It was chilly. Far across the road, a blanket-wrapped watchman sat outside a building gate, warming himself on a small lump of burning wood. A car or two zoomed past every now and then. 23 of them had passed in the last couple of hours he recalled. 23 of them would pass every couple of seconds a few hours from now. A dog had suddenly started barking some distance away, as if trying to announce its sleeplessness to the entire world. An old man who was sleeping peacefully on a push cart by the footpath, shooed the envious dog away. He soon went back to sleep. The buildings looked like huge dark structures randomly dotted in yellow and white. Some people are still awake. He curiously wondered what was happening inside those white and yellow dots. Probably some had slept with lights on, some worked late, couples quarreled or made love; there was no way to know. He picked out another bidi from his pocket and lit it. The smoke rose in the air, and so did the warm hazy breath, till both merged in the winter air.
Jessica gazed out of her window, watching all this 7 stories below her. The coffee had done well to keep her awake, but that was hours ago. Perhaps it was something else; she didn’t know. She probably understood Antonio better now than she did seven years ago when she was in school. Her room lay beside the window sill, neat, uninhabited. The bed had starched bedsheets, as if no one had slept on them for ages; the lamp beside was dimmed adding to the silence of the room. An overturned copy of Shantaram was the only decoration on the table beside the bed. A framed photograph of a desolate beach hung on the wall above her bed. She watched as a dog, perhaps lost, perhaps just trying to fit into this world was trying to find some shelter for the night. It tried finding a place on a pile of dug up rubble by the roadside but was snarled away by another group of dogs. Animal nature. It then crossed the road, almost got itself killed under a speeding car in the process, and tried finding some peace under a push cart. The man sleeping on it shooed it away. Human nature.
The Western Express Highway lay deserted, never-ending and it had suddenly lost all its charm. Rahul could feel the vodka in his blood-one hell of a party it was. He loved the hustle bustle of day, the mad rush through overcrowded roads, the myriad noises which created some kind of a symphony. The nights turned lonely, a sudden void. He tried finding solace in the company of friends, spending the night in noisy places, subduing his senses in alcohol and waiting for the dark silence to break at dawn. It would be dawn soon he thought to himself. He barely noticed a dog crossing the road. Too late to press the brakes, he just sped past. The rearview mirror just showed dark shadows on the road under the dim street lamps. Did it manage to escape? He couldn’t tell. Maybe another soul just merged with the silent darkness.

Karna

The entire night passed in a daze. Not a wink of sleep. Had he found a mother or lost one? He did not know. He felt like the waters in a lagoon; it knows not whether it belonged to the river or the sea. He wept all night. Kunti had asked him not to kill her sons, his half-brothers. If he did not, he would be betraying himself and his dear friend, a friend who had embraced him when all others had ostracised. I cannot spare Arjun were his last words to his mother as he turned away from her moist gaze. He had been deprived of her love and affection all his life; and now when he wanted to rest his head on her laps and weep, he could not. And he knew deep inside that she longed to clasp her long lost son, close to her bosom as well. He could not let emotions get the better of his ideals. So he walked away.
Hidden in all his agony, was a shimmer of joy. The Pandavs were his brothers. Arjun was his brother. Circumstances had forced him to take up arms against Arjun, but he adored him at heart. Deep down inside he knew he could not kill his younger brother. He stared at the starry skies and painted his thoughts on the wide spotted canvas. A young Karna playing with his five brothers-piling on each other, running around, flinging each other into the waters. The thoughts melted away into slumber.
It was the big day in the battle. Krsna knew it better than all. Arjun was to fight Karna. He knew that Arjun did not stand a chance. But only one man knew of what was to come-Karna. The chariots of the two great warriors stood face to face, about a couple of hundred yards apart. The soldiers stood by, no one moved a muscle. This was going to be etched in history in letters of gold. The charioteers snapped the reins of the horses, and the chariots jumped to life. Thousands of friends and foes watched. Arjun was said to be invincible, but they knew he had finally met his match. Karna on his part knew what he wanted to do but knew not how. He looked at Krsna, advancing towards him. He shut his eyes. Krsna, you know all. Give me all the courage I need. The chariot halted with a sudden jerk. Karna jumped off to find a wheel of his chariot stuck in a puddle. He looks up at Krsna, Arjun’s charioteer, a few yards away. Krsna smiled back as if to say I heard you. Karna kept his bow and quiver aside as he knelt by the wheel. He looked away as he tried with to pull up the wheel. And he waited. He waited and waited until he felt the sharp and heavy piece of iron pierce his heart. He fell to the ground, looked up at Arjun and smiled. In the numbing silence that followed in the battle field, Karna could hear the voices of his brothers, his mother Kunti, his friend Duryodhan. He was content-he had lived up to his Dharma towards his friend, mother and brother. The golden orb in the distance sunk below the horizon. Darkness embraced the battlefield as Karna shut his eyes for the eternal sleep.

