Desicritics Category: Culture: Original Fiction

Fiction: Misery - Past And Present

Deepti Lamba — Tue, 2 Mar 2010 07:43:01 EST

The blades of the scorched grass glistened with a steady hot stream of piss and before the vinegar smell could permeate the surroundings the dirt of the unmarked grave silently accepted the unconscious slander. The woman with a significantly lighter kidney rose from her young flexible haunches and quickly adjusted her petticoats and saree with its liberal patterns of Swarovski crystals strewn across in cheerful patterns.

She looked around at the field of sunflowers that drooped towards the direction of absentee sun for orb of fire was setting in the opposite end of the sky in a shade of hazy red and she hissed “Aarti?! Hurry up.”

Her piss partner in crime rose from behind the thick trunk of a banyan tree with an embarrassed grin, smoothed her richly embroidered saree and quickly followed Darshini into the back of the waiting BMW.

The two men sitting in the front of the smooth mechanical beast grumbled about the poor countryside and its lazy inhabitants, ignored the women folk and as the car turned away from the dusty fields onto the road they began to discuss matters of bulls and bears and money made and lost.

The car wove through the traffic effortlessly and hungrily ate the miles that lay between Chandigarh and Delhi and the passengers within remained blissfully unaware of the fifth presence that now travelled with them. The ghost of the unmarked grave now hitchhiked in the body of Darshini.

Darshini rested her head against the plush black leather coverings and numbly stared out at the shabby north Indian countryside. The declining patches of fields taken over by monstrous industrial plants, the shabby cemented blocks of homes with their rust attracting prison windows and the never ending parade of brown humanity crawling around like heat crazed cockroaches.

In the cool interiors of the luxurious car she felt a mean streak of self pity spring forth some inadvertent tears. She raised her henna coloured hands over her eyes as if she was tired and discreetly wiped away the tell tale signs of sadness.

She stared back at the ugly scenery and reminded herself again that she was better off than those living poor lives but her heart spoke about simple joys of lives lived in slums, the bonds created by hard lives and the numerous little naked toddlers running around narrow alleys with little black threads hanging over their chubby butts to ward off the evil eye.

Her heart spoke about her being the clichéd bird in a golden cage; she being the barren canary who couldn’t lay an egg whereas her sister in law who had promptly gone off to sleep once the car started and rested her head against the car window was ripening. Darshini let her eyes rest on the six months pregnant belly that Aarti lay her hands over. It was a natural protective action of a pregnant mother but something Darshini was yet to experience.

She imagined the foetus swimming in the dark womb and felt a tightening in her belly. She imagined the maternal love welling in the heart that beat above the foetus and tried to ignore the fetid smell of jealousy. She wasn’t a mean woman she told herself and she was happy for her sister in law who stood by her side through thick and thin. She wasn’t an ungrateful woman just an incomplete one.

Closing her eyes she let the rhythm of the car lull her to sleep and the ghost residing within her drank in her unhappiness and wondered why he had let himself feel the emotions of humans.

Tied to his grave, he watched the world pass by with detachment. How many years had he stopped being human? He couldn’t count. Perhaps a hundred years, maybe more? There were no emotions felt, no anger remembered over his death, the murder committed against him by his own flesh and blood and the burial of his body to hide the evidence of crime done had not let him move on.

He lived and watched, tied to his grave like a chained dog long forgotten by his master. Darshini’s slander gave him the right to possess her flesh and without much thought he took residence and he came to rue the impulsive deed.

Sadness engulfed him and made him remember dimly his own heartbreak and the loss of his family.

Her hankering for a child reminded him of his own orphaned daughter and he wondered once again whatever happened to his little family. Time had flown and those he loved were dead memories and he was left alone, a disembodied numb energy. And now in the prison of Darshini’s body he struggled against the buffeting winds of grief and madness.

Darshini woke with a start. A vivid dream had engulfed her unconscious mind. The joyous peals of laughter of a two year old running into the arms of a strong sun burned man in dirt stained dhoti still rang in her ears. She dreamed of her breath being crushed out of her little body as her father squeezed her against his sweaty chest. She couldn’t understand the love laced with pain that emanated from her father. And in her little hands she held the handsome face of her father. Darshini remembered the gentle face, the gleaming teeth behind the thick moustache, the leathery cheeks and the stubborn chin.
In her wakened moments she realized he wasn’t her father nor she his little girl but the heartbreaking joy felt real. She belonged to someone. The love was unconditional. She wished she hadn’t woken up.

“Darshini? Are you awake?”

She met the quiet eyes of her husband in the rear view mirror and gave a nod.

“Could you call Ma and tell her we will be home in another hour?” he asked as he overtook a slow mammoth truck packed up with goods like a muffin top- a hazardous vehicle no other vehicle wanted to be stuck behind.

Darshini pulled out her Nokia phone from her small evening bag and speed dialled her mother in law’s number. Sounds of religious bells rang in her ears along with a pious voice singing shlokas in Sanskrit. She waited for a few minutes and was about to cut the line when her mother in law answered.

“Yes, Beta? How far are you from home? How was the wedding?” the sleep crusted self assured voice of her mother in law grated her nerves. The lady was nice, enough.

“Wedding went well. Surabhi looked very pretty in her bridal clothes and Ashok looked very handsome.”

Darshini went on making polite conversation and Aarti woke up as well and smiled at Darshini. Darshini’s lifted her lips in a reciprocal smile and stifled the restless urge that coursed through her senses. Open the door and jump out clamoured her senses. She could see herself jump out and get lost in the teeming humanity, to be lost forever and never to return to the web of niceness layered with unspoken pity.

The ghost identified with Dashini’s tumultuous rage. He was familiar with the overwhelming clouds of despair that drowned the human spirit in a deluge of grief and powerlessness . He held on to the masts of her spirit that lay low in melancholia and wondered what broke her heart. The hurt went deep within the caverns of her soul. His anger ,her anger, their grief, he wondered if she could feel his presence or was so she mired in darkness that her soul had lost its rights to safeguard its own body?

Her impatience gave him the impetus to speak in her mind. Why? He asked and she ignored the question and his presence. He was startled at her lack of reaction. He spoke louder in her mind Why do you suffer?

She heard the voice speak boldly in her mind and bit her lip. Her eyes swept across the car and she gripped the phone tighter against her ear and spoke hurriedly “We will be home in another hour’s time, mom. Pradeep wants a cup of tea.”

“ Me too!” Karan turned around and gave his sister in law Darshini a smile packed with happiness. His playful eyes and twin dimples in his lean cheeks
irked the hollowness within her.

She spoke again in the phone “Karan also wants tea, Ma”

“Don’t worry. I know you people will turn home hungry. My children are so spoilt. I know none of you eat properly at the wedding. I will have some hot fresh aloo paranthas ready for you along with tea ready by the time you get home.”

Her mother in law’s generosity rubbed salt against her heart.

“Ma, You don’t have to put in so much effort. And I shouldn’t have woken you up so early as it is.”

