The Four Seasons

SPRING

Usman picked himself up with some effort from his warm bed. It took him a lot of effort to do anything these days. A comfortable lethargy had set into his life, the sort that comes with the knowledge that any serious responsibility is still years away. There were no real life pressures as yet, he still received monthly allowance from his parents, and he worked a freelance job alongside his Masters degree.
The extra funds allowed him to live comfortably, if not lavishly, he had no urgent need of anything, and when necessity is absent, initiative sees no reason to hang around. He was not an ambitious man, the simple pleasures were quite enough for him. An outing once a month, an occasional feast, a room full of books, a few close friends and a videogame as a relaxant, he could not see too many reasons for complaint.

He had just moved to this city, he didn’t have a lot of friends here, but met a few people who seemed nice enough. He was still in the process of getting to know them and was negotiating the awkward phase where neither is sure if they are a fit, but are giving it a try anyhow. One girl in particular had held his attention from the first day, he definitely connected with her, but past experiences with quick connections had made him cautious and he repeatedly reminded himself not to read into it too much.

Having completed the daily formalities of bathing and brushing his teeth, making himself look mildly presentable, he contemplated what to do for the day. He had no classes that day, and the work had been light that week, he did not have any immediate plans, which is just as he liked it. He decided to take a walk around the neighbourhood and brainstorm for ideas to add to his poetry collection. He wrote poems as a hobby, an amateur undertaking at best, but recently had begun increasing his output as a result of all the time he had on his hands.

The world outside carried on in its usual hustle and bustle, and they remained as ignorant of his presence as he of theirs. He covered ground quickly with his long, loping steps, walking to the cheerful sonatas of Mozart. Two kilometres and four cigarettes later, he still had no concrete ideas, and he gave up and turned back towards his house. Fixing himself a quick meal, he settled into his bed and watched eight episodes of The Simpsons, his favourite television show. He would have been quite content to continue in that vein for the rest of the day, but a call from his new friends put an end to that plan. They were going out for a night of drinking and dancing, and he was to accompany them. Stifling a groan, he got up and got dressed, walking down to their house, in the next lane from his, he met them with his customary jokes and quips which were so amusing to new acquaintances and which got old so very quickly. The night turned out to be quite a riot, the group had just the right amount of crazy in them to win his respect. He sat next to his potential love interest all night, and they had a wonderful and stimulating conversation on a wide variety of subjects, ranging from the farcical to the absolutely profound. The dancing went on late into the night, by the end of which he banished his caution to the deeper recesses of his mind and admitted to himself his obvious attraction to her.


SUMMER

Life went on along the same lines for the next few months, his bond with his friends deepened and his attraction to the girl grew more concrete. She and he shared an understanding that immediately elevated their friendship to a level far above anything he had experienced before. It didn’t go unnoticed, and before long he was on the receiving end of much good natured teasing within his circle. Never one to back down from a good laugh, he joined in and had many a fun nights playing along to their theories.
A lot of truth is said in jest, however, and before long he confessed his feelings to her and they became a couple.

Usman spent these days whistling, listening to The Beatles profess their love, and dancing in his room whenever he found himself alone. Almost every evening was spent with his friends. His quick wit and sarcasm made him an instant hit at parties, his love of reading won him the respect of his teachers and he was the beneficiary of a particularly good deal on an apartment, which he shortly moved into. The apartment was rather large for its price range and commanded a view of three different streets from different points in the house. He spent many hours staring out the windows at the busy Indian streets during the daytime and staring at the twinkling stars at night.  His writing had reduced, but he did not mind, because his world was filled with people amongst whom he felt appreciated, and he was having fun. Life seemed to be on track and he was just along for the ride.

During this phase of his life, Usman was full of plans for the future, which seemed to hold for him unlimited potential. He changed his mind often, almost from day to day, and in his companions he found a group supportive of his fanciest whims. He thought of learning how to play the guitar, learning martial arts, writing a play, writing a novel. Every day he would think of a new idea, and discuss it, and every day they would nod approvingly and discuss the pros and cons of the undertakings in question. None of these plans ever materialized, but that did not seem to matter.

 His relationship with his girlfriend too deepened into a solid bond. They shared everything with each other, talking for hours on end, whilst walking hand in hand down the streets or lying side by side in bed.
He found her a wonderful partner, they shared many common interests and the conversations never seemed to run out of steam. This was the first relationship he had had where it did not take a monumental effort on his part to keep the peace. He was a man of many eccentricities, of this he was aware, however they did not seem all that bad when he was with her.

All in all, Usman decided he was happy with his decision to move cities, and looked forward to years of fun and frolic. He also considered, in the long term, the possibility of settling down with his girlfriend.

AUTUMN

The first cracks, however, began to appear soon after. It began with the city itself. It was a lazy city, still in its adolescent stages. It hadn’t yet grown into a metropolitan which necessitated the evolution of the populace into the hardy, competitive type. People always had the time for a chat in the middle of the road, no one seemed in any hurry, even the office going population seemed casual and laid back about their work. All this suited him fine. However, he had immediately upon arrival felt a disconnect with the culture. One that only deepened with time. He had come from a city of lazy geniuses into a city of lazy laymen. His past had been filled with people who were lazy and content with the knowledge that they excelled in their respective fields and thus did not bother expending too much effort in its execution. Here he found a people that were content with the knowledge that they knew or excelled at nothing and did not bother expending too much effort into changing that state of being. A subtle difference, but one that was immediately apparent.

