Mad

She is laughing.

She is laughing incessantly, in every excuse, in every topic we talk about. Her eyes are round and mouth is big. Her teeth are white and sharp and glistening in the neon light. Her long hair is resting at her back. Every time she talks about something, she finds it funny enough to laugh out loud…and her sharp canines are explored every time she opens her mouth. She is touching me time and again with her sharp, long nails. I am scared of her, and I hate to look at her face. And I become sure that my newlywed wife is either mad or a witch.

She tries to hold me close, hold me tight. She tries to play her hands over my body. She tries everything to make me happy, and aroused enough to make love with her. She slips her lower lip into the upper one of mine…she plays her tongue with mine for a couple of minutes. She draws my hands closer to her body. She wants to make love to me right then, but I push her away. She becomes sad…as I say that maybe we can do it after dinner. She shows her canines again.


We order chicken at dinner. She eats as if she was kept without food for a week. I keep looking at the way she finishes her whole dish. She orders another chicken and starts eating it. She finishes it in no time and looks at me. She finds me staring at her. She asks me why I am not eating anything, as I say I am not that hungry. She insists me to have the chicken telling me that it is something real tasty…I try to chew a few pieces, but fail to gulp it down. I try to gulp a couple of them with the water from the bottle. After half an hour, we come back to the room.

Immediately after we come back at the bedroom she pounces on me. She undresses me and makes herself naked too. I become aroused immediately, and throw her away on the floor. She falls on the floor and gasps in pain. I land on her and push her hands behind. We have sex on the floor. After the peak, I throw up on her arm. Her body becomes wet with my smelly puke. She cleans the floor and goes to the bathroom to take a shower. I follow her there and we have sex in the bathroom.

On the next day, she wakes me up. She throws her arms around me and says that the previous night was awesome, as I ignore her. I ignore her every time she talks about having sex again. I make a plan to slap her hard in my mind. But I control myself.

In the afternoon, we leave our room and walk towards the mountains. She keeps holding my arm all the time she walks with me. She keeps laughing and showing her canines time and again. While walking, we pass some of the most beautiful trees and flowers of the world according to her. I do not find anything special in them. I start hating everything she likes, and every topic on which she shows her canines. I start to hate her altogether.


We reach a small, deserted valley at the lap of the mountains. She draws me close, kisses me, full and passionate. She takes my mouth into hers. She starts using her tongue again in that dirty way. After a couple of minutes’ play I become aroused. She takes her clothes and mine off and starts kissing me in a violent way. We fall on each other. Within a few seconds, she bites my lips so hard that blood oozes out of it.

I push her away, instantly. I keep my palm on the lips and keep it in front of my eyes. My fingers and palm are stained with blood, as something wild happens inside me. I stand up, and look at her face, pale as white out of fear. I stand in front of her and slap her hard. One slap, full and passionate. She stands there, doesn’t fall unconscious at all, unlike my imagination. I understand she must be a tough woman to take on.


In the night. She comes close to me. She kisses me again and starts seducing me. I push her away but she says something that shivers me.

“I will eat you up”

A chill goes down my bones.

“First, I will eat your lips, then your tongue, then your face and then whole of you.”


I start shivering altogether and understand that this witch is going to kill me this night. I beg of her and tell her to let me go, as she starts laughing again. I understand what she is going to do. I beg for my life as she says it’s just a game and I am a toy in her hands. She strangles my throat with her hands, big and round. I try to overcome her powers with my strengths but I do not manage to gather any. I wait for death.

I understand she tries to undress me. I pray to her to kill me quickly, and also tell her that I am afraid of blood, so she may use something which doesn’t make things bloody. But soon I understand that her focus is not on killing me but to have sex with me. I take the advantage of her semi-consciousness and lie her flat. I take the advantage of her situation and do it violently. We have sex. And after half an hour we have sex again.

But the fact that she tried to kill me makes me restless. I slap her hard. She gasps in pain. I like the way she keeps moaning and panting while I torture her. I slap her again. She falls unconscious. I slap her couple of times more. Blood comes out of her ears and lips.


I undress her fully and try to have sex again. This time she doesn’t respond. In fact she is in no condition to make any. I shove her and try to bring her back from her unconscious state by every means but fail to do it. I become frustrated on myself and all my hatred and anger falls on that female creature. I become blinded with anger.

I keep slapping her face continuously until I see the bed become wet with the blood coming out of her body. The whole bed becomes red. And as I look at her face I can’t even recognize that this was the face that was planting kisses on mine a few hours ago.

