The Sketch

{Fiction}

I sat in the meeting room, glumly looking at each of them in the room, the meeting was not official, it was about a colleagues wedding trip that the whole team was planning to attend. I was not going, I could have stood out of the meeting too but I stayed to watch. One of them, a new joinee asked if I would be bringing the family, before I could reply, someone else said I don’t usually join such events that marked the end of the conversation. Interestingly none of them enquired if I was married or not. At thirty three with receding hair line, I might have looked like a convincing indebted father of two, I didn’t bother to correct them.

By the time I reached home, after my hunting for groceries I was tired. I opened my one bed room home and locked it behind me. A packet of good day biscuit and black tea served as my dinner and before I knew I was sleeping. I woke up in the middle of the night to watch dark lines of rain water seeping into the walls from the creeks above. I watched it with the sound of rain behind me. In the dark lines on the white wall, I was reminded of my sketching days. I was an amateur artist, with no distinctive flair or passion or course money to spend I still remain an amateur. 

But during college days one painting of mine became a sensation. I was suspended from college for that. I remember sitting in my class watching my lecturer write in the black board. She had worn a low cut blouse and had crossed the saree and held it to the other end of her hip. Silently I drew her, and when I did, I did not let the saree be in the way I sketched her back of the neck, the low cut blouse and the slightly wider hip. I did not notice her walk towards me, or let out a gasp, until she reached for the paper in my hand. She tore the paper and crumbled it in her hand and I was suspended.

It took me a long time again to draw, I was no hero, to start again like a rebelling revolutionist. I was a normal person with raw emotions, and  the impact of the incident shook me to an extend that I felt as they expected. I thought, what I did indeed was no art.

After few years, it was that phase of my life looking for a job, and I hunted job viciously like any other young man with a dream of job, a family and eternal bliss. I had long forgotten my interest to sketch, on a sunny day, I wandered into the park and slumped into a bench, weary with fatigue I looked around and my eyes fell on her. She was siting few feet away in a bench before me and as the crimson of the sun descended slowly beneath her, I watched her beautiful neck and slender back. She was reading a book but her body was not slumped it sat straight in front of me.. Taunting me.. I felt an urge to sketch her, a desire I had not felt in a long time, but this time I approached her.

She was a young woman probably in her early twenties. My unshaven and un-kept face, intimidated her and I could feel that in her eyes. Her eyes expressed lot more than needed and I felt that she astutely lets them do that. It took me few fidgeting movements to introduce myself and a few more dragging ones to let her know my intention. As expected she walked away. Once again with a hurt conscience, i decided against pursuing her, instead i went to the park every day to observe, I never approached her I sat in the same bench and drew everything that fell in my eyes in the park.. mostly nature. On the fourth day, she walked over to me, she sat at the corner of the bench and looked at my drawings. I held it to her and she took them and watched one after the other. This time her eyes did not convey appreciation or abhor and I naturally wanted her opinion, but she just looked, next day she accepted my request.

I asked her to sit down on the grass facing away from me, her right hand casually resting on the bench and left touching her long tresses that had come out of the loose bun in her head. Her legs casually left to her side.. and her face a bit turned to the side so that I could draw her eyes, when I did not get the angle I wanted, I walked towards her and tilted her chin a little, and in that moment I felt an intimacy with her but she obeyed like a professional model. I sketched her with my pencil on a white chart for 2 hours, even in my resolute intend, I wondered why she visited the park every day and why alone, but words were very minimal between us and when they existed, they lived only in my head.

By the time I finished it was almost dark and she slouched in front of the drawing to take a look. When I turned to look, our eyes met for a split second and locked. But again, she moved away without batting an eye or a quick breath. I walked with her until her hostel and she smiled at the gate and walked away.

Unintended to go out and not disturbed I worked on the drawing for hours and after two weeks, when she walked into the park bench she saw me, surprise and cheer danced in her face, and this time she did not mask it. She came to me wearing a white and blue salwar. I had in my hand three set of drawings, She took the first one and smiled, it was an image of her siting in the park with sun descending in front of her. She took the second one and her eyes widened in surprise, it was the same sketch but instead of the park she was sitting on a bed room floor. I hesitated before giving her the last one.. She took it and after several moments looked up at me, I said, “You can take it or tear it as you wish”.