As is usually the case, these differences did not come to the fore immediately. However, gradually, as he got to know his friends and the city around him on a deeper level, the casual attitude towards mediocrity began to rankle. It was all well and good for a person to be ignorant of a subject as common and relevant as world history, but then to profess pride in that ignorance was one step too far for Usman to bear. He felt alienated by this acceptance of ignorance, and he was not a person who dealt with alienation well. Repeated rejections and betrayals in his past had hardened Usman into a stubborn, opinionated man, who did not appreciate the necessity for diplomacy when speaking one’s mind. If faced with a mindset not to his liking, his usual recourse was to mock and jibe at the person in question with relentless sarcasm with copious amounts of snobbishness. A one off case would have been forgiven, but these situations seemed to arise with increasing frequency as the days went by. His friends began to get uncomfortable around him and repeatedly advised him to tone it down. It was far too ingrained a habit for him, however, and the well intentioned advice to the contrary only served to aggravate his feelings of alienation and misunderstanding. He began brooding in silence often isolating himself in the midst of a party, listening to Beethoven rage at his ears with his fantastic, angst filled melodies.

His girlfriend too, patient as she was with his idiosyncrasies, began to show frustration at his lack of tact and uncompromising nature. His conversations with her had morphed from stimulating debates about musical and literary geniuses into long, whining rants about the sheep mentality of the people of the city and the lack of initiative on the part of the people to educate themselves about what he considered “proper art”. Nothing was exempt from his criticism, from the food at restaurants, to the music played at clubs, to the books available at the bookstore. His girlfriend tried waiting it out, hoping the choppy waters would calm down soon and that he would return to his original self, but the possibility had begun to occur to her that maybe this was his original self and it had taken this long for it to come out.

WINTER

Usman was not unintelligent; he could see how his tirades were affecting his relationships with those around him. Often, at night, while staring at the stars, he would chide himself for his pigheadedness and resolve to calm himself down the next time he faced a similar situation. However, the next time would inevitably turn out to be identical to the last, if not worse, and his friends’ patience began to run out. His girlfriend and him had their first big fight, a four hour long back and forth that was meant to reveal and appropriately deal with the problems, but never quite achieved that goal. Usman walked back home that night, his mind a tumult of thoughts, his heart of emotions. He did not have any intention of repeating the same cycle of forced amiability in a crowd in which he was not welcome. He had seen those situations through to the end, and none of them ended nicely. His mind’s over eager self preservation instincts kicked into gear and he decided to distance himself from them, before they could do it to him. He couldn’t quite bring himself to distance himself from his girlfriend; his feelings for her remained too strong. But the rest of them, they could be handled.

He began by reducing his visits to their house, going there only when no excuse was forthcoming and if his girlfriend was coming too. The friends seemed only too happy at this turn of events, and Usman took this as confirmation that his decision was the right one and it stiffened his resolve. His evenings, suddenly free, allowed him to resume his voracious reading and he restarted his creative exercise and began writing poems and short stories again. He craved conversations, he craved verbal stimulation, but he convinced himself that books and television shows could provide him with all the stimulation he needs if he gives them enough time. He became more and more of a recluse, shutting himself in his room for days on end, only emerging to eat and then retreating back into his shell. He stopped taking calls, sometimes went without human contact for days on end. He would read a book a day, then contemplate its meaning, have discussions with himself, and come to a conclusion in his own head. The only evidence the outside world had of these mental ramblings were the occasional cryptic SMS’es he sent to a select few friends. His nights were spent listening to the desolation in the music of Erik Satie.

His seclusion did allay his fears of rejection from his friends, after all in this case it was he who was rejecting them and not vice versa, but it had a side effect which he did not foresee. Even the most sympathetic and understanding companions have a saturation point, and after his moody episodes, his girlfriend found his intermittent disappearances too much to handle and one day called him to let him know that their relationship was over. Somewhere, Usman had known this was coming, its arrival nevertheless was a thunderbolt. She was his last remaining friend in this city, he now found himself completely alone in a city he abhorred, and the two years he still had to spend here seemed to stretch out in front of him for eternity. He glanced up at the sky and immediately identified himself with the lone star, twinkling within full view of the world, and yet completely and utterly alone.

The Diary

Azaan walked into his house whistling a tune from the Beatles. He was always humming The Beatles’ songs when he was having a good day. The songs had a way of making it better.

He was a man of large stature, 6’3”, fair complexion, bald, with a slight paunch protruding from under his tucked in formal shirt. He was a jovial sort, perfectly willing to let the world do its deeds and misdeeds as long as he was left out of it. His eyes had crinkly edges, the mark of a man who is easily pleased. He worked a simple job as an English editor, wrote some amateur poetry on the side, and believed that a good life constituted of nothing more than good food, good books and good company. He also believed good books were good company.

But there was one person for whom he would abandon all the books and all the food in the world.
One person who could silence his smile forever with just a look, and conversely light up his world when everything seemed to be falling apart. As is always the case, such powers were born by a member of the feminine race.

She was everything to him. He liked a book only after he discussed it with her, until then he was opinionless. A meal was tasty only if she sat across the table, giggling at his expressions of ecstasy.
And without her constant conversation and stimulation, he had no qualms admitting he would hardly be a writer of any worth, even in his own eyes.

He stared at her pictures for a while. He did this often when she was not around. Her cheery features seemed to give him endless reasons to laugh. The very same photo brought the very same smile to his lips today just as it had the first time he had set his eyes upon her.

Azaan was happier than usual today. Today his most treasured dream, and so also the dream he was most vulnerable to, had come true. Today his angelic wife called him up to tell him he was going to be a father. And to a baby girl no less!