I realise the fact that I made a crime and my criminal sense acts quickly. Police will soon catch me in the case of a family feud. I must act quickly now.


At first I make sure that she is dead. I take the scrapper out of the bathroom and take out its rod. I grab it strong in my hands and give a sudden thrash at the back of her head. Her legs start trembling…in a violent way. I wait for a couple of minutes and then tie the legs with a rope to the dressing table. And then I give a couple of more thrashing. Within a few minutes the bedroom falls silent and she is discovered in a pool of blood. Dead, indeed.

I keep the scrapper in its place at the bathroom, where we had sex a few days ago. And then I enter the bedroom again. This time though, my legs slip on the blood, dropped from her body to the floor, and I fall down.


When I fall, something roundish falls from the bed too. I higher my head, only to find her beheaded body resting on the bed. I look at the round thing, fallen from the bed, and gasp in astonishment.

Her eyes are round. Eyebrows are deep black. A few of her hair falls on her forehead. Her teeth are white, and the canines show themselves whenever possible. She is my wife, who was married to me last week, wanted to make her husband happy, who was out from a strange home a few years ago…


Her teeth are out, canines are visible and it’s clear she wants to laugh out loud at the very minor happenings in life.


She is laughing.







Oct '10

Good Night 2 – Along came night

“Good night? Ah! No, the hour is ill
Which severs those it should unite”



Midnight was the time.

As the December wind had stopped blowing, the farthest fraction of P. Avenue remained still, and dark. The lone neems and eucalyptuses fervoured by the night fog kept themselves mysterious. The old Ganges flowing nearby was all quiet. December fog also affected the same for a curtain of white clouding was seen on it. The deep dark water of the river remained stagnant till its deep, where traces of life found their way somewhere. And the pale moon continued to hover against those heavy clouds – the weather was not good, even there was a forecast of a heavy downpour - but nevertheless, the silence was on. The city was into their sleep, or somehow trying to do so.


A white owl moved from its nest of the far-off tree towards the only open window of a high-rise building, with its glistening off-white feathers in the moonlight. As it flew, its eyes continued to burn in the dark. It came closer, and then took a sharp turn from the window producing a sharp, shrill cry. And as the cold wind began to flow, the cry rode on it to be spread into the corners of the city. The night had been disturbed for the first time. Moreover, it shoved the boy sitting in the lone room for a while.


The cool breeze, blowing off the curtains of the room, tilting the branches of the trees nearby, vanished somewhere. The nature was revealing itself, vainly to the sleepy people of the city, save only the boy – shaken from a deep thought by the sudden shrill cry of the owl.

It was not new to him. For over four years, almost every night the silence has been broken by that very owl. The breeze takes the cry from Peary Avenue to his colony. He remains awake, and wonders, what would she be doing now.


He remembered about the night four years ago, when the owl cried for the first time. It was when he was writing his diary that night. It was one of those times when he wanted darkness, he wanted silence. The local bastiwallas, the chhatim tree in his neighbourhood, the condition of his bedroom – everything came out on that diary. And at the end of writing, he explored something for the first time in his life. He had made something extraordinary. It was his first story written when he was eighteen.


But four years have passed after that night, and he can see through his window…as every night, the moon had already covered half the distance of the sky. It was past midnight, nature showed him that.


People told him to follow omens. They got detached, he and that girl. But he followed omens. He tried to understand what does it really mean to follow our heart. What does it really mean to ask ourselves who we are, or what are we here for. He engaged himself in reading spiritual books and in search of his own, only by searching for her.

And the next four years he kept searching for her in every narrow lane, every high-rise building in the place she lived. The natural beauty of the lake place awoke his soul. It gave him an inner sight to see everything in our lives by another approach. Times came in his life when he found himself sitting in the lake place watching the evening trains to come in and pass by…the reflection of the neon light from the coupes in the water of the lake kept his eyes fixed in it, as he kept losing himself in the world of unknown, only to return to the memories of a girl he loved, and lost for no reason. The girl he was searching for over four years now.



The doors opened now, silently and suddenly, and his mother entered into the room.
She didn’t have any question. She looked at him and turned her face to the other side. One of the reasons for that was, she had observed some changes in the behaviour of her son, knowing fully that for the first time in his life he was trying to get something from the very core of his heart.


She took up the book resting on his table and a short folded paper fell from its position. She took it up, read it and looked at him.

“What is it?” she asked in a casual voice.

“An address.” He replied.

“Whose?” this time there was a curious note attached to the tone.