Merian

Merian DeSilva gazed at her graying self in the mirror. She soothed the grey tufts that framed her wrinkling façade dragging the golden comb down the thinning cascade as if trying to paint them back to their Barbie doll like self; as if trying to miraculously transform the face in the mirror, to something forty years younger. She tried it everyday, since she had turned old. The golden magic wand never worked. And she was in no condition to start looking for the fountain of youth; so she went on with life as it was. And life did grant Merian her share of joy, be it in the form of her new recipe of chocolate pie or the first fruit on her mango tree.
She had woken up early today and was done with the morning chores. Today was special, not because it was Sunday; she was growing older by another year today. “Sixty-five!”, she concluded after some math on her fingers. Her memory had not yet failed her, just that she no longer bothered to keep a count of her age. Years passed, and all that remained was a hope. She was awoken from her thoughts by a tap on the door. It was Anita. Anita was not very different from Merian herself; about the same age and similar memoirs to haunt. Merian at times wondered how beautiful Anita would have looked in her youth. “A princess”, she would say at times to a blushing Anita. Anita did not have a photograph of her younger self, so it was all left to Merian’s imagination to flatter her.
“So where”s my cake?”,Merian asked candidly, as Anita proceeded to hug her. She knew there was a cake waiting for her as usual. All she wanted to know if it was chocolate or pineapple.
“Your chocolate cake is waiting in the hall with all the others”; Anita pulled Merian out of her room.
The Happy Birthday song followed amidst some mild clapping, not quite resembling the hullabaloo of a birthday celebration, but befitting inmates of Asha Niketan, the old age home - Merian’s home, since the past one and a half decades. She hugged everyone in the hall as they exchanged bites from their slices of cake with hers. She had tears in her eyes. She had not wanted to celebrate her sixty fifth birthday here. She had not wanted to celebrate any of her last fifteen birthdays here. She went back to her room and pulled out the old silverfish-nibbled photograph from the old rusted steel trunk. She had not wiped her tears; they would flow even if she did. She caressed the black and white faces in the photograph, then pressed it close to her bosom and wept aloud.
Merian DeSilva, the dance teacher was quite well known among the communities in Panjim, who wanted their children to be involved in extracurricular activities. That is how she earned a living for herself and her son, Soham ever since Mr.DeSilva passed away. Soham was fifteen then. She was no expert dancer herself, having lost the practice and the dancer’s body after marriage. But , she was a good teacher, nevertheless. She never wanted the premature death of her husband to change the life of her child. She always made him feel that all was well, though the financial setback was tough to tackle at times. She drowned all her pain and strife in her silent soliloquies. She found her haven in the little joys of her son, his aspirations and his success.
One morning, Soham rushed into the house with a piece of paper in hand and read out –
“Dear Mr.Soham DeSilva,
The English department of the University of Lancashire is pleased to inform you that you have been selected for our special programme as had been advertised. You have also been granted a complete scholarship based on…..”
“Ma, so what do you think?”, Soham asked with a proud smile on his lips, his arms folded tight.
Ma did hear it; it meant Soham was going away. Soham looked at her face and knew it all.
“Don’t worry Ma. It will be just for three years.”
Ma smiled. Soham did not quite understand whether the smile was in agreement or a sarcastic reply to the ‘Don’t worry. .’. Whatever it was, Soham left for England the following week and his mother began her three year wait. It had been five years since his father passed away and they had learnt to live without him. Soham wanted a comfortable life for his mother, one in which she would not have to take dance classes any more. A degree in England would do him a world of good on returning back to India. There was a dearth of English teachers in the universities here and he had always felt it during his education. All good things call for a sacrifice; well, this time it was his mother making one, by letting go of him.
Merian got on with her life and her dance classes. Soham would send a letter or two every month and she would reply back. At times, Soham would call up a PCO in the locality, where Merian would be waiting to hear her son’s voice. Two and a half years went by the same way.
“I’m almost done. A couple of months and I’ll be back.”
“Two months”, Merian thought. She made sweets for all her dance students that day. She knew that two months would pass in a jiffy. She marked the calendar hanging from the dilapidated wall of her one room home. Every morning, the calendar would be the first thing she would look at. She saw May change to June and June to July until -
“…Ma, guess what? I ‘m coming next week. I’m coming home. Woohoo!” Merian had never imagined that this would be the last time she heard her son.
The following night, a neighbor rushed into her house, gasping. “Merian behan, have you heard the news? There has been a shootout in Soham’s college. They are showing it in BBC. An English student apparently went bizarre. They are saying that an Indian too has died in the incident though…”
……………………………………………………………..

Merian cajoled the faces of her husband and son in the photograph again. The photograph went blur behind the curtain of tears as she heard a soft whisper in her ears, “Happy Birthday Ma!”.

The rain of the new land

It rained last night. I lay back on bed as the flashes of lightening lit the room through the netted curtains on the window. I had seen a lot of rain before. But this was a different rain; a rain of a new land. I had music plugged to my ears. And the music could’nt have sounded better. The flashes seemed to dance to the rhythms of Malhaar(Fuzon) and Baadal(Om). The beautiful rain of the new land. I say, music doesn’t glorify a season; seasons glorify music. I wish it rains again tonight.