He had always had dreams of holding his baby girl in his lap. Little Haya, gurgling and drooling nonsensically while her overjoyed father spouted equally nonsensical gibberish back at her, with his wonderful wife watching them with proud tears in her smiling eyes.

 He set his laptop down, walked down the hallway into the bedroom. Blew a flying kiss to the bed, that sacred bed, where his love for his soul mate had now made the leap from an overwhelming emotion into a tiny bundle of biology. Fond memories of their intimacy raced through his head now and he began to miss the feel of her skin.

He lay on the bed, staring at the empty space where she would lay curled up. He looked past it to the side-stand and noticed a leatherbound notebook lying there. He had never seen it before. Curiosity rising, he picked up the notebook and opened to the first page. It was her diary! Azaan, to the best of his knowledge, had never heard her mention a diary to him, and they told each other everything. Every inch of his body was aching to read what she had written in this, her most private refuge, private even from him, her life partner. And man, as history has shown, seldom has the will power to resist temptations as inviting as this.

He began to read.

It began simply enough, a description of her day, how she had stayed home sick, how her head ached so bad, she could neither read nor listen to anything and  how without books or music she suddenly missed him. (Azaan here felt a huge surge of pride and love for his beloved)

Another entry described how she had gone to the carnival and binged on cotton candy. Her delight at winning a carnival game for the first time in her life, her embarrassment at tearing up when she received a stuffed toy version of Garfield, her favourite comic. Azaan had no recollection of this day, but he could well imagine her expression and childish delight, and he congratulated himself on his decision to read the diary. These reminiscences brought him great pleasure and a unique insight into his wife’s mind, a mind that held an aura of wisdom for him.

Another entry, this one describing the romantic weekend they spent on their anniversary in Gokarna.
They had…

Azaan frowned. For the life of him, he could not remember having gone on any such vacation. For a wild second he imagined it must be his wife noting down fictional days which she had dreamt up in her head and wrote as secret wishes in her diary. But as he reread the entries, he realised they were filled with too many mundane, unimportant details to be a work of fiction. And they were detailed with dates and times. Precise itineraries. A later entry even had the ticket attached.

Azaan was aware of a sinking feeling somewhere near the pit of his stomach. He hurriedly read on, hoping to make sense of it. Here were detailed accounts of a very busy life that his wife had apparently been leading right under his nose with him completely in the dark. There was no mention of him in most of the  entries, whole days that she had described as the most important, the most treasured, the most cherished days of her life, and he had no knowledge of them. Azaan stood there reeling. If she could keep such a wealth of information secret from him, who knows what else she could be hiding?

He ran to her cupboard and started going through her stuff, an invasion of privacy he would have found repulsive on any other day. He stopped cold, holding up a pair of men’s trousers two sizes too small to fit him. He could not believe it. Today, on the day he received the news of his simple, unambitious life, he was also being forced to realise his greatest fear. His wife was having an affair.

His trust in her had been blind, he would have listened to anything she said, and he never questioned anything she did. And she knew it. That vile, filthy, conniving woman knew it and she took every advantage of it. Azaan had been a slave to her, but he was happy in his slavery. Now he bristled with all the anger of a circus animal suddenly finding itself free of its cage and finding itself face to face with its tormentor. He would teach her a lesson. He would make her suffer tenfold for every ounce of pain that now poisoned his insides. He would…

Azaan’s morbid contemplations were cut short by a bloodcurdling shriek. He would recognise that voice anywhere. He turned to see her standing in front of him, hands clamped over her mouth, eyes wide open in fear. She was quivering, shrinking, backing away. All the classic signs of guilt. She wasn’t even going to deny her guilt, not that he would give her the chance.

“Why… How…?”

 Azaan’s words came out strangled and tortured. He could barely understand himself.
The turmoil in his mind was apparent in his speech and the words hung there in the room as they both appraised each other, waiting to see what the other would do.

“How could you do this to us, to our child, to little Haya?”

The question seemed to put more fear in her. She backed away even more, watching him closely, as if she sensed the murderous rage in him.
Azaan took a step towards her. She bolted.

Quick as a feline, she ran down the corridor and locked herself in the guest bedroom. Azaan banged on the door, pleading her to talk to him, to explain where it had all gone wrong, when she had ceased to love him, when their relationship had grown tiresome enough for her to even contemplate infidelity.

“Get out of here, please! Please, I beg you, don’t hurt me.”

There was desperation in her voice. It infuriated Azaan even more. After all she had done to him, she was playing the victim. Every moment that passed served to bewilder Azaan more and more. The last hour was playing out like those nightmares where everything that could go wrong, does go wrong. Only, there was no waking up from this one.

“I’m calling the police, leave right now! Get out of my house!”

Azaan began hurling himself at the door. It would not budge, it was one of those old fashioned heavy wooden doors. His efforts merely earned him bruises, the door remained unmoved. However the sound of him crashing into the door did draw fresh screams from the “victim” inside.

He heard her frantically asking the police for help. His own wife. Azaan shook his head in disbelief.
He paced around in the hallway, trying to calm himself down. He sat on the sofa, stared straight ahead at the coffee table lying in front of him. When had they bought this table? Azaan could not remember, everything was fuzzy to him now.

He got up, suddenly feeling very out of place. He was having trouble remembering anything, the room looked strange to him. These books, he had never seen them before. Who was that man in the photos with his wife? Who were those kids? Why were there toys lying around the house?

As he searched around, he could see no evidence of his photos with his wife. All the photos seemed to have her with strange men, and strange kids. Had he not seen these very same photos just an hour ago? Was he not the one standing with her then? What was happening?