The older lady laughed in her ear “I love feeding you. Don’t worry about me. It’s just one of the ways I make sure you youngsters can’t live without me.”
Her light hearted banter made Darshini wince. She wanted to be without the old matron of a mother in law, she wanted to be without her husband, her brother in law, her sister in law. She wanted to be without the urge to have a baby. What was wrong with her? She was blessed with a happy home but she wanted to throw it all away. She wanted to drown in the dark pit and never crawl out of it. She wanted to die and never breathe ever again.

Never breathe again? What is wrong with you?! Do you know what death is all about? He asked in her mind and she promptly negated the question. Voices spoke in everyone’s mind. Only the sick took them seriously and she wasn’t sick.

Her fingers trembled as she disconnected the line and shoved the phone back in her purse. Tears clouded her eyes and she blinked them back. Why did she want to cry at every given moment? Damn! She admonished herself and missed the concerned look her husband flicked her in the rear-view mirror. Misery was her constant companion and she was so tired of herself, tired of the hunger that eat her from within, tired of the hunger to be happy, tired of the irrational desire that a baby would fill the dark void with innocent brilliance. She wanted to put an end to it all once and for all.

Hanging. That's how most take their lives. He remembered those days when the skies refused to weep for the earth and cracked soles of human feet hung from trees.

She tilted her head slightly and a slight whimsical smile slipped across her face. Suffering had become an addiction and she knew no better. Death seemed like a feasible option but hanging was an ugly mess. She preferred sleeping pills. Drink down those seemingly harmless pills and never wake up. Be gone forever. Oblivion.

There is no such thing as oblivion. He whispered and remembered eternity of suspended living. The life of an insignificant wraith chained to a tragedy long past. He wondered if there was any way he could get across to her and show her the preciousness of each moment lived.

Delusion that death wiped away all pain gave the foolish courage to take their own lives. But to feel nothing after the death was far worse. But there was no way he could let her know.

He heard the faint beating heart of the unborn child. An empty shell still waiting to be housed by a soul. But it wasn’t his right to take what could easily be his. He wouldn’t commit another wrong. If only he could reach through to the woman. His own pain was a residual of past, leavings of a ghost but she was alive.

Happiness is a state of being. It is the perseverance to go on despite all the hurt in the world. It is to believe and to hope. He whispered softly and remembered the warmth of his child snuggled in his arms, the love of his wife and the life he had led no matter how short and for that he was grateful. Peace descended over him and for few precious minutes Darshini felt a balm over her exhausted heart.

He left Darshini as easily as he had become one with her soul. The detachment was natural for he was still one with her in compassion.

The moment passed and Aarti took Darshini’s hand in hers and gave it a squeeze. Darshini let her hand lie in Aarti’s warm clasp for a few minutes and then removed her hand and curled it in a tight fist. She had come to hate unexpected human contact.

She continued to stare at the countryside with unseeing eyes.
They reached home sometime before six and her mother in law hugged her at the thresh hold and she bore the hug in silence, then muttered something about wanting to freshen up and broke loose. Aarti and Karan followed in. Her mother in law caught the arm of her elder son, last to enter and asked in a whisper

“Pradeep, did she take her medicines? How was she there?”

Pradeep ran a tired hand over his eyes and replied “So far so good mom. She hasn’t been irate but there still is something going on within her. And I feel we should ask the doctor for more effective meds.”

Her mother in law peeked inside the house to make sure no one was listening

“But beta, those pills will numb her down completely. She won’t be the Darshini we so love.”

Before walking in Pradeep replied “At least she will stay alive mom. Better numb than dead, don’t you think?”

His mother sighed in frustration and followed her son inside the house and went into the kitchen where her daughter in laws were pulling out plates to lay the table for fresh aloo paranthas.

Fiction: Bitter Coffee

IdeaSmith — Tue, 2 Mar 2010 06:22:51 EST

The Corner Coffeeshop was open for business but its traffic was at a lull. It was too early in the evening for the post-work crowd, too late for the students and AC-enjoying unemployed to be hanging around.

Outside, the sun had gone down but that curious combination of atmospheric density and light's acrobatic bending made it seem like daylight was still around.

Such were his thoughts, where another person would have called it twilight. He grimly thought to himself that she would have referred to Van Gogh's 'Starry Nights' while all along he'd be thinking of the diagrams in the physics textbooks about light refraction.

He was already seated on the bar-stool near the window, his bag on the seat next to his, to save it for her. In front of him was a cappuccino. With deliberate precision, he emptied two sachets of sugar into the cup and tossed the empty packets into the dustbin near the end of the table. She preferred espresso shots but he couldn't stand their acrid taste. But he didn't want another lecture on calorie count either.

Outside, the object of his ruminations had just neared the door and was standing but not entering. Then she squared her shoulders, took a deep breath and walked in.

He saw her from the corner of his eye and put down his coffee mid-sip to receive her kiss. To his surprise, she turned, picked his bag off the seat and sat down with it in her lap. A second later, she seemed to have second thoughts and put it on the table.

Then she turned and said in a rush.

I need to tell you something and I need you to not interrupt. I’m going back to Delhi tomorrow.

But…

She held up her hand.

Don’t say anything. I’m going. The ticket is booked. And it’s one-way.

Her face was set in an immovable mask. She looked beautiful. But unrecognizable. Like a cold, marble statue that was displayed in someone else's house.

When you called me here for coffee, I thought you were trying to rekindle the romance in our relationship.

Her stiff expression didn’t change. She hadn’t even put her bag on the table. He tried again.

I know we’ve been arguing. But we’ve been through worse stuff. It’s…what are we doing?

She wavered and in a slightly watery voice said,

You’re having coffee. I’m leaving.

Come on, you don’t have to do this. Let’s talk about this.

Let's not.

she said. And those were her last words to him. He would think about that often. For such a talkative person, she was leaving him with so little. As if she didn't want to spend another precious minute or word on him.

Across the street, she plugged her earphones into her ears and switched on the iPod. It wasn't serendipitous, the song that came up.

Why she had to go, I don't know, she wouldn't say
I said something wrong, I long for yesterday
Yesterday, love was such an easy game to play.

She'd been listening to the Beatles all evening on her way to the coffeeshop. It helped her relax and focus.

He hadn't said anything wrong. How do you tell someone that they had never said anything right in the first place? How do you explain that after three years? And how do you erase the memory of your own wrong choices?

You don't. You just stop and turn away.

She turned the corner and stopped under the street lamp. She asked herself, shall I reconsider? and turned to look in the direction of the coffeeshop.

It was dark now and the bright lights of The Corner Coffeeshop were attracting their clientele in now. She couldn't see him anymore, there were too many people around. Night had fallen.

Should I?

And in the same breath, the thought crystallized into realisation.

Let me not.

She took a deep breath and walked away.

Coffee was never going to be anything but bitter after this.

Twitter Fiction: Twocial Etiquette

IdeaSmith — Sat, 27 Feb 2010 02:28:40 EST

“And this is Kunal.”

“Are you on Twitter?”

“Yes, I’m @c00nal.”

“I don’t think I FOLLOW you.”

“I don’t follow you either.”