Sameer

It was a soggy weekend. Pie Street was not in its usual spirit. The rain, a couple of hours back had dampened the hustle bustle. Couples took their evening strolls while some ambled along alone, preoccupied in their soliloquies. Others chattered along in groups discussing life, passions, politics and everything conceivable. Many cars lined the street; not many plied though. Book vendors laid out their merchandise on tarpaulins along the footpaths that lined the twelve foot wide road. They would look persuasively at every oblivious face that passed by. These people did have a good business going, with quite a lot of avid readers frequenting the coffee shops that lined the street. I sat on the stairs outside Beans recollecting the travails of the week and watching all that was happening on Pie Street; the silhouettes that passed by in front of the glowing neon advertisements, the only jubilance in the otherwise droopy Saturday evening; the children begging for alms and those splashing on the puddles. I had already had my black coffee and was waiting for Sameer.

Sameer was late. He rambled on and on as he laid out his books on a blue tarpaulin. He then began flaunting his latest collection of Camus and Shakespeare. I wondered if he was a bit too grown up for his age for he seemed to read into the books better than I did. Sameer - Just as any other child of twelve, he loves the first showers of rain, the petrichor thereafter and floating paper boats on water filled pot holes, he loves watching the beautiful people walk past and he loves me. He sells books outside Beans. On weekends, I sit with him; we talk for hours. He tells me all about his exploits in school, his friends there, the books he had read, and all that was there to be told about his solitary life. He narrates stories from the books that he reads. I hardly listen to the stories; I stare at his eyes, transfixed as they glow when he talks of a prince or blazes at the mention of a diabolic villain. This has been the greatest pleasure in my otherwise nugatory life, quite soothing, after an arduous week at office. I too juvenilely complain about my life to Sameer; about how my boss had bullied me, or a rickshaw driver had cheated me, about the neighbor’s dog barking at odd hours in the night, or the leaking tap in the bathroom. He probably likes listening to me, for he never budges or fidgets during my jabbering; or perhaps he finds all that amusing. Whenever, a passerby stops to have a shy at the books, Sameer starts his list of recommendations. The recommendations are opinionated and biased; based on his own liking for the book or the author, but are often genuine. And he shows the same zeal for everyone. I, needless to say, happen to be his best customer. I read none of the books I buy. Sameer’s recommendations to me inevitably reach a level of elaboration wherein they become the narration of the entire story. Nevertheless, I always buy the books.

It was Sameer’s birthday. He did not expect me to remember. Days and dates held no meaning for him and moreover, he had mentioned it just once since the time we met. But I did. We had chocolate pastries, ice-creams, watched movies and did all that I thought would enthrall him. We had dinner at Ruby Tuesday and I still remember the glitter in his eyes as he admired all that he could see and feel; the people, the food, the ambience. That was probably the happiest day of his life. I stared at his little facade wondering where in him he hid all the strife that the adversity of life had inflicted on him.

Suddenly, while fondling with the spoon, he started pensively:

Dada, I miss Maa. I still remember her. She would have been so happy to see her darling son here, with you, amidst all the big people. She loved me, and instructed me to love everyone; never to fight. Sister Martha from the orphanage tells me that I’m just like her. However, she tells me that God has given me a small heart, and I since I use it more than others it has grown weak. I don’t know what she means though. But she always weeps when talking to me.

************************************

A year has brought so much change in the Pie Street. The serenity which prevailed earlier despite the hustle bustle is no longer there. However, the neons, the rains, the petrichor and the children splashing the rain waters are still there. They will always be there to remind me of the little boy who loved it all. Happy Birthday Sameer!

Ravana

The golden orb, smirked at him, at his folly. Far in the horizon, he could see the monstrous silhouette of his brother, lifeless. He moaned, bowing his head in due respect, just as thousands of others did. The sun too bowed low, shrouding a veil of moaning darkness over Lanka. The birds were returning to their homes after having witnessed the greatest fight they had ever seen. They would chirp chirp all night, discussing their hero, their martyr, Kumbhakarna. The greater fight was yet to come, they knew it. Ravana stared as the light of dusk faded out.

He had no regrets. He had wronged none. He remembered the first time he had seen her, wandering in the wilderness, playing with the chitals. Her beauty was pure as a sparkling drop of dew, gently resting on the edge of a leaf. But it would drop off the leaf soon. He shuddered, he wanted to protect her; he wanted her. He brought her to his kingdom. She was juvenile; she wouldn’t come, but he tricked her. He tricked her to a happier life, where he would adore her, worship her. She never accepted him. He waited, he would wait forever. Standing at his balcony, he could see the Vatika where she stayed. She despised his palace, his love. He never complained. His love was unconditional. He would wait.

It would be a long night. He had lost all his dear ones; his brother, his son, his brave soldiers. All had died for their king. He too would never witness the dusk mocking at him again. He knew it. He was a proud man. He was ready to die for love.