The police van arrived, the policemen ignored his protests about his right to demand a warrant before letting the police into his house.
 They handcuffed him and escorted him to the van. He glimpsed his wife peeking frightenedly out of the bedroom window. There was only fear in here eyes, no love, no sympathy. Just fear.

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“He was a mental patient, ma'am, and was missing for the past six months. He had stalked you for these six months, building up a whole fantasy in his head about living a life with you. He stole money, food, electronics, clothes from people who he imagined to be like himself. Dressed himself impeccably everyday and travelled the city in the guise of an editor, happily married to you.”

The inspector looked upon her with sympathetic eyes, understanding just how scary it must seem to her.

“He had entered your house through an open window, made copies of your keys, and used to stay at your house everyday when you and your husband left for work and your children left for school. And he made sure to leave before any of you arrived. Today, he imagined you had informed him that he was going to father a baby daughter.”

“My God!”

“Does the name Haya ring a bell?”

“That’s my daughter’s name!”

“Exactly, he knew all about your life, your family, and he incorporated the details into his own life, creating a whole fantasy in his head. He said the last six months were the happiest of his life.”

“So he told you he made it up?”

“No ma'am, he still believes it is all real, and is very confused about what actually transpired.”

“Then how do you know all the details?”

The inspector held up a leatherbound notebook, identical in every manner to the one she had in her bedroom, but marked with the initials A.A.

“Mr. Azaan Ahmed kept a diary.” 

Jack and Jill

“Jack, I’m really thirsty.”

Jack looked around to see his little sister down on her knees a few meters behind him. Her face was flushed and sweat dripped off the tip of her nose and her body shuddered with each rasping breath.

“I can’t go on for much longer, we must find some water and some shade.”

“I know, little sister. Just a little further now, Old Man’s hill is just around the corner. We can sit in the shade and drink as much water as we like.”

“All right, then,” Jill said, “we might as well get it over with.”

Jack and Jill Flanagan were the two surviving members of the Flanagan clan, which had started out with a merry crowd of two grandparents, the father, the mother and eight children. Poverty, disease and freak accidents had cleared out their little house with surprising efficiency. Jack and Jill, twins, had no living relatives before they hit the age of ten.  They found work in a workshop some distance from their home and the travel to and fro each day took them a total of six hours. On some lucky days they were able to hitch a ride on the back of a bullock cart. As kids, these days came far more frequently. But now they’d grown into adults and few were willing to lend a helping hand to a couple of rowdy looking peasants on a deserted road.

Jack often dreamt of working elsewhere, somewhere close to home, a job which promised adventure, travels and of course, lots of money. But the workshop was all he knew. Those dreams were never to penetrate the thick cloud of gloom that was reality. And he couldn’t leave Jill behind at any cost. She was his lifeblood, his support system. His strenuous days of monotonous work passed by far more easily because she was by his side.  Whenever he felt in need of strength, he turned to look at her, hard at work, her nose crinkled in concentration. That crinkly nose he loved so much.


They’d reached the foot of Old Man’s hill, and holding each other’s hands, they started the steep climb reluctantly.

“This darned hill seems to get larger and larger every time we cross it,” Jill remarked crossly.

“It’s just the same as ever, sister.  And think how much sweeter the water tastes after the climb.”

Jill did not think of it in terms remotely as cheerful as that. She did not possess the strength mentally or physically to withstand the trials that life had set her way. She had just as many ambitious dreams as her brother, but she guarded them more jealously and was more disappointed when they wouldn’t materialise. Her daily treks to the workshop and back, the continuous drone that is the life of a poor person, the small hut that they lived in all their lives, the meagre portions of food they had to make do in, all these factors weighed heavily on her mind. She felt a scream building inside of her, but she did not give it expression out of consideration for Jack.

Jack. Noble, wonderful Jack. Always cheerful, always polite, always willing to lend a helpful hand. He would go about his day’s work as cheerfully as a dog that has a full stomach and a whole strange city to explore. Worries didn’t seem to affect him, he looked at problems as “challenges” and misfortune as “opportunities”. His cheerfulness made Jill even more sullen in contrast. She was jealous of his ability to go through life unfazed. Ironically, she was the reason he was able to do so.

Jack would always be by her side, chatting away with maddening consistency, hardly drawing breath. Praising her, praying for her, helping her whenever she faltered. He ensured he was always around so that she may always have his support in times of need, but it also resulted in any chance of her finding love being stifled out. Jack was immensely respected in the workshop, and all the workers looked at him as their brother, and so by extension, Jill was their little sister. She still shuddered at the memory of the rugged, handsome Corey Williamson  telling her that in his eyes she will always be a baby. Jill had cried for hours that night, unbeknownst to Jack.



Jill looked up at the hill, they were not even halfway there, her legs began to give way.
“Oh, what’s the point Jack? We trek up here every day, drink as much as we can, and then all the good is undone by the long walk home.”

“But there is cold water waiting for us at home too, is there not?”

“Must our life be an endless cycle of walking and drinking?”

“There is so much more to life than that, little sister, we always have each other,” Jack said, cheerfully. He bent down and picked Jill up and began to carry her up the hill so that she may rest awhile.

“Don’t do that. I am capable of walking myself.”

“You look tired, I can carry you for a while. What are big brothers for?”

Jill muttered an answer under her breath which must not have been meant for Jack’s ears.
Her brother’s love suffocated her. He was always waving his hand, dismissing her worries and her complaints as trivial matters, not to be bothered about. Life for him was a breeze, and he expected her to flutter along with him just as effortlessly.