Kunal frowns as he turns to the Hot Dog stand.

“I think I hurt his ego a bit.”

“You just met!”

“Social boo-boo, telling someone you don’t follow them on Twitter.”

“What rubbish, nobody cares about these things.”

“Some people do. Maybe he’s one of them. Shit, I blew it.”

“Shh, he’s back. Ice-creams? Isn’t that too…I don’t know…something?”

“Ice-cream is cool.”

“Or maybe it’s c00nal.”

“No, this is c00nal.”

He says, holding out a spoon with a bit of ice-cream stuck to it. It’s green, not an appealing shade for food, she thinks.

“Ooh, you got her an ice-cream, c00nal?”

“A bite-sized version.”

He grins.

“A twitterized ice-cream.”

She replies, smiling back as she takes the spoon.

From Ashes

IdeaSmith — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 09:11:32 EST

This is for Dee, the editor I'd like to have, who quite literally showed me the way.

~O~O~O~O~O~Where do stories come from? she wondered. Her editor had told her that her writing had a quality of finesse in it. But, he said, the spark was missing. She wanted to protest, it had been such an effort to get to here after all. But anticipating just that, he had moved his hand in a wiping gesture, as if trying to clear away a fog around her.

“It’s that madness, that raw energy that used to make one want to read. Bring that back. It’s you. Unleash it in your writing.”

She brooded over it for a long time, all through the book-browsing date and the high tea that followed. Then she decided to take a walk. Taking long walks and watching people and noting down what one saw seemed to be the right things for a writer to do. The sea had always held appeal. But somehow, the effort of crossing the road, dodging bratty rich kids in their oversized cars only to scrounge a garbage pile of people on the other side, for seating space…wasn’t an appealing thought at all.

The city is no place for an artist, she told herself. How was one supposed to be inspired by this relentless struggle? It didn’t even have the elements of drama like a war or a revolution or an uprising, a famine or a flood. It was just everyday, niggling grievances. Who would want to read about those? Who would want to write about those, she retorted inside her head. Then she shook herself. Arguing with oneself is the first step into insanity and she’d be damned if she was going to live up to that pathetic stereotype of a writer-gone-crazy before she was even published.

The girl hopped off the last bogey, the one that she had just managed to jump into as the train pulled out of the station. In one hand she clutched a little notepad and a magenta pen, her chosen colour for the day. She did have one thought that should be captured before it vanished into that abyss of forgotten inspiration. One hand holding down the page, she expertly popped off its lid with her mouth and twirled it around to cap its end with practiced efficiency. Rapidly she wove a messy magenta web over the ideas that had caused her to almost miss her train.

Mumbai Metaphors

I stood on the opposite side of the road that runs along the seaface. It was the wrong side, not the one that had the seating parapet along its entire length but the junction of the seaface road and the arterial conduit to the station terminus.

I stood under the tree that has survived attempts to build bigger and more buildings, broader roads and wider pedestrian walks. The same gnarled tree that stands on the side of the road like a senior citizen with memories of a slower, more human-paced city but no energy to brave the pace of today.

The sky was just turning that indefinable shade of evening like the colour of the last dregs of black tea in a chipped white saucer. Sepia, the colour of nostalgia, that one extra element that changes the picture of a dirty, overcrowded metropolis to the magical visage of home.

A rare wind was blowing all around me. February in the city picks you up as gently and playfully as the waves and takes you to the edge of the shore of winter. I felt like I was standing in the middle of a swimming pool, only it was filled with moving, insistent air around me instead of water.

When she looked up, she was standing at the threshold of light, surrounded by darkness. The very edge of a station, flowing slowly into light at the other end. A rusty carriage sat on incomplete tracks, a long discarded project of the metropolitan train network and peered at her through unpainted metal bars. On the other side, across the tracks and the other well-lit platform, high over their roofs rose the skeletal inner beams of discarded mills. Like a will being contested over the rotting body of a dead person, the future of the land they stood on was being dueled over, with no thought to the buildings that still were.

Places have memories, don’t they? Memories of lives that have passed, of habits that were housed under these roofs, hidden behind these walls. The paan-stains, the half-buried cigarette butts, sneaky but woeful reminders of escapes, of stolen glee. And then the finality of ashes that came from burning who knows what? Paper? Cloth? Oil? Human beings? There were stories that led to the ashes but there was no way to trace them back. This place had its endings but not all it was in ashes. Everything else was memories that could be traced by anyone who cared to listen, to pick up those strands and imagine where they led. They were stories to be told.

She looked down at her book again, an abrupt swooshing action. The white pages even with their magenta words glared back at her in defiance. Those words meant nothing and in her mind’s eye, she imagined the magenta whorls and lines slide off the pages. Blood, the only thing that would stick. Hold a pen to a nerve and write, he had said. So she turned a page and begun,

Something was burning.

Fiction: The Winning Point

IdeaSmith — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 07:35:34 EST

Vineet was an ordinary young man with one remarkable talent that came to fore only in his late teens in college. It all started with an inter-collegiate festival.

His college and the hosting campus had a long running feud and the annual festival was both, a new episode in the war as well as a chance for each batch to showcase its coming-of-age skills. When Anveeta, the cultural secretary had called for participants, he had been standing nearby, waiting for her to finish so he could leave the class. But she turned to him and snapped,

“Name?”

and his mind had gone on auto-pilot. Before he realized it, she had written it down and moved on to the next person. He didn’t even have time to tell her that he wasn’t into anything remotely cultural. Anyway, he wouldn’t have. Anveeta was not the kind of person one ever said no to. Not that she had ever asked him anything. Anveeta went with the power pack in college and he doubted that she’d recognize him on the road if they passed. Now that they had spoken, he realized that he would have agreed to anything she asked. Even though she had not really asked.

The festival had twenty-five events with about twelve colleges competing for the trophy. Each event awarded a point apiece for participation and more for clearing each level of the competition. The college with the highest total at the end of the festival would win the shining silver cup.

A bunch of 15-odd people were going to sing, dance, act, talk and strut down the stage for the various events. Vineet found himself herded in with the numbers to grab the participation points. These were the small runs, the ‘singles’ as his buddies on the cricket team called it. First to go were the accomplished artists into the music, elocution and art events. Next were the trained and rehearsed teams – the fashion show troupe, the debating team and the dramatics group. The sports teams had gone straight to the grounds and would catch up with them only at the end of the day.

That left four of them. One of them headed to the advertising contest, having set his sights on an internship at an ad agency that summer. The other two trouped off to the personality contest, more to ogle the participants of the opposite sex than anything else. They left Vineet standing in front of the schedule board.

What could he do? He ran his eye speculatively down the list some three times before he found an event right at the bottom. There were only 3 registrants so far and it sounded easy. So he signed up and walked towards the door he was directed to. To his dismay, it turned out to be a small sized auditorium rather than a classroom. What’s more, it was almost half full. Most of the students were using it as a resting point to lounge in the airconditioning, secure in the knowledge that the peons wouldn’t be able to evict anyone on this day of the festival when it wasn’t clear who was a visitor and who, a student.