It was the bed room with only a bed with crumbled sheet and a cushioned chair in it, on the chair rested her one hand and the other carelessly tried to mend her loosely tied bun with few tresses falling on her fair neck and slender back which was naked. A slight curve of her bare breast was seen along with the thin line that started in her neck and merged with her bottom line. Except her eyes no other features of her face were evident, the hand concealed them and on the corner where her gaze was fixed, was a shut window and the only garb she wore was the longing in her eyes when she stared at the window.

It was what I felt of her, a picture that game the answer to her quizzical indifference. I was disturbed form my reverie when I felt her eyes on me and back to the chart, confused she sat there breathing heavily and after few minutes took that picture in hand and in the other took my hand and kissed it gently and walked away. For many years, every time a romance in my life failed, I would think of her coming back to me in the same park, and I grabbing her slender waist and kissing her hard in the mouth. Or stumbling on to her in the park, when she is alone and waiting for me. I moved away from the city and soon forgot my amateur passion  for her and for my artistic mind and along with the hair in my head, these thoughts also faded, but I kept the two drawings with me, as a treasure.

Now, like today, in my single bed room house that leaked, I imagine her married and settled. I would wonder if the painting was still with her and imagine the drawing falling in the hands of her husband, will she with those expressive eyes tell him, “I can explain” or has she destroyed it long ago.

{Fiction}

Does Silence speak?

Seperation

"Hush.. dont cry.."

"You left me.. "

"But I came back for you!"

"Why?"

"Because you are the only one in this world, I connect with"

"Hmm.. "

"I missed you.. Did you?"

...Silence...

"Promise me something"

"Anything for you!"

"(Sob) Never ever.. go away like this"

"Ok"

"Never ever le leave m me.."

"I promise"

"No.. Never ever leave me with out a good bye"

...Silence...

Happy birthday

"Hey! happy Birthday dear"

"Thank you.. glad you remembered"

"How will I forget.."

"mm"

"So.. what gift do you want from me?

"what can you give"

"Anything you ask!"

"Anything I ask?"

"   Yes!"

"Umm humm.. no I dont know"

"Oh ok.. So there is nothing you want from me now, is there anything you ever wanted?"

"Nope..  I am content.. I don’t want anything from anyone"

"I meant… me.. from me.."

"No.. nothing I can think of.."

...Silence...

Virtue

"Come here"

"hmm"

"you are beautiful"

"Please stop"

"Your body... its mine.."

"Please stop speaking"

"Your curves drive me crazy.. come closer"

"Stop speaking for God Sake"

"Huh? Why???"

"Those words.. they trash what is between us.. you make it look.. you make it look pedestrian.. and..

“And?”

“Infidel.. “

"Isnt it?"

...Silence... 

Friends

"Hey you look upset, is there any problem?"

"Ya its my husband"

"Gosh mine too! He never listens you know, keeps shouting at me"

"hmmm.. that looks far better than the silent treatment I get"

"Oh bad that he treats you so.. but my condition is worse because I get up every day with headache and the wailing of my child"

"Hmm There is a child at least to forget worries, I don’t have even that! Sigh!"

"But without the child it is easy to walk away"

...Silence...

"Not so true.. kids are not and should not be the reason for being together"

"Ya that is right.. like in our case.. we do have kid but it is something else that bonds us together"

"I cannot think of any one else in my life either!!"

"I am so glad I had this conversation with you!"

"I  feel much better now"

"So Glad that I have you and I connect."

...Silence...

"Me too!"

Romance

"Do you like me"

"Of course I like you dear.."

"Do you think of me when alone"

"Always"

"Do I excite you?"

"More than anything else"

"Do you want to spend the rest of your life with me"

"Yes.." May be

"Do you see us married in the future to each other?"

"Yes.." why not

"Do you love me?"

"Hmmm.. I don’t.. don’t  know.. Do you?"