They made good progress for the next half hour, Jill silent and brooding, Jack whistling a merry tune.
Very soon they reached the well and Jack immediately dropped his pail into the well to retrieve some much needed refreshment. He sang and smiled at Jill as he pulled on the rope, brought the bucket to her and allowed her the first drink.

“Here you go. Now taste that manna and tell me it isn’t heavenly.”

It tasted like dirt to Jill. She was angry, angrier than she would have been if it were only the day’s events that troubled her. No, it was far deeper than that. The hard life had scarred her, and her quibbles had built up over time into a towering wall of menace and resentment that did not allow for the meek rays of happiness to pervade. The very water she had just drunk seemed to boil within her. She did not deserve this life, no one did.

“Let’s go, little sister. Home is where the heart belongs,” said Jack, drawing on his unending stream of clichéd phrases that so infuriated Jill.

He walked away to the path which led down to their village and just as he turned to check on his sister, he felt a push. Down the side of the mountain he fell, branches, leaves, rocks hurtled past him faster than he could react. Ten meters down and he hit the first branch, scratching his face, he cried out in anguish, but it hardly slowed his fall. Another few meters down the hill and a rock jutting out from the cliff struck his head, his head split open immediately, and Jack lay there, dead.

Jill watched her brother fall to his death with a curious expression on her face. A more observant viewer might even have ventured to say there was a hint of a smile on her face. It was the first time in her life she had broken the monotony. The first time she did not know what would happen next. The first time her life didn’t stretch out before her as a vast desert with nothing but an arid landscape to meet her eyes. She felt freedom for that one day, aged 19, and she fell in love with it instantly. No more would she work at the wretched workshop. No more would she return to her tiny home with the broken bed and the dirty dishes. No more would she have to endure Jack’s false cheeriness, his whistling, his casual dismissal of her woes and his horrendous clichés. She was her own woman now. She was free.

She looked down at Jack one more time, and then, whistling happily a song from her childhood,
 stepped over the edge and came tumbling after. 

The Unfortunate Woman

“Some must cry in order that the rest may laugh more heartily.”-Unknown

The Unfortunate Woman

There are some unfortunate souls whose lives cannot be described better by the use of any other word than unfortunate. They come into this world crying, and being a particularly unimaginative sort of folk, they stick to the process and portray the same emotion for the rest of their lives. Their childhoods are an assortment of embarrassing, humiliating and degrading experiences, with only half hearted attempts by parents and other insignificant figures at restoring their esteem and morale.

By the time they hit puberty, an awkward time for the best of us, all their hopes have been killed off or sent away to a farm somewhere, never to return. They possess no wit or charm, and having been pummelled into submission by life, they carry themselves meekly, almost apologetically, throughout the rest of their miserable existence.

Just such a fate was one assigned to Sylvia. Having negotiated her formative years with all the enthusiasm of a prisoner bending over to retrieve his dropped soap bar in the prison shower, she had now grown into adulthood, and grown considerably at that.

Sylvia was a large woman, the kind of large that must have at some point in history caused the earth to tilt on its axis. The sort that needs an extra aeroplane ticket and custom made clothes and digital weight machines. The bitterness that inevitably accompanies this enhanced stature showed clearly in her face.
At her most tranquil, she had an expression reminiscent of Clint Eastwood recalling a particularly unpleasant memory.

Nietzsche once remarked, “Visiting the sick is an orgasm of superiority in the contemplation of our neighbor’s helplessness.” Sylvia was “visited” by many such people, and she called them her friends, though they were careful never to be caught indulging in utterances of a reciprocal nature. They hung around her, a sympathetic expression eternally carved upon their faces, making empty remarks about the artificiality of physical beauty. Sylvia believed them and took comfort, and they took comfort in the fact that she believed them.

The friends became successful, married, and moved on with their lives. Sylvia, with no special talents to speak of, remained in her job as a desk clerk in a marketing firm. For some indiscernible reason, she never quite made it into telemarketing.

She was a devout Christian and prayed to the impressive statue of the Christ every Sunday. But like everyone else she spoke to, he too seemed unresponsive.

By the time of her retirement, Sylvia was an obese, elderly lady, living in a cosy apartment with two birds and a goldfish. She was unable to leave her apartment and was completely dependent on the procession of delivery persons who frequented her apartment. The person who visited her most regularly was the pharmacist, who visited weekly to replenish her medicinal supplies, and he did so with considerable reluctance. On idle days he imagined himself “forgetting” to deliver her weekly supply of meds and chuckled to himself at the image of her keeling over.

Sometimes he thought the only thing preventing him from actually carrying out his dreams was the fact that he lived in the same building as her and wished to see it remain intact.

He needn’t have worried though, she did soon enough. On one of his weekly excursions, his repeated knocks on the door received no replies. Finding the door unlocked, he went inside and found her lying on the sofa, with the telephone still in her hand. Her last act in life had been to order two large pizzas with extra cheese.

The doctors were called, her cause of death was determined to be a heart attack (the pharmacist was almost depressed at the anticlimactic nature of her demise), and Sylvia’s tenure on Earth had come to an end.
The pizza guy left dejectedly without his tip.

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Sylvia woke up to the sound of shuffling feet and merrymaking. She was in a massive field with people mulling about and a crowd of them lined up in front of the wall. Most people seemed confused, while some bore the ecstatic expression which one has when one’s wildest dream comes true. Sylvia was one of the confused. She clearly remembered dying. Indeed it was one of her fondest memories. Now she found herself in the midst of a whole crowd in an unknown place.