It was too late to turn back since the co-ordinator who had registered his name was jostling him from the back. Too bad she was so pretty. She was the only girl to have even looked at him that day. So he took a deep breath and walked up to the raised podium and sat down with the other three participants.

It was two hours before he was able to escape from that room. Outside, his team was waiting, Anveeta hopping impatiently from foot to foot as she gave him an annoyed look.

“So how many points do we have so far?”

Each person spoke up their share while she added it to the tally. When the stars were done, she stopped listening and just starting counting off the remaining heads to allot 1 point each for participation.

“14…15…16…17…shit, we’re tying for third place. We’re never going to get there, dammit!”

“No, we’re at 24.”

Vineet ventured timidly

“Hmm?”

she paused in distraction and looked down at her tally again. He waited patiently while she recounted and turned back at him with a frown.

“The tally is correct.”

“No, you only counted 1 for me. I got 8.”

The rest of the group was listening now. Boldened a tad, Vineet raised his voice a notch but he was beaten by the captain’s low octave.

“That’s not possible. You’ve to cross all rounds and win to get that high.”

“Err, yes, I won.”

“What?”

She was looking dumbfounded now.

“Twist-a-tune.”

He heard the girl behind him whisper to her friend,

“What’s that?”

“It’s a music event. They give you two songs. You have to take the words of one and the tune of another and sing them without a break.”

Still dumbfounded. With a supreme act of bravado, Vineet opened his mouth and launched into an encore of his performance.

“Jaadoo teri nazar, khusbhoo tera badan”

It took everyone a few minutes before someone whispered,

“But that’s…that’s…Om Jai Jagadish Hare…the tune is that”

“Tu hain meri kiran”

finished Vineet.

He was rewarded not with applause but with a shriek from the captain herself.

“24 puts us in the lead!!!!”

“Excuse me”

said a voice at his elbow,

“You didn’t tell us your name.”

The pretty girl coordinator from the mini-auditorium was smiling back at him, pad in hand. Vineet grinned. Well, when she asked like that…

And that was the day Vineet went from being an extra participant to a winner.

Fiction: Tryst With A God

Deepti Lamba — Tue, 9 Feb 2010 08:34:48 EST

The rosy cheeked cherub grinned at her. She stared back at him. No owl hooted, no wind woo wooed against her window pane and no full moon stared down at earth demanding the presence of a werewolf. Yet there was a creature straight out of the world made of mythologies buzzing way with wings at the foot of her bed.

The cherub seemed no more than three years old. His nether parts were barely covered by a coarse cotton cloth held together by a yellow diaper safety pin. His hair was the color of spun gold and in his hands he held a bow, a heart shaped arrow and a quiver on his back.

Tacky she thought and leaned against the headboard of the bed. Her fingers tightened over the rough leather collar of her dog - Banjo the Rottweiler. She could feel the tremble of the dog's low growl caused by the intruder's presence.

The thin bedsheet that covered her naked breasts slipped and pooled around her waist. Like gentle hillocks the breasts rose from her emaciated rib cage and the narrow brown nipples capped the slumbering volcanoes.

The cherub's smile widened and he pointed the tip of the torrid heart on her breasts. She lightened her clasp over Banjo who was mesmerised by the tiny dangling pink toes of the child stranger and the low growling increased a notch. Even the dog knew that the intruder before them was not human.

She cleared her throat and asked "Lets get one thing out of the way first. I am not dreaming, right?"

Cupid raised an eyebrow and raised his arrow to her head.

She nodded and spoke as if she was making an everyday observation "There is a little greek god in my bedroom and he has a weapon in his hands. Tell me why I shouldn't let my dog have his way with you? That is if you are real and I haven't lost my mind."

Cupid shrugged and she watched his pudgy arms stretch into action. The bow's string became tight and the arrow was aimed at her head.

"Bummer!" she muttered as the twang sang loudly in her room and the arrow sliced through the air to swarm her mind with hearty heart love.

Cupid sucked in a breath. It was his turn to feel the sharp echoes of surprise resound in his mind. Couldn't be, he thought.

The arrow had stopped just inches before her forehead and was clasped between her joint palms. She threw the arrow away and glared at him.

"You are a Ninja Assasin! They are extinct." His words of protest made her smirk.

She pulled back Banjo who had risen to his haunches in attack mode and replied "No. I abhor violence. This is the result of yogic meditation. I recently mastered the art of time suspension in the local YMCA evening classes."

"YMCA?! Is that some sort of a warrior community?" he let his bow fall to his side and spoke again. His words reminded her of smooth Maple syrup over hot pancakes, of musky heat between sheets.

She let out of a husky laugh and ignored the desire that curled between her legs. "Sort of" she replied and asked "Now do you mind telling me what are you doing here before I ask my dog to fetch me your wings?"

Cupid perched himself on her bedpost and his visible weenie disconcerted her and reminded the dog of sausages his mistress shared with him without fail for breakfast.

"Why my wings when you can have me?" he asked mischievously.

"I'm not into cherubs. Thank you very much" she replied and crossed her arms over her breasts causing the nipples to get squashed. The dog put his head down next to his mistress's covered thighs and fell asleep. There was no threat apparently and he had sleep to make up.

Cupid relaxed and laid the bow over his pudgy little knees and replied "Well, tonight I have to be in this form. That was one of the conditions I had to agree to."

Her lips tightened and she asked "Conditions? What are you talking about?"

He shrugged and looked through the French windows at the moon that silently guarded the sleeping world "I was called in to carry out a hit on you. A favor for someone in high places."

"High places?! you are not making any sense. I don't know any god, demi-god or ..or-"

"Or anyone who worships us? We haven't been worshipped for a very long human time. You want to know who made me come here to make you fall in love?"

"Of course I want to you to tell me who conjured you up so you could..." she raised her hands in wide circular motions and then pointed at his bow.

"Make you fall in love." he completed her sentence. He watched her with the eyes of a hawk watching an innocent field mouse "It was Karan."

"Karan?! That techie who sits in the next cubicle at my office? That fellow barely talks to me!" she threw off her sheet with vicious kicks and the dog raised his head at the sudden movement and gave her languid look of protest.

"You humans make things more complicated than they need be." Cupid shrugged. "All he needed to do was tell you how he felt but I see now why he couldn't."

"What do you mean?" she thundered and looked around for her robe. Cupid's eyes followed her slim form, the play of her buttock muscles and her elbows that jutted out like dry knobby branches.

She yanked open her chest of drawers and pulled on a large t-shirt instead. Cupid looked at the dog and rolled his eyes in disappointment. Humans and their defense mechanisms always began with ensuring their bodies were armoured with clothes.

"Okay!" she walked over to the little perched god and asked " How did he get you to come over?"

"My mother runs what you people call a flower shop just round the corner."

"Your mother?" her mouth fell open

"She gets tired once in a while and likes to play - agony mother to humans."

She corrected him "Agony aunt."

He nodded and eyed the shirt that read - no fucking me if you won't kiss da frog

"Why do you want people to kiss frogs?" he asked

"What?" she glared at him and shook her head "Oh! its just a stupid t-shirt. Doesn't mean anything. So Karan put a hit on me?"