...Silence...

Something called Love

{Fiction}



“I missed you” the first time she heard it, her heart fluttered.. his feeling found words while hers still ached in her heart..  she swallowed and fought her tears.. it took him two whole years of separation from her to realize this and 6 more months to finally blurt this out in a party, to which they both seem to have decided to go only to catch a glimpse of the other person. He had looked into her eyes and said it sincerely and meant it.  Their relation dated back to their college days, where they experienced love and romance and lust for the first time in their life. Her concept of love and his were different as night and day or as any men or woman would want. When his thoughts hit the right side or the pendulum she was swinging towards the left. He sought to take it slow and she fancied extreme steps like marriage, acceptance and eloping more than anything she needed confirmation.

That was the point when he felt that things were moving very fast, her demands and love suffocated him like overdose of sweetness, he panicked, advocated this sabbatical, she accepted, to satisfy him, to shut him and to have him come back she waited for 2 years doting her love for him as much as or even more than the love as such. If he had noticed it then, she would have made a good beloved and understanding wife, the one he always wanted, the one his hypocritical mind ridiculed but craved for, in those endless fantasies.

Meeting again after 2 years, and with those magical words they were together again, like there never was a split-up. Soon they settled into their pre-separation era and continued their episodes with more passion and fire and vigour. Her days were filled with his memories and his.. waiting for the moments with her. Apart from the regular clichés and hormones there was something else that made them come together, they felt that they were meant to be together.

To a normal eye, she was a typical modern woman secretly crying over her fat and blunt nose and he an epitome of gloominess and was a more depressed version of her, a simple man indulging in his dark fantasies unspotted behind his locked and dark room of his parents apartment and ridiculing them in broad day light before others. But together their veil lifted. To her, his erotic fantasies were an obligation of her beauty and her submission an victory to him.

They continued their courtship and romance with the same vigour for few more months until one day he wakes up again feeling different and that they were not similar at all. He then casually and unintentionally sprinkled that idea into her with his fights… pointed glances and double ended dialogues. He enjoyed overpowering her with the doubts.. but why? He never knew.. but it worked and started to go ablaze and shook the whole foundation of them. It alarmed her, on a fateful day, they argued, cried, pacified, sympathized each other competing to walk out as the more pained and suffered one, as the one that can be un-guilty and blame the other for this situation and call themselves cheated and call it a sacrifice. Like serendipity both their untouched coffees were removed by two different waiters separately. Then the boy and girl, I like to call them as a boy and girl or a man and women and not give them a name, a name detaches them from me and us, without name they are in us and around us. So the boy and the girl walked away in their separate ways.

After three more years, when she lay sprawled in her room after a long day’s work, undisturbed by the storm outside she receives an email with only a “I missed you”. After a delay, she sat up and cried into the phone.

I understood that she was crying because he took the phone and walked away to the bathroom and started pacifying her. I lay in the bed awake on contrary to his thoughts that I was sound asleep and his voice was chocking. I listened turned to the other side of bed with silence, just  the way I listened on my wedding night when he recited to me about his love and the girl with rough hands and probably soft bosom. To me.. it is something… called love..  

{Fiction}

Reminder of a Haven

{Fiction}

When the letter arrived in the post this morning, I smiled. It was from Riya an ex member of the Haven. It was her marriage invitation. I don’t know if the invite elicited my memories to think about my first day in Raven or my frequent contact to books and movies wanted me to reminisce those old days like it was a rule to remember. But nevertheless I remembered..

‘Haven’ was the brain child of my friend and philanthropist Divya a nurse in her early thirties then, and when I indicated my interest in joining she felt it was a joke at first for I was just twenty five but she accepted and made me promise that I would not come up with some sarcastic joke when I go in for my first meeting. I can just tell one thing not even once did I come up with my witty jokes, how many times I was tempted to make one is another story..

My first meeting was on the last Saturday of the same month and we met at Divya’s house, over pizzas and colas, some even smoked. The only imperative to be a part of the Raven apart from being a women is that, one should not be married. When I looked around I found women ranging of 25 (me) to 35 or even more.