However, being literate, she quickly deduced from the many signs put up everywhere that this was the entrance to heaven, explaining at once both the ecstasy and the confusion.

“God,” the signs read, “opens his gates to you.”

It was quite literal, and Sylvia noticed now that the line of people were steadily moving forward and disappearing inside a little gate in the wall.

She suddenly had the sensation of a queer feeling inside her. She was not familiar with it, but she did not feel discomfort at its strangeness. It was hope. The feeling that for once in her life, something was going right. She was not being trodden upon, screwed over, mocked, tricked or any of the other ordeals she had faced over the years. So strange was this feeling to her, she was not at first sure of what to do with it. She walked to and fro, a beaming smile upon her face. Her face muscles protested at this unfamiliar exercise, but she paid no heed and smiled ever wider. The world about her seemed so far removed from the cold grey existence she was used to. This one was beautiful, awash with colours and liveliness.

Sylvia breathed in the sweet air and started off in the direction of the line, joining in behind a woman who was particularly pleasant to behold. But her beauty and grace did not bother Sylvia now. She was openly admiring of what stood before her and remarked to herself that heaven would surpass her own expectations if such beauties were commonplace.

The line moved forward still, Sylvia was now meters away. She could glimpse inside the most glorious landscapes, children playing in fountains of chocolate, lovers walking hand in hand, artists singing songs to the stars, wine flowing freely, feasts of unimaginable proportions open to all. This was to be her life from now on, and she could not wait.

“Welcome, ma’am, on you go. Heaven awaits.”

Sylvia bestowed upon the man the most compassionate smile her inexperienced face could muster up and proceeded to the gate. It was not a very wide gate and she imagined she would have to squeeze herself through, but once again, surprisingly, even to herself, this did not bother her anymore. Of what consequence are these little things?

It was a tight fit indeed. Sylvia tried to squeeze through, first straight ahead and then sideways, but try as she might, the gate always seemed just a bit too narrow. She began to hear snickers and cat calls behind her, but she resolved to try and try again. But it seemed to no avail. She looked back helplessly to the man who had greeted her. He gave her the sympathetic look that Sylvia so hated back on Earth, and he gestured up towards the sign that Sylvia had read earlier.

Sylvia stared at the sign, positive she had misread, or that her mind was playing tricks on her. She looked back at the man, and he looked at her, assuring her she was not imagining it.

“God opens his gates to those he loves.”

Sylvia turned back to the field, how grey and lifeless it seemed. A dead and dull world. She walked, head bowed, away from the gate.


God, it seemed, had a cruel sense of humour.

Snow

The pair walked quicker, bunching closer together. The wind howling around them building up to a crescendo and then quieting down for a millisecond before renewing its assault upon their senses.

Azaan looked worriedly at  his companion. She was a frail looking girl, 5’3”, diminutive, not a creature nature built with endurance in mind. Instead, she was an example of when nature took it upon itself to create the image of pure beauty, however fleeting, and put it on display to the world.

Azaan gazed on at her, even in the midst of a blizzard, hassled and harrowed by the sleet and the wind, she looked radiant. Her large eyes stared back at him, comforting him, but he could see the fear in them.  Some stray strands of hair had come loose from under her hood and now drenched from the sleet, stuck to her cheek as a constant reminder of just what they were facing. Yet, for all these warnings, Azaan had eyes only for her beauty.

But she looked pale, too. The weather was only getting worse, and they still had some way to travel before they got home. He hugged his wife and rubbed her shoulders. The gesture was nice, but did not help much with the cold.

They trudged on through the snow, each minute passing made it harder and harder for them to progress, with the visibility at almost zero. Azaan was now very worried.

“I think we should take shelter here somewhere.”

“No, no, we must get home soon. The storm could last for days.
Let’s just fight through it and get home, then we can rest.”

And so, against his gut feeling, Azaan ploughed through the now waist high snow, leading the way with his wife shivering and following in his steps.

After about a kilometer, they reached what they faintly recognized as the pathway leading to their village. Azaan, delighted that they were almost home, now started forging ahead quicker.
Clearing the snow with his hands and his legs, making an easier pathway for his wife to follow, he sped up and had eyes only for the building vaguely visible in the distance.

“Not long now, my darling.”

He walked ahead, now with a smile on his face. Looking back to take comfort from the relief he knew he would see, all he saw was his empty pathway.

His heart, jubilant a moment ago, plummeted.
He sprinted back across the pathway, frantically calling her name, searching off track to the left and right, cursing his carelessness. Around 50 meters down the pathway he created, he found her lying on the snow. The poor creature had tried her best, but she could try no longer.

He sat down beside her and tried hurriedly to get her off the snow and onto his lap.
She looked dangerously white.

“I am sorry, dear Azaan. I was weak.”

He could not speak. Words at times like these felt futile. He knew even as he sat there, crying in hope, that these were the last moments he would spend with his wife.

“You must go, Azaan, you must go on. “

She was right. He should leave, try to get help. He had to do something. But his heart refused to let him move an inch. He sat there helplessly staring at her.

She looked back at him, seeing his tears frozen on his face, she mustered up one last effort.

“I will miss them.”

With these last words, Azaan saw the strength go out of her body. The relief he sought in her eyes so eagerly before was now clearly visible. But it was of no consolation to him now.

Her body went lax. She had died.

Azaan cried out in anguish. His mind refused to function. He sat there, tearing at his hair, his clothes. Grabbing her by the shoulders, hoping to shake some life into her. Kissing her face,  holding her to him.
She lay unmoved by all his attentions, something she was thoroughly incapable of doing in life.