Cupid left the bedpost and his dimunitive form stood on the bed quite close to the Banjo who opened one eye, looked at the little child he could easily maul and went back to dreaming of pork sausages.

"No, my mother put a hit on you. I came here as a favor to my mother. If it was Karan I would have come as me."

"As you? what do you mean?" She put her hands on her waist and demanded

The cherub gave a feral smile that drowned her vagina with heavy passion. She took a deep pranayam breath in all the way to the pit of her belly and exhaled.

"I would have come as Apollo. This form is made by human perception. You would have liked that?" he asked softly.

The lust on the young face sat strangely and made her feel disoriented but she refused to take her eyes off him.

"Maybe not. Banjo would have killed you in a nanosecond. Your child form saved you from becoming Greek or Roman chops."

"Fair enough. Now what are we to do? I have a task to carry forward." he asked her softly and let his eyes run over her body.

"Do you always follow what your mama tells you to do?" she whispered back and felt her nipples tweak.

The god in his small form let his bow and quiver full of arrows fall on the bed "No. Not always. But it is a hit and I have to follow through."

She licked her lips and whispered back "I am not stopping you but you must hit me in your true form."

He stood still and replied " If I do that the hit will be mine and not Karan's."

"Fair enough." She answered back and felt her knees tremble with anticipation.

"There won't be any going back. There will be repercussions." he warned her

She shrugged and as she lifted her over sized t-shirt he changed form.

The room brightened for a second. She suspended time, stared at Apollo's muscular divinity and muttered "Oh my!"

Fiction: Rockstar

IdeaSmith — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 19:57:21 EST

I've just discovered a kink in my sexual make-up. I have a thing for gender role switching. That's not men dressing in lingerie (eww, gross!). It's a woman who's sexy because she's wearing a guy's long tee-shirt that comes down to mid-thigh. It's the breath-catching oomph of a rolled-up cuff revealing a slender arm. Or ooh...a chunky, sporty man's watch on a delicate female wrist.

How about the reverse? Hrithik Roshan gliding across an airport, pink tee-shirt, coloured sunglasses glory, the cool criminal in Dhoom 2. Oh he kills me, he kills me.

But the true master, the one that transcends gender, who takes sexuality beyond female or male has to be Sting. A voice that feels like a caress...of a man's tongue. When he lifts one foot to step forward and a field of golden corn springs up within him, it makes me think...that's the kind of sex that makes life, it makes you come alive.

How come all the lead guitarists, the famous ones, the images you have of a rockstar are all male? There's obviously something vaguely sexy about a guitar. The curvaceous soundbox, the long phallic arm and what about the strumming? I've played the guitar and I know it doesn't have to be held at crotch-level. And yet, why not? It goes from song-making to love-making.

I'd love to be straddling a guitar with my torso, strumming in tune to the master, letting his melody caress my song.

Ooh....

Oh, it's my phone. That buzz in my pocket feels so good.

Down with flu. Can't make it to practice today.

AHEMMM.

My mother's grim throat-clearing conveys that she is very, very angry about my checking my phone in church.

It's about choir practice.

Her thin-line mouth is a pointed reminder that we are still in church and I'm talking. I drop my gaze and shut up.

Twenty minutes later, I am settled in as comfortably as is possible in the confessional. Why do they make these seats so uncomfortable? Probably to punish the confessors for the sins they confess to.

Yes, my child.

Father, I have sinned.

Tell me about this thing you have done.

It's not something I did. I've been having...wrong thoughts.

Deeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep brooding silence. Presumably to make me ponder on my wrongdoing. Shame me into confessing all and purging my sins.

The silence is music. The silence is sexy in its own way.

About what, child?

About three notes too low. But low is good. It takes me higher. Go down, down further, go down on me.

I've been thinking of quitting the choir.

The silence is different now. Taut tension knife-edge sharp like the orchestra falling away to leave just that one high-pitched note behind.

I want to be in a rock band instead.

CRRRRRASSSSSHHHHHH.

I take a bow.

Fiction: The Cry Of The Pecker

Deepti Lamba — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 09:33:50 EDT

His wrinkled hand touched the knob of the bathroom door and trembled. He was a horny 60 year old bastard lusting after a 36 year old woman. He wasn't getting any and neither was she. They were the only two sex deprived adults in a household where the other two adults, his son and his wife, were getting on probably every other night.

The water fell in the bathroom and he imagined himself in there with her and feelings of shame and lust made a nasty heady cocktail in his mind. He let his body go a long time back. He had a round belly that made him look four months pregnant and his breasts looked as if they had worked double shifts at the breastfeeding factory but these body image issues did not deter him from shamelessly sniffing his daughter in law. He imagined his shaft poking deep within her bushy nether regions and her soft mouth open in a perfect O.

His pecker had come to hate him and turned him into a dirty old man. It had been over ten years since he had had sex. Vibha's death had closed the chapter when it came to enjoying female companionship but also irrevocably on his sex life.

Five years later, tragedy struck again when his younger son died of a car accident on the Jaipur highway along with two of his friends.

The car had a headlong collision with a truck that had only one working headlight. He turned his mind away from the call that came, the identification of the blood crusted broken bodies, the pyre and the arrival of his shell shocked daughter in law to stay with them from Jaipur.

He put his head on the bathroom door and remembered how she cried into her pillow late in the night and he stood outside her door letting his tears run down his wrinkled cheeks as well. His other daughter in law saw him standing outside Sheetal's door crying and returned to her room to give her stoic father in law privacy to grieve in peace.

But one night they heard him cry out loudly and they stepped out of their room to see their shell shocked father standing in the dark corridor with Sheetal. His son switched on the light and gasped. Sheetal had shaved her waist length hair and the warm yellow light of the cheap Chinese bulbs pooled against her clean bald head. She glared at her flabbergasted brother in law and his wife.

She held out her dead husband's electric razor which Gaurav, her brother in law, took and they watched her walk back to her room and lock the door. Gaurav shook his head and returned to his room, grumbling about midnight dramas were getting on his nerves.

His wife, Sonam, put a solicitous hand on her father in law's arm and asked him if he needed anything. He shook his head, told her gruffly that she was a good daughter and went back to his room. Sonam felt like his daughter but not Sheetal with her baleful eyes and cold silences.

Gaurav and Sonam bounced back from the tragedy within a year since the birth of their son came as a balm to their arid souls. There was laughter in the house again but Sheetal remained somewhat aloof and in a world of her own. She doted on the little one, cradled him in her arms and showered him with baby gifts but interaction with the family was cut and dry as if she was a roomie sharing space with them and nothing more.

Sheetal found a job and left in the morning and returned in the evenings. She shared household duties with Sonam like a automaton, served dinner, held the baby for a while and then promptly left for her room. Sonam shook her head, Gaurav shook his head and so did he while the cherub slept in his withered arms.

