giggles aloud and puts slanting I and U around the heart. Both Merry. The guy , bald, looking a little too uncomfortable in his cooler-than-himself tshirt. The girl, plump , with deep dimples in her cheeks and a dark, fierce complexion. Both with imperfect noses but perfect harmony. Merry looking but not lovely . Not lovely but made-for-each other. When they walk towards their car in absolute harmony. Their old and poor car becomes Happy .Happy and unaware of the rich, new car in which wisdom shakes his head, takes out a cigar from his mouth and dabs absent-mindedly at the corners of his old wrinkled eyes.On the roads of Lahore..A happy, poor and old car is followed by a sad , rich and new car leaving behind thick wisps of smoke which dance in the clear, transparent atmosphere like the grey-ghost-images on tv.
• Leaving me quite lonely on a road in middle of the night.  I chose 'lonely' because quite alone doesn't sound right. Otherwise, i believe there's a world of difference between the meanings. Alone is when you choose to be by yourself. Lonely is when you are left out and you feel bad about it. I prefer the 'alone' version of being by myself always. But there's a truth between me and you that anyone, and Everyone, mind it, who chooses to be alone, and takes refuge in his own company has once ..been out in the world too openly, has been too trusting but was disappointed with what he got. He adopted this lifestyle like a natural survival instinct, the self-defence mechanism , when reliance on the external sources didn't quite work out, he has taken to his inner life. He prefers his perfect imagination to the comprosmised, distorted and ugly reality he would have to share with someone else. Like a snail goes inside its shell to protect itself.
• We, human beings, take after the simplest , the most ordinary of animals in many ways. Another thought finds its way between the rich,happy,sad thoughts of my brain and becomes indistinguishable, like the slanting I and U of the plump girl after the fog removed the moist trail of her fingertips on the glassdoor. 
• And The winter sets in, on a dark fierce night in Lahore as i count the scattered stars on a bitter-sweet sky
  

The tale of Habiba - chapter 1

 March 20, 2012

I am soooo happppy !!! For two reasons, first , i am 12 years old now and second,  i got such  a beautiful notebook as a gift from my Besttt frienddd on my birthday! It's so special. I had always thought of owning something so beautiful. It is so rich-looking and has leather on its cover , a tag for me to write my name on and a nice little lock with a key! Now how awesome is that. I am so happy i feel i will never feel sad again. And even if i do, i won't be sad much because i will have this beautiful little book to write in.  I will write tomorrow though. There is so much cleaning to do and i have to help mother because she has a headache. We should always help mothers when they are sick.

March 21, 2012
My full name is Habiba Baloch, i belong to Balochistan but live in Karachi, the biggest city of Pakistan. My dwelling is in a humble location , very poor infact. It's the place called 'Lyari' . The people here are so poor, so poor, they wear tattered clothes and broken sandals, kids play naked and they have runny noses. I am a kid too, but i don't have a runny nose EVER! My mother who is otherwise a very kind woman slaps me hard if i look displeasing to her eye. I have to keep myself clean always. Not that my clothes are all that pretty! I do own some nice frocks (which were given to my mother by the 'baji' at her job)  But even they are old and worn out from overuse. This is a heartrending situation for a girl like me who wants to become a queen someday and glide across a hallway in a beautiful silk gown . But my grandmother tells me that even though i don't possess all these beautiful things i want to own, i am a very nice girl , her 'shehzadi' , and that i am more beautiful than any princess in this world. I don't believe her though, but i don't say that i don't believe her because it will be like accusing someone so respectable of lying and father will slap me hard for it. no, no i should not say mean things like that and i want to believe her. I want to be prettier than all the princesses in this world and i am not very hopeless in this regard. Sometimes when everyone is sleeping, i steal the liberty of the moment to go check myself in the old mirror, the only one, in the house that hangs by the wall beside the bed side of my mother. I take care to place my steps very gently so that noone gets to know what i am doing. If grandmother wakes up she will tell me off for being so immodest  ( on account of seeking pleasure in my looks) and i don't want to upset her. I take furtive glances at myself in the old mirror and they are enough to make me happy. I have an olive-tan complexion but very nice eyes. They are so large and the other day the shopkeeper whom i go to for sweets told me that i had the best smile and the best eyes in the world! Now with grandmother saying that i am the prettiest girl and the shopkeeper telling me the same things, its hard to feel less than pleased with myself. I do thank God though. I don't want to appear conceited and immodest like grandmother fears i would feel.
It's wrong to feel conceited or proud, grandmother tells me that God puts you in hell if you are immodest to his people.  I am very scared of ordinary fire, to demonstrate the terror of hell she tells me that its many, many times hotter than this fire we have on Earth. I find it kind of funny. How can a fire be hotter? But when i asked grandmother this, she told me that i should stay shut because God knows best and i should not raise meaningless questions lest God should take offence.
Its like, everything i say connects to the wrath of God. I am so scared of God, so much. Of lately, i don't even enjoy my private friendly conversation with God because i try to think so hard for the right words and the way to say them that i get tired. And once i am tired, i drift to sleep like honeybees drift to a flower. I do remember to say my prayers though, those are in Arabic and those are easy to say because i know them all by heart.
Its the time i am writing about. I mean its night time and it is so appropriate that i should be talking about my night routine before mothers come to switch off my lights and make me say my prayers.  Here, i think she has come. I should pretend to be lying down and concentrating on prayers, though i don't want to go mind you. I just want to keep on writing..and never stopping . Oh God , Here she comes, Here she comes!