He sat back, no longer disbelieving. Acceptance crept into him, and Azaan could not tell if the realization or the weather was causing his very bones to be chilled.

He held her hands in his, and he sat there.

_-------------------------------------------------------------

Owais called to his brother from across the room.

“Are they here yet?”

“Not yet, brother, not yet. Give them half an hour, the weather is pretty bad out there. “

Owais grumbled. He had just passed top of his class. He wanted his gift and he wanted it now.

“But they promised they’d be home by dinner.”

“Owais! Stop being a brat. They are walking all the way through this storm just for your gift, be a little grateful.”

Owais considered it, saw his brother’s point, and calmed himself down. He knew once the gift was in his hands, he would not mind how long he had waited, and so he told his heart to be patient. He even felt guilty for having insisted on his parents getting him the gift that very day.
He picked up his favorite book and started reading it.

His elder brother sat at the window patiently, watching for his mom and dad.

CRACK!!

(Many Thanks to Snigdha Sengupta for helping me do this)


There was a small village in Northern Kashmir named Breswana. The village was situated almost on the edge of civilization, and preserved that innocence that only lack of exposure to urban life can bring.

The village was still in the throes of poverty, but recently, through a run of good fortune, had begun to pick itself up and stand on its own two feet.
A few years ago, the national highway had recently been diverted to within a mile of Breswana, and the villagers did not fail to understand the significance. Suddenly, there was a quick and easy way to sell their crops and other surplus goods. Opportunistic tradesmen set up shops selling anything from cigarettes and groceries to handicrafts and family heirlooms. A few of the educated folk cunningly set up illegal electricity connections and for the first time the villagers had the luxury of electricity to help in their household chores.
The village advanced quickly, and before long they had telephones, televisions, electric heaters, even internet connections. The boosted sales of crops also brought in a flood of wealth for the farmers, there being a huge demand for fresh organic food amongst the “environmental activists” in the surrounding urban populace.

One such farmer was Naazo Begum, a middle aged woman with a gentle but careworn face. A hard life had scarred her and she looked much older than she was, but in her eyes the feistiness of youth was not yet lost. This was not a woman who had given up her dreams… yet.

Naazo had one daughter, no sons. Something everyone in the village except herself seemed to regret.
She named her daughter Haya, a beautiful name to crown the princess of her house. Haya was to be educated, cultured and not denied any opportunities, Naazo decided. Haya’s father had passed away shortly after her birth due to a misdiagnosis by the village doctor. But it had not dealt a huge impact to their lifestyle. The crops grew the same, whether his hand or Naazo’s harvested them, and it was one less mouth to feed. Naazo repeatedly admonished herself when she caught herself thinking this way.

Haya was now 18, a bright and intelligent woman, prone to violent tantrums, a trait inherited from her father. She had successfully passed her 12^th Standard Board Examinations and was searching for colleges which came under the budget which her mom had set for her. It was not much, but some of the government colleges fell in her category.

Without a father to maintain discipline, Naazo had to cover both sides of parenting, and as is usually the way in these cases, she erred on the side of caution. Haya loved her mother dearly, but it was always interspersed with a bit of fear. She longed for the day she would leave for college and be able to experience the world for herself. She read avidly books of world history, travelers and revolutionaries. The world was, to her eyes, a terrible place, but a place worth seeing nonetheless, and she wished to embark on her own personal journey and then maybe write about it someday.

Such dreams lay harvesting in the heart of this green young girl in the corner of the small village of Breswana. She sat in her bedroom, typing away at her laptop. She was required to write an essay for her entrance exam to the Jammu University. She had spent weeks working on this essay, perfecting it.

Here, fate played one of its hands that leave humans bewildered as to whether they are merely pawns in a sadistic game played by a divine being with a sick sense of humor.

If Haya had been a little world wise, she would have known that Jammu University did not have the highest standards for English Literature entrance tests. She would have realized that proper grammar and punctuation and even half decent content would be more than enough to get her the course she wanted. She would have known that her language skills had been honed to near perfection by her voracious reading and constant, obsessive practice of public speaking in front of her bedroom mirror.

But Haya had seen the world only in books. In reality, she had never left the district. Her school lay in a small town 20 kilometres from her house, accessible by bus. That was the farthest Haya had been from home. She had never come into contact with students from the urban schools and did not know how she stood in comparison to them. Her village elders laughed and mocked her when she spoke in English, her fellow students ostracized her for the same. Haya had no standard to measure up against.

In her head, she was still miles behind every student from Jammu. She would have to give 100% and then some, only to have a hope to overtake some lazy stragglers amongst the students of the city schools. There was no margin for error.

And so she worked away on her Fujitsu laptop. A second hand laptop gifted to her by her uncle on her 18^th birthday. It was her most prized possession. She sat on the laptop non stop, using it so much, its battery had long since ceased to work. It depended solely on the power connection now. She would type away all day, writing stories, poems, letters to imaginary friends.

And now it contained her most precious piece of writing, the essay for the entrance test. It was Haya’s only ticket out of there and she did not intend to take any chances. For weeks she obsessed over it, editing, rewriting, scrapping, building it up again. Now finally, it seemed to her to be of some worth.
She allowed her heart to hope that it just might be good enough.

“Haya, come out here for a moment, I need some help stacking the wheat.”