The pattern was shattered when Sheetal had bought a friend unannounced home for dinner. Her name was Bina and she was the antithesis of quiet Sheetal. Over dinner she ribbed Sheetal for her cool exterior and her soft beating heart for she willingly took up the work of an ill colleague and time and again stood up to their mean spirited boss. Bina filled the silence in all its cold pockets with her incessant chatter. She praised Sonam's cooking skills, said Gaurav was a thoughtful father and him - she looked intently in his quiet old brown eyes and told him that Sheetal thought he was the father she wished she had instead of that cold brute who left her mother.

His lips had trembled in response and he let his eyes slide over his silent daughter in law who refused to meet his eyes and trailed narrow lanes between her pooris and subzi. Her hair had started growing back – the fuzzy black had given way to a shaggy mop that she had neglected to style. He felt something twist in his heart and his chest tightened. He cleared his throat, nodded and gruffly asked for his pooris.

Sheetal never bought Bina back home again but the family were heartened to hear Bina's perky voice ask for Sheetal on the phone. They took it as a sign that Sheetal was beginning to pick up the threads of her life but they gave her space. They all had gotten used to her morbid self absorption but unlike his son and his wife he now found himself noticing small things about Sheetal. Like that crisp Monday morning when she finally moved on from wearing flat shoes to heels, when she began to wear more shapely blouses instead of the baggy sacks she used to wear to work and he remembered when his pecker moved a little when he finally saw the pink lipstick on her lips.

Part of him was heartened that she had finally begun to move on and part of him hated himself zealously for the reaction that came from a place he thought was long dead. He couldn't sleep the night his pecker came alive. The next morning he had a hard on because his widowed daughter in law painted her lips in front of him. He was a pathetic old bastard.

The tightened muscle felt good in all its 9 inch glory but his conscience tore him apart. She gave an absentminded smile to her little makeshift family and left for work. Sonam asked whether he was willing to hold the wailing two year old while she collected the dishes? He nodded and she plonked the frisky one year old on his lap and he gently moved the boy away from his boner and placed him on the floor next to him. It was all so wrong and yet felt good. He felt like a young man and as his boner shrivelled up and nestled back against his enlarged balls he told himself no harm had come. It was the way of men to hide the lust and dike the destruction it could deluge on those men loved best.

Five years of lusting and pining for a woman who thought of him as her father had made him feel like a teenager having wet dreams about a woman he knew he could never have. And the romance of it sang in his blood. He lay against his hard pillow and had fantasies of her, he gave in to desire once in a week and cleaned himself up with tissues later and made sure he never looked at her for too long when others were around.

He caressed the door behind which she took her bath. Five years had passed and she was a changed woman and he a changed man. Death had done that to them. He straightened his back and told himself to be a man and knocked on the door. The sound of water running stopped and a hesitant yes answered his knock.

He cleared his throat and spoke “Beta! Giresh will be here soon. He called and said the movie will start in half an hour. You better get ready fast.”

“Yes Babuji!” there was excitement in her voice. She had slowly thawed since her boss steam rolled into her life. The same obnoxious mean spirited slave driver of a boss fell for the iron willed Sheela and proposed marriage.

He stepped away from the bathroom and went into the living room and picked up the newspaper and blindly stared at image of a politician giving a toothy smile with a fat marigold garland around his thick neck. Minutes ticked by and there were sounds of horns blaring and the door bell ringing.

His grandson spilled inside with his school bag and mother behind him. They both wore big smile and behind them walked in Giresh. Tall, young vibrant Giresh juggling flowers and gifts for the family.

Sonam gave a girlish laugh “Babuji, you have to tell Giresh not to bring us gifts every time he comes over. He is spoiling Anil. He pulled in right behind us and got Anil all excited.”

Anil gave a toothy smile, his teeth were already stained with chocolate and Giresh put the gold Rocher wrapper in his pocket and strode over to his side and handed him a small sleek rectangular box and said “I thought of you when I saw this.”

He gave a weak smile and opened the wrapping and saw a Mont Blanc pen in it. His pecker felt puny and bullied in front of Giresh. He sighed and sat back and gave a weak smile “There really wasn't any need Giresh.”

Giresh shrugged and his eyes looked beyond the living room. His eyes lit up when he saw Sheela walk into the room and like Giresh's eyes his eyes too took in her silky shoulder length hair, the easy smile and the skip in her step.

“Time to go? We have a dinner reservation.” Giresh took her arm and she nodded.

They began to walk out. Anil like an incorrigible spaniel crowded around the two and they both gave him a tight good bye hug and Sonam behind them teased Giresh to bring her sister in law back home in it and no naughty business till they got married.

Giresh ribbed back that he respected the traditions of the family and had utmost respect for Babuji.

Giresh's words made him feel like a wriggling worm on a fisherman's pole. He remained seated on the leather couch with a stained smile on his face.

The car on the driveway started and he felt like crying as if his favourite toy had been taken away. His heart broke and he wiped his tears.

The door opened again, he raised his eyes and watched her in walk towards him in her vibrant red silk top and figure hugging jeans. She had come a long way from the grieving widow to a woman willing to love again.

She stood before him for a minute then bent down and touched his feet and softly said “Thank you Babuji.”

He touched her head and replied “Be happy, that is all that I ask.”

She stood up, flicked away the tears and left the house.

He sighed, picked up the paper and began to read. His pecker on the other hand wailed its horny existence.

Fiction: The Letter of the Law

Ledzius — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 16:58:39 EDT

Indus Paradigms Inc., a very successful software consultancy firm, has its headquarters in Mountain View, CA, USA. It was founded by an Indian, Ashok Advani, who did his MS at Stanford University in the early 90's. It now boasts a total employee strength of more than 2000 spread all over the globe.

In India, it has two centres, one in Gurgaon and another in Bangalore. These two alone employ more than 1400 people. In March, Ashok Advani flew to India to visit the Indian centres. After visiting the Gurgaon branch, he flew down to Bangalore to spend three days there.

Although he could have wrapped up his Bangalore visit in two days, he decided to stay for one more day in order to have a get-together with his office and college chums who were also in Bangalore. Interestingly enough, the day of their get-together was March 11 which happened to be Holi.

The venue of the get-together was the outdoor party area in the apartment complex of Nehaa Chawla who was the company's Director of Marcom. In her mid 30's now, she was two years junior to Ashok whom she knew back at St. Stephens in Delhi. She went to the US, did her MBA at U. Chicago, got married and divorced within six months. She then joined an insurance company in Chicago. When her company decided to set up a back office in Gurgaon, she wanted to relocate there, which her company agreed to.

After two years, she applied for a job at Indus Paradigms which had just started in Gurgaon, and she was hired by Ashok and promoted within two years to her current position. After a string of failed relationships in Gurgaon, she got depressed and wanted to move out of there. When the Bangalore operation got started, she offered to relocate there, and Ashok (who had a soft spot for her, albeit non-romantic) was happy to let her do so.

In the Delhi-Gurgaon area, Nehaa had been fairly popular in social circles, and had made occasional appearances on Page 3. She was quite photogenic and pretty. She managed to win the "Top middle level female manager of the year" award from a women's magazine, mainly because she knew the editor of the magazine personally. She was actually an average manager at best.