“You know her. She is Pallabi.”


And then the room fell silent. One thing was for sure about this silence, had it fallen some years ago, he could have told a few more things. But tonight, there he was, silent at each moment, but answering a thousand questions raising from his life. The omens had taken him to the Alchemist he was searching for, to the Zahir he was obsessed about. The kind of life he fancied to live.


The doors were shut. And the room was silent and dark again. But only this time, he was trying to get rid of those. Loneliness was no more his companion. Because just three feet away from him, it was his love resting in the form of an address. After four years he had found her. He could feel the presence of her, in his room, on the bed, beside him…


It’s true that one of her distant, old friends gave that address. But it’s not who, but how that matters. And for getting that address he had to approach and talk to hundreds of people who came across her, and at last he got what he was searching for. It showed him what does it really mean to follow our heart.



He stood up and went in front of the window. It was cold outside. Night had covered the whole colony under its sheet. The smell of the chhatim flowers kept coming from the neighbourhood in the silent dark night. And then he clenched the railings of the windows with his fingers and muttered something.


There wasn’t any sound out there. And he liked the way the words he muttered reached to his own ears. Because for the first time, he was saying that.



“I am coming Pallabi, for you.” He said.








- October '10

...Seven days

Jeremy Brett (1933-1995) who played Sherlock Holmes in Fox History Entertainment for the series 'The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes' has one more fan from now on. And that's me. Read about him. Was quite a character himself. Remains the best 'Sherlock Holmes' ever anyway.

I like 'Do nishaaniyan' and 'Call me dil' from 'Jhootha hi sahi'. AR Rahman touches heart.


"Kisi insaan ka kathhor dil hona kanoonan jurm nahi mana jata..." (Regards 'The Greek Interpreter' Sherlock Holmes' thoughtful comment about love)


Killing an emotion within your heart is painful. It's true no one knows my intent. I have faces and they change. But when people cry, they have only one face. Face of gloom, dejection and whatever sad things there are...


I have hated this city for most of the time...but never got a chance to thank it for the beautiful moments it created for me out of nothing when I yearned for them so much. Thank you Kolkata...for the evenings you made a boy happy by making him walk with a girl, for creating innumerable occasions to make him smile with her, for the magical moments when he thought he could relive his dreams of love and for giving him the opportunity to have an evening out with the girl out of a whole book of rules and regulations. Life was not that good for anyone, and still you made everyone's day by keeping something good for everyone. And wherever I will be, I will always remember you.


Let's don't cry for the thousand of reasons and bad happenings of our lives...but let's celebrate that one single thing that brings smiles in our faces whenever we think about it. I know I have tears in my eyes while typing these lines, but may be these are tears of happiness, for all the happy memories I have with me, kept as treasure.

Scattered notes 14

THE REJECTION


"See, when I told you that I missed you, it's not just as a friend. I mean, I miss everything about you. Your smile, your voice, your eyes, the way you talk. Even the little mole at your right cheek...everything. And I can't stop thinking about you."


I sat on the bed, took my mobile at my right hand and then kept sitting there. I thought ten times before I pressed the 'send' button and threw the mobile away. I hate the way this world behaves anyway.

Whatever happens, I told to myself, just don't feel bad about it. You have acted boldly, you stayed honest with your feelings, you have showed her that you cared for her whenever you got a chance. So just relax now. If it's going to happen in the negative way, may be it wasn't destined to you at all.


After ten minutes, she felt sorry that I felt that way about her and added saying that she can't reciprocate the same.

I cursed the world at that point.


I switched on the computer, and started writing 'scattered notes 14'. I had already left a couple of sighs from the core of my heart.


Sometimes love is tested in strange ways. But love, again cannot happen from only one side...there must be another person to 'reciprocate'. And there are very few persons in the world who come out of their shells and free their minds. I remember some lines once one of my friends had said...

"A bell is not bell until someone rings it,
a song is not a song until someone sings it,
Love wasn't put in heart to stay,
for love isn't love until you give it away"

Wonderful, isn't it?


Don't be sorry. At first it will be hard for me to believe, and then I will wander away in dark places of the city, will blame my fate for everything, and as always will try to control tears in public.


But I will find ways of living. Remember a boy of nineteen once said..."Options are not finished, that's the main thing."


You know, I can't write anymore. Sometimes writers cry their heart out. And they don't type while crying.

Scattered notes 13

I woke up early this morning, at 5.30 AM, and went to the Shiva temple.