Haya clicked her tongue with impatience, she hated being interrupted while writing. And today was the final day of submission for the essay. The essay had in actuality been completed days ago, but Haya postponed sending it, dreading the reply from the University that would kill her dreams. Today, it could be put off no longer. Today it must be sent. Today…

“Haya! I called you once already. Come fast, your mother is tired.”

Haya let out a long sigh, and walked out to the field. She hated working there, but her mother was getting old, and Haya was a kindly soul.

“Sorry, Ammi, I was working on my essay.”

“Arey, the essay will take care of itself, help your old mother first.”

And so Haya set to work. Soon, in the rhythm of things, she began to hum a tune. Moving her feet to the music, she hummed louder and louder until…

CRACK!!

The sound came from behind the house. It was not an unusual sound, but today it struck fear into the very deepest depths of Haya’s soul.

It was the sound of the transformer bursting.

She dropped the wheat right there and sprinted into the house, straight into her bedroom.
She took a couple of steps inside and then stopped short. Her laptop was off. The battery, used so extensively, rarely lasted longer than a couple of seconds.

Haya refused to panic. She grabbed the laptop and the charger, stuffed them in her bag, ran all the way to the bus stop. Calling her friend in the nearby town on the way, she decided to rush to her house and send the essay from there before the deadline passed.

The bus seemed to take an eternity to arrive, and crawled along at a leisurely pace. The driver singing heartily about his unrequited love. The cheery tone of the song was unnerving and Haya found herself getting more and more flustered. On reaching the town, Haya sprinted all the way to her friend’s house, banged on their front door, hurriedly apologized and greeted her friends parents and rushed inside to connect her laptop.

Windows is starting.

Every second seemed to drain the energy and hope out of her.

Windows is logging on.

“Not long now, “ thought Haya.

She was logged in, but she could immediately see something was wrong. Her desktop seemed almost empty. Her files were missing.

She frantically searched the whole computer, opening folders with gay abandon, but to no avail.
Her poems, letters, stories were all gone. But she didn’t give them a second thought. She had eyes only for that spot on the desktop where her essay used to be. Her mother’s eyes twinkled on the desktop at just that spot. They seemed to laugh at her, laughing at the absurdity of her hope. Laughing at the folly of her attempt to escape. Those eyes represented fate smiling at the naiveté of human folk, thinking they can lift themselves and better their lives.

She had no escape.

On her way back, Haya considered her future. Her only chance had been college. She had such wonderful hopes. A degree, a job, a secure, independent life. A possibility of life away from Breswana.
She might just have fulfilled what her mother wished her to.

 But now it was lost. Her next chance would come after a whole year. She was not sure she could stand another year in Breswana. She was not sure she could stand anything.

She walked home in a daze, ignoring her mother’s concerned queries. She walked into her parents’ bedroom. Opened the drawer, seeing her fathers old revolver…

CRACK!!

Blasphemy and Co.

Two people met and conversed on a wide variety of things
Seeking the pleasure that only stimulating discussion brings
They talked of poetry, music and art
And all the things that touch the heart
And the world reverberated with their exalted musings

And in this nonchalant manner they stumbled upon a thought
An answer to a riddle that both man and God long sought
My word, they had some gall
To thus effortlessly recall
The secrets of the universe and the consequences it brought

It was not fathomable how it came to be these two
Who unlocked the very cosmos in their casual rendezvous
For they were ordinary
And the prospect is scary
If normal folk begin divine machinations to construe

Their conversation into humorous territory ranged
But all of a sudden, its tonality changed
The one had a vision
About his religion
And the other brought to his notice something very strange

They realized a connection between cultures that span
From this modern day way back to the primitive man
The cultures thus connected
Henceforth they dissected
The inner workings of this Master Plan

In discussing Zeus, they hit upon his need
To fertilize women with his endless seed
But then we saw
The fatal flaw
That the Thunder God had missed in his greed

Mortal women, when thus defiled, become pregnant
But they can’t do much to solve their predicament
They can only weep and mourn
As the unplanned child is born
And do what they can with this offspring Godsent

But if a Goddess were to suffer a similar fate
She would not be content to be merely irate
She possesses the tools
To punish the fool
Who dared a Goddess to impregnate

Oblivous to this, Zeus committed this very act
And left the Goddess seething at his lack of tact
She seethed with Rage
And pledged carnage
And to this day she seeks the fulfillment of her pact

But Zeus saw the signs and promptly fled the scene
He left no clues as to where he was or where he had ever been
He had a plan
And so he ran
To a refuge hidden in the hills where he could no longer be seen

Now Goddess searched high and wide, under brush and over trees
She would not heed remonstrations nor be swayed by pathetic pleas
And Zeus knew
She’d beat him black and blue
And not rest till the mighty God was brought begging to his knees

So he gave up Olympus, and he gave up his old name
He gave up his kingdom but he still craved the fame
So the sneaky fella
Called himself Allah
And started anew with the Goddess this cat and mouse game

He published under his penname a supposed Holy Book
He told us all he could not be found no matter how hard we look
For as is the norm
God has no form
And thus the quest to find him was at long last forsook

He now lives in peace, though he does find himself alone
While the Goddess lives only in idols made of stone
But her temper is still fierce
After all these years
Her anger cooleth not, in fact, it’s heat has grown

And now these two mortals have stumbled upon his guise
But if the secret comes out, they will have to pay the price
For though Zeus lies hidden
He may come unbidden
And avenge the squealers, for betrayal is a deadly vice

So Snigdha and Usman take this secret to their grave
It would be idiocy for mortals the fury of Zeus to brave
Their mouth stays shut
Stuck in the rut
To the end of times, to their own fears, the duo remains a slave