Ashok's high school mate, Rajiv Agarwal was also invited for the get-together. The scion of a wealthy Marwari family in New Delhi, he has been having a flourishing jewellery business in Bangalore for the last 15 years. He and Nehaa had met once before at an unrelated social gathering in Bangalore.

Two other employees of Indus Paradigms were also part of the get-together. One was John Kurien, who is the company's Facilities Manager(India), and the other was Sanjoy Biswas who is a Director of MIS.

On the day of the get-together, Nehaa made the preparations for the guests to arrive. She had arranged the catering, although the expense for the evening was to be borne by the company. Rajiv offered to provide the bhang for the occasion. His cook who hails from Jaipur was part of a network that supplied the highest quality ganja to high profile clients in Bangalore.

It was a pleasant evening. Nehaa waited for the guests to arrive. The first to arrive was Sanjoy. He was thin, gawky and bespectacled and was wearing a kurta-pyjama. In the tradition of many Bengalis who graduated from JNU, he had a jhola bag hanging from his left shoulder. Inside it were three books, 'The God of Small Things' by Arundhati Roy, 'Inequality Reexamined' by Amartya Sen, and 'Project Management for Software Development' by S. Mukherjee. While at JNU he used to carry a copy of 'Das Kapital' in his bag, but after realising that Amartya Sen lived in the US, he abandoned communism. The fact that a company based in Silicon Valley was paying him a hefty salary also helped change his stance from anti- to pro- US.

"Please have a seat and make yourself comfort-aable", Nehaa told Sanjoy who then picked a chair facing her. He then helped himself to a few rosagollas which were being served by the caterers.

In a few minutes, Ashok and John arrived together. John was the lecherous kind and he found Nehaa quite a turn-on. He was a smooth talking dude who had slept with many a married woman. He had always fantacised about bedding Nehaa even though she was his senior in the organisation. On this day, she was wearing a low-cut blouse and her cleavage was quite prominent. He picked a chair right next to Sanjoy's which gave him a good view of her bosom.

Ashok sat facing John, and next to Nehaa. Nehaa had brought a hookah that was given to her by one of her ex-boyfriends as a birthday gift back in Gurgaon. She lighted the hookah and placed it in their middle, and all of them took turns in inhaling from it.

When Ashok was not quite finished with talking about his hectic trip, Rajiv arrived, with much fanfare. He stepped out of his Mercedes S-Class car, and following him was his cook who was carrying a bag.

Rajiv was wearing a blue silk kurta with some kind of embroidery on it. When he reached the gathering, Ashok introduced him to the others. Rajiv then took a seat on the other side of Sanjoy and ordered his cook to start preparing the bhang.

Nehaa was captivated by Rajiv's kurta. She asked him where he got his kurta with so much of silver embroidery. "Ah, now you are insulting me!", replied Rajiv, pointing a finger at her. Then he said it was not silver, but platinum. "Platinum, my friends! I am the first person in the world to wear kurtas with platinum embroidery! I beat even my friends in Zaveri Bazaar!", he exclaimed proudly with a grin.

But that was not all. He then showed his hands to Nehaa. All his fingers and his two thumbs had gold rings studded with diamonds. "Wow! Those are fabulous!", said an awestruck Nehaa. "But this is the first time I am seeing someone wear rings on their thumbs! Though I am curious to know how you manage to slip them on! And how will you remove them yaar?"

"See, Ashok, your friend Nehaa is a very smart woman who asks the right questions!", replied Rajiv, tapping his own head with his finger. Then he got hold of the ring on his left thumb with his right hand. Everyone assumed he was going to pull it off his thumb with great effort. But instead, the ring suddenly became bigger in diameter. "See, my thumb rings have clasps like a wrist watch strap. I just need to release them.. I got them specially made by my friend Giancarlo in Geneva. But it was my idea!", he said proudly, tapping his head with his finger once again.

Then he enquired Ashok about his trip. "So did you go pub-hopping the last two nights?"

"Oh, give me a break!" replied Ashok in a sarcastic tone. "All pubs in this city close by 11 pm, I heard! And I got off our campus both nights at 9:30! Seriously, I wanted to unwind for at least a couple of hours, which I would have done in Delhi". He continued, "Dunno what's wrong with Karnatak and these people.. seem to lead boring lives with no fun..People here ought to realise that without enterprising North Indians and Malayalis, Bangalore would be nothing but a sleepy village!". To tell the truth, he would have not mentioned Malayalis had John not been present.

"And what's the name of that idiot who beat up girls in Mangalore?" he asked. "Oh, him!, That's Muthalik, Pramod Muthalik" answered John who had been quiet and eyeing Nehaa's cleavage all along. "Yeah, that's right! What shocked me was that many people here in Karnatak supported him! Dumb asses!", said Ashok derisively.

"Kannadigas are lazy and don't seem to follow the letter of the law. I mean, why didn't they arrest that idiot and throw him behind bars for good?", he asked in a raised voice.

Then he cooled down a bit, and everyone had another round of the hookah. Then he changed the topic.

"By the way, how many of you guys know Kannad?", he asked in an inquisitive tone.

Nehaa replied with a shrug that she hadn't pick up a word of it. Rajiv said that he knew enough to get by in Bangalore. John said he was very fluent in it since he had been living in Bangalore since finishing college. Then John asked Ashok if he knew any Kannada himself. "Solpa!", replied Ashok teasingly. Then everyone, including himself, started laughing, and he high-fived both John and Rajiv.

As they were chatting, Rajiv's cook signalled to him that the bhang was ready to be served. Rajiv then told everyone that his cook's bhang would beat any other they had had before. As the group continued munching on the various pakoras and aloo chat, the cook started serving everyone a glass of his exotic bhang.

As everyone had their first sip of it, they had to agree with Rajiv. It tasted better than any of the stuff they had had previously.

After a few sips of the concotion and a few more puffs from the hookah, Sanjoy, who had been passively listening till then, started talking.

"You know, Kasab, the lone surviving terrorist, should not be sentenced to death. That would mean that we are no better than him!"

"I agree!" replied Nehaa. "Maybe we should just sentence him to life in prison. That way, he would have time to repent what he did and feel shameful!", she continued. "That's the best punishment which would even beat the death sentence!"

The other guys were engaged in their own conversation, and were not following this, although John still continued to feast his eyes on Nehaa's cleavage every now and then.

"No, even sentencing him to life in prison is cruel, for he will never get the opportunity to become a normal productive citizen!" replied Sanjoy. "What gives us the moral authority to deny him that right?" Suddenly he rose from his chair. He then exclaimed "I am going to take it upon myself to reform Kasab and make him an honourable man.. even a businessman.. I am not even going to stop there.. I will see to it that he wins Business India's 'Businessman of the Year' award!"

He then started pumping his right fist into the air and cheered himself, "Yes, I can do it! Yes, I can do it!!"

Due to the jerks caused by the fist-pumping, his jhola bag slipped from his left shoulder and fell onto his chair. Because of this, he lost his balance and fell, his butt landing directly on the bag. Arundhati Roy certainly wouldn't have been too pleased by that action.