I am confused. Whether to make her know my feelings or not.

Tell her, I said.

Are you crazy? It's obvious that she wants to be just friends with you. No one asks a guy 'In a friendly way, I hope' when told that someone is missing her.

But you waited one and half years for this moment to come, that she'll be close to you and may be once again you could dream about love. Remember how you yourself wanted to stay away from her just because she had a boyfriend. Now is your chance, take it and use it to the fullest.

You got to be kidding me. I said. She doesn't feel anything special for you. Besides, you see yourself that she is no more interested in you. In fact she never was. She wanted you only when she needed you for something to fulfill. She doesn't possess any expression for you. Accept the truth.

But unless I tell her about my feelings it will never be known to her that I felt for her. Remember Pallabi's behavior with you just because you were too shy to act anything. I'll have to tell her and make her know my feelings, that I can't stop thinking about her, and I miss everything about her.

Whatever you think best. But know this, your journey will not end well. Even if she agrees, it is not going to last. We both know this.


Both the wisest and craziest person on earth is inside me. But the thing is that you can't really say who is who.

Scattered notes 12

"Someone is missing you..." That's the first line I wrote to her, this morning.

It took more than half an hour to have an answer.

"In a friendly way, I hope."


I got dejected again. "Ya, sure" I replied.

I guess I'll have to follow the words of Robert Frost...'Life goes on', and leave everything in the hands of fate. I don't know what's going to happen with us...so may be it is best to let our fate play everything and see where we end up.

I made a speech couple of minutes ago if she asks me why did I change the batch...I will come up with something like this..."I don't know why did I change the batch. Things are real complicated. All I know is that I miss you like hell, and please don't ask whether it's just in a friendly way because the answer is no."



By the way, I haven't mentioned it...Srijita loves Chhatim flowers, just like I do. I wish she wanted to see those writings where I wrote about Chhatim flowers...I wish someday she'll come to know about my love for her. Will she change her mindset if she knows I haven't loved anyone else but her in my whole life?

I know I'll have to forget you in the due course of time...and in the process of forgetting you, I'll remember and remind those days I passed with you, or thinking about you, because I can stop loving you, but I won't stop loving those days I loved you.


I know you'll not remember be, but know this, there will be one person who, given a chance always wanted to care for you for the rest of his life, and will pray that wherever you go, you become successful, happy and loved by a person who is worth you.

Scattered notes 11

I went out with Srijita this evening. She was wearing a sari, and looked fantastically beautiful.

I enjoyed the time with her. Wish we could have something more than just good friendship. And whatever happened between us previously, I'll forget them now and stop acting mad at her. My motive got fulfilled. I successfully killed the evil inside me. May be now I can bid her a happy good bye.

Still it will kill me inside. But I must accept it that way. Who said that life will be smooth anyway?

Her face is permanently painted in my heart now. More whole-night-weeping to come, buddy. Buckle up, big-time.


I am happy that she agreed to pass the evening with me, though. With the kind of rules and regulation a girl like her has to maintain on an everyday basis, I wonder why on earth a girl like her would say yes to an evening out plan.

I love you, and will always do.

Lonely moments continue...

Waiting eagerly for Srijita to come back and hoping to pass the rest of the Puja with her. Can't wait. Miss her a lot.

Pallabi updated a new display pic. Wao man !!

Meanwhile, started editing once again. Did a cover page for one of my stories. Attaching the same with the post.

Lonely moments...

She's in Andaman, and I miss her. Gawd ! I miss her...

'The night train' got published on the day of Mahalaya in Spellbound (TOI) as I have already mentioned. It's astonishing how some of us have to satisfy their lives with mere happiness of the seeing their stories getting published. Life's dull. And difficult, and cruel, and lonely. Staying companion-less while the whole world goes out with people is hard. And that too year after year.

I miss her. I miss the walk back home. I miss her smile. I miss her voice. I miss everything about her. I miss her.

Guess I am bewitched !!

The night train

It was past midnight when the train screeched to a halt at some unknown station.

Shruti woke up. Surprisingly, the compartment was empty. She peered outside the window...

Dark was outside. Distances away forest began, a dense one. It was one of the forests of eastern Madhya Pradesh – through which the lines of the rail passed.

People try to sleep in darkness, when they are alone, but she does not. Rather she tries to hear strange sounds, if any are there. She tries to smell those things which are abstract, like the pages of old book, chhatim flowers, the wooden benches, the railings of windows...

Now someone entered into the coupe. Middle heighted man, and to her disgust, switched on the light.