It was not approved for women to stay unmarried in those days, leave off being independent and this forum helps the women to be so, with grace. “We do not advocate you against marriages, we just give you the moral support that you don’t get just because you don’t have a husband, for whatever reason it might be. Here you get the support and guidance and security that you get from a husband except sex.” Finished Divya with a straight face, and some of them giggled and some smirked. She turned to me and said, this is my prep talk to the new members and every time I say the last words they giggle.. Girls..! she rolled her eyes.

It was hard for me to believe that women can gather and speak about things other than gossip, wailing or self-pity. Jasmin was the first women I spoke to there an good-looking looking catholic in her late twenties, and she said ,”I feel confident being here, who needs men” and she turned around and shouted "who needs men" then they all chanted it for 5 times like in a trance, “Here in Haven who needs men!!” Jasmin looked pleased at the response and said, I created that phrase and it just caught on. I bit my tongue and walked away, to avoid doing what I promised I won’t. I wonder at times, if it was now that they started it, the group would have turned into a worldwide Cult kind of organization and tougher to manage and who knows there might have been movies based on it.

There were no ideologies in there, although people boasted of one, some women stayed because they were desperate to get married but depressed that it did not work out and when they met similar women there they felt that they were not alone, some did because they were feminist and suffragettes who wanted an equal rights in everything just because they fight for it… but those were the ones who married and left faster than the others. People left too, especially when they got married and rarely because they did not like the group. Those who left never came back except one. The souvenir allowed was the wedding invites from the ex members.

I felt interested to go there because of my difference of opinion on the whole concept of marriages, I was not for it or I was not against it, but my mind conflicted over it like the way it did with religion and I delved an answer or in simple words I can say that it was just because I was bored and had nothing else to do.

Many things were discussed on that day, like the 20 yrs old stalking Divya or the woman hater manager of Jasmin and so on.. Riya a bank employee who could be around 36 spoke,

“I want to tell you guys something. I have already made up my mind, but I am still saying I don’t want any one to make any kind of jokes”

 “Its about my mother, she is getting married”

Someone chuckled and was about to make a nasty comment, but a look from Divya reprimanded her from continuing.

Riya spoke again, after some time “My father, left us when I was 5 and mother was taking care of me, and when I got a job, I started taking care of her. She is the only one I got in this whole world, and now she wants to be married to a friend of my dad”

“What is her age” asked the one who chuckled, with a look of intensity like what she was about to say depended on the reply.

“She is 61 and he may be 72”

“what did you decide” asked someone else

“Its tomorrow and I am not going”

The wise woman who asked the age was silent, after contemplating and making some serious looks she said “you said you are taking care of her, may be she did not want to be a burden for you, you did not get married because of her right?”

Riya’s face brightened up, like it was a revelation, a revelation mixed with altruistic remorse.

“what if she wants to be happy, wants a companion for herself” Said I

They gave me a stern disapproving look.. I shrugged!, they chucked me out...

Then she burst out and cried for some fifteen minutes and people consoled her

Today I saw a post script in the invite,

PS: I have invited my mother also..

When I closed the invite, placed it carefully in the cover, and kept it in my cupboard I tried to decipher the reason for her tears, I couldn’t single out one.. there must have been several reasons.. well.. what happened in haven let it stay in Haven!

{fiction}

If only..

{Fiction}

Often she would wonder why they drifted apart.. they were perfect for each other still they are at two different corners of life.. alone.. Rarely when the pain seems unbearable, she would sit in her bed or lay tossing or turning around trying to rewind her memory, she visualized the past, and felt a peculiar completeness when she lived those days again in her mind.. The first memory that she tries hard to get was his face with its boyish innocence and struggle, wondering what brought them together. They were two silent people in their adolescence, but they were friends then and nothing more. They talked and talked he about his life and she about her music. It was life to her and he loved the passion with which she spoke about it to him and so they were inseparable friends or so they thought. 

But soon they wandered off, to seek their own end of life, and at that time, the pain of missing each other just looked like the pure agony of friendship. They did not realise it then, and tossing in her bed, now she naively imagined what would have happened if only they realized it then.. and that made her heart ache more.