He was a middle aged man, placing his bag under the seat.

“Turn off the light.” She said.

There was no answer. Rather, he turned to her and their eyes met. His was yellow, and had a painful look.

“Turn off the light.” She said again.

He sat on the bench slowly, but nevertheless taking his eyes apart from her, and smiled a little.

“Yes I will.” He said.

“Do it now.”

“Don’t you like it?”

She was about to answer something, but stopped. Months, years she has passed in darkness, but didn’t she like the light? Didn’t she want to join her friends coming out of her loneliness? Yes she did. But she feared to do, because she feared to remind...

And then he told something which shivered her.

“You are hurt, by some ways.”

She dumbed.

“May be any old liking, love or something like that, has hurt you a lot.”

“...what?” she said anyway.

“Here... I turn off the light.”


And the light was switched off.



The man lied down the bench, but she sat still. In the same darkness, the train ran at its highest speed.

She feared to remind, and he helped to do it again.



Reminding past is never easy. The words of the man, chhatim flowers, and dark night... took her to twenty years age... the day... a sharp, lightened afternoon saw her hesitant before a boy, and for the first time, she was lost in the world of colours, seasons and happiness. For the first time, she discovered love and liking in this world, and afterwards, an irresistible force called her again and again to the place he lived. Love – she found in the first hours of sunrise, in the red clouds of sunset, in the night dark sky standing alone on the roof. Flowers... songs... happy surroundings... if you have ever been in love, you will know – if there is something called God..., it is love.

And it was a Friday he committed suicide. Not much news she got, but some family problems..., with which he could not cope up with, killed him.

Since then, she is alone, inside darkness and silence... companionless... perhaps waiting for him.


. . .


As the first lights of morning reflected into the coupe, she didn’t find the man on the seat. Rather, bizarre feelings popped up her head when she remembered the man’s face very much alike with that of the boy she loved…died fifteen years ago.



(Published in Times Of India Spellbound competition 7th October 2010)

Scattered notes 10

“Yet each man kills the thing he loves
By each let this be heard
Some do it with a bitter look,
Some with a flattering word,
The coward does it with a kiss,
The brave man with a sword! “


Life is messed up. Suddenly understood haven’t done anything right for the last one and half years. CAT is one month away. And I am sure I am going to screw the whole thing up, big time. Fuck man!

Now that a single thought or a single sound of her voice makes me dizzy about her, I can hardly concentrate on anything that is related to studies. Want to quote something I said myself a month or so ago.


“Sometimes even after putting everything we have into something, and getting something in return, we start thinking that we didn’t want this from God.”


Will have to eat my own words, anyway.

I hate this city. Hate it like I hate nothing. Want to go anyplace far away from here. I have given everything I had to this city…and then got nothing in return.


When we love someone, we love them warts and all. I admit she was not the best of persons…but she was quite good at heart. That’s the reason I liked her. But the thing is…people must have the common sense that you don’t bring other people between us. It’s horrible. It’s like destroying the world you two had created. It’s like everything you talked about, you laughed about, are no more private between you two. It’s ridiculous. Someone has to step away. In this case, this was obviously me. It had to be me. Feels really bad, you know…for someone who has liked her for over a year, and then when I had the chances to care for her, to show the love I had for her…everything was gone again. I respect my decision of changing the batch after CAT. It can’t go on like this.



I am more concerned about my future now. What if I don’t get a score worth a good b-school? Can’t think this is happening to me.

Scattered notes 9

Depressed. Dejected. Alone. Hating myself more than anything.

Learned a couple of things. The hard way. Harsh way. Difficult way of learning. It has always been like this.


Time to note a few things.

1. Never trust anybody. Not a single soul in the world. (Thanks to Chetan Bhagat. This one comes straight from his blog.)

2. Use people as your cards. Never ever forget these cards will decide whether you will succeed in life or not. In crunch and tense situations, these cards will help you. Cards change depending upon situations. Learn to identify cards depending on the circumstances.

3. Don’t get excited. Nothing’s personal.

4. No girls.

5. No means no.


Missing grandparents a lot. Missing my ancient home for the first time so much. Missing my school. Hostel friends. Missing the Eucalyptus tree I saw at Hardwar. Missing the wet blanket, and the dawn songs they played at Hardwar. Missing those few moments I passed standing beside Pallabi. Missing the first encounter with Srijita. Missing the waiting for her for over a year. Missing that walk back home. Missing everything that brought smiles in my face.


I have screwed my life all over again. Big time.