It took them several years to meet again, the purity of innocence wearied off them and they were adults. But she remained the same inside, the same innocent little girl, but experiencing the bliss of life, made him different and so unlike the innocent youth she adored.

She remembered the day she met him again, in the end of a concert, in which she was lucky enough to play her violin, she was one among the ten musicians who played in sync that night, but to her it was her stage, and her night. She was in the complete ecstatic moment when she met him, her delight got transmitted into him, and his eyes shone mysteriously with a powerful gleam. They met often, so very often that they felt like they lived together. He would always start his conversation with music, and she would be thrilled that she would go on and on about it, he would sit still watching her, with a amused admiration, wondering if she would feel the same way about him too.

He never tried to conquer her physically and she never thought of it, but he spoke to her about the number of women or girls he has been with and she listened in silence. She would believe anything he told her, and he had a good eye for imagination.

At times he would moodily blabber,

“you know you amuse me..you are not like other girls”

“Why?” her curiosity aroused

“I feel like you are there.. deep.. Inside your body, and I am gradually drawing you out..”

She would muse about it and  know that he is true, and wondered how he alone could do it.

She never imagined things unless he gave her an account of it, be it life, love or sex. To her he was an booklet and she drank from him, with no hesitation or blush she would stare at him wide eyed taking in everything he said and consecutively wondering how, that which he said would please someone, to her it looked gross and painful. He felt like a hero then, the amused look in her eyes would arouse him and he would continue talking to her consecutively imagining her with him.

She would ask sometimes..

“Drawing me out? Like?”

“I feel like I am delicately removing dried leaves one after the other cautiously because I know that there is something that belong to me underneath and I should be careful. Then finally there you lay bare waiting for me.. and then I would.. lift you gently cover you with my warmth and..”

She would shift uneasily and say “see a rainbow.. I wonder when it rained..!”

He would stare at her for few minutes and look away reproachfully, but soon her uneasiness would wear off and she would yearn for him to continue, but the moment would have been long gone then.

When he looked at her, she would see a war in his eyes, craving for an approving gesture in her, wondering what she would do if he made his move then. But how much ever harder she tried she could only stare back plainly at him.. He would stay silent with pain or call her by names “bitch! Liar!” and walk off.

Other times, he would ask her, what she would do if he lay down in her lap, she would say that “I will pat your face, make you sleep, play with your hands,  caress your hair.. and stroke them gently”. She could sense the impatience in him and soon those hateful words would come out. Never in those situations did he know that she only thought of those, and she couldn’t think of anything more.. or she did not know anything more.

Then painfully she would remember the last few days of their life together and the conversations. It pained her to think of those days, but nevertheless she would sit beneath her bed cross legged thinking..

“Why do you behave all, virtuous with me?” he shouted. She did not reply, but looked helplessly down at the ground.

“Tell me, don’t you want me? I know you do, as much as I want you.. but still you act.. don’t you want to hold my hands.. don’t you want my lips on yours don’t you?

She sat wondering, she did not know if she wanted him that way, she had never imagined it so.. Her silence made him furious, “you are fake..! bitch.. you act around like you are different.. but you are just fake.. and that is why no one likes you! You don’t let any one near you because you are scared that they will see-through you..”

And so he walked away from her life.. and she would sleep after those restless nights of wondering.. like she got to know the answer after all.

But then they met again, this time her life had gone through a series of fluctuations, she had been married and widowed. But her eyes remained the same, and the way she looked at him remained the same. He sat in the coffee shop hands on his head looking at her..

“Were you ever happy with .. him?”

She looked down at the coffee which was cooling down but answered..

“No.. it was a pain.. everything.. everything was a pain..”

“Do you think it would be the same with me?

“I don’t know.. I am sacred to reach the end of road with you and what if, I feel the same way with you?.. what if you feel so with me? I am scared.. ”

He knew her and understood her, he wanted her. He wanted to make her happy but did not know how.. And that injured him, they remained silent.. wondering why it never worked out between them..

{Fiction}