Nehaa, who had been watching his expression of emotion, suddenly felt an intense connection with him. Here was a saint, she thought to herself. And someone with high ideals. There were many like herself who just wanted Kasab to languish in jail instead of being hanged. But to turn him into a 'Businessman of the Year' required a lot of moral courage and vision. She was now getting attracted to Sanjoy romantically. She had dated many mindless hunks in Gurgaon, but they didn't seem to have a tenth of the vision or benevolence of this genius in front of her.

She then took her large furry pink handbag which had been on the ground besides her chair and placed it on her lap. She then gently lifted it and pressed it against her chest. She then imagined having an intense orgasmic experience with Sanjoy one day. She developed goose pimples all over her body as she did this.

John was getting a bit annoyed now since her stupid handbag was blocking his view of her cleavage. He wished she would put it down again, which she did after a few moments, much to his relief.

Nehaa wanted to complement Sanjoy in his noble effort. But how was she going to do this? She suddenly got an idea. "Sanjoy, I can also help Kasab in achieving his goals! I know this famous numerologist in New Delhi personally. Her name is Gunithaa Mehra. Maybe she can help with Kasab's name. She might ask him to add an extra 'a', and make it 'Kasaab' or something like that yaar! Trust me, it works like magic!"

She then imagined herself being given credit by Kasab at the awards ceremony hosted by Business India. Tears of joy streamed down her cheeks.

PART II

It was past midnight and the caterers had already left. Rajiv's cook had gone back to his master's car, where he took a nap on the back seat, with the driver at the front.

Sanjoy was having a dream. Pretty Indian girls were swarming all over the area and dancing along with Kasab and other terrorists. Then the girls tied rakhis on the terrorists' wrists.

In return, the terrorists put on coloured bangles on the wrists of the girls. Then they started playing a game where the girls had to guess the colour of the bangles that the terrorists had slipped onto their hands. To prevent the girls from having a look at the bangles before guessing, they had to extend their hands behind them so that the terrorists could put on their bangles from behind. The girls who answered right got an extra pair of bangles. It was a lot of fun.

Then one of the terrorists came towards Sanjoy and asked him to play as well. Sanjoy was very happy to take part in that game. He then happily extended his hands behind him. He could feel the terrorist slipping the bangles over his hand and upon his wrists. He wondered what colour they could possibly be. Then he said "I think both are green!". Then he continued, "Ok, I have given my answer, now let me see if I was right", and tried to bring his hands to the front to check the actual colour.

Tough luck for him. His hands wouldn't budge. He tried harder, but it appeared that the bangles were attached to each other with a rope or something.

Then he heard a voice, "This is the Bangalore City Police and you have been arrested!"

The confused Bengali who couldn't tell foe from friend had just been handcuffed by Inspector Narayanappa Gowda. Narayanappa Gowda is a Vokkaliga hailing from Mysore. He is the son of the late Siddhappa Gowda, a tailor and Kumari Devi, devoted homemaker. He had finished his B.Sc. and secured first class.

The arrogant Sindhi was simultaneously arrested by Deputy Commissioner Suresh Thimmaiah. The D.C.P. hails from Shanivarsante which is also the birthplace of Field Marshall Cariappa, and like him, is a member of the proud Kodava community. His father was in the army and his mother was a teacher. He had done his B.Com from the University of Mysore. His family consists of exemplary citizens.

The ostentatious Marwari was handcuffed by Sumant Shetty, Asst. Commissioner. He is a proud Bunt from Mangalore. He had done his M. Com. His parents ran a trading business there and are still socially active in the community.

Inspector Abdul Khader placed the handcuffs on the wrists of the philanderer from Ernakulam. Hailing from Bidadi, he is a proud Kannadiga Muslim. He is the President of Bidadi Kannada Cultural Association and had organised programs for the upliftment of Muslim youth in his area. A strong supporter of the BJP and Pramod Muthalik, he had witnessed first-hand road accidents and ruined families brought on by drinking. He had done his B.Sc. from Bangalore University.

Constable Rani Basavappa, a Lingayat from Mandya, handcuffed the bimbo from Gurgaon.

All of these jokers had been arrested for possession of ganja, which is illegal under Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act of India. These idiots should have known better than to break the law.

As they were being led out of the apartment complex, Manjunath, the security guard who had tipped off the police, felt a bulge in his crotch when he saw pretty Nehaa in handcuffs and powerless, her cleavage showing prominently. He had been waiting for this moment for a long time, after she had yelled at him twice.

When Ashok said that Kannadigas are lazy who don't seem to follow the letter of the law, he was completely wrong. As the turn of events show,
the exemplary Kannadigas of Bangalore Police, who made the arrests at roughly 1 am, were certainly not lazy. And they were also following the letter of the law.

Fiction: Toad Talk

Deepti Lamba — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 09:23:59 EDT

I rescued a toad from a hovel and gave him a villa instead. The hovel was a little garden pot with an inch of water in it and the villa was my lily pond. I gently picked up the pot that lay on the driveway and slid him out of the pot into the lily pond.

Feeling I had done my bit for mother earth I was about to walk away when he croaked- "Ribbit"

I turned back to look at him and gave his scaly face a benevolent smile “You're welcome.”

“Ribbit!” he croaked again

“You're a talkative one.” I spoke to him again and he stepped on a lily leaf and looked at me. I stared back at him. This was a definite Syfy moment. His scaly head bobbed a little as if he was checking me out and he spoke "I like what I see!"

I gasped and looked around wildly "Did you just speak to me?"

He stuck his tongue out to catch a passing dragonfly and missed.

"Why? Do you think you are the only one who can speak in English?"

I remained quiet and stared at him.

"Speak woman! no, you aren't crazy. We can speak. Ask your temporal. His Nawwab talks to him all the time."

"Er.....you are on Desicritics.org?" I spoke up and then pinched myself hard on my arm.

"Actually no! I visit his site baithak quite often. We poets like to keep an eye on each other."

"Really? And what were you doing in my flower pot?"

"I was in a Jacuzzi and you threw me into a swimming pool."

"Lily pond" I corrected him.

He carefully moved on to a fatter leaf and croaked "Does it matter? Anyway you did me a good turn now I want to return the favour. "

I shook my head "No its okay. Not required. I ...er...need to go back in."

"No wait! I was thinking - maybe you can marry me?"

"What?!" I gaped. The toad was barely bigger than my hand

"I can't marry you!" I shook my head at him.

"Why? I'm well settled. I can speak English with a neutral accent. I like reading your hot stories and kind of like your kids too."

I glared at the toad and spoke "I'm sure I am losing my mind here."

He made a sound somewhere between a laugh and a croak and I shuddered "No, you're not, woman. We could bump off your husband, take his millions and visit this sadhu who will turn me into a handsome young man and help you get that twenty year old body again and we'll be happy"

"You are an evil reptile" I gasped

"Evil? No! An opportunist? Probably! So what do you say?"

"No!" I shouted then tried to calm my nerves. I spoke again "No! I'm not interested."

"You aren't huh? But lady you have no choice. I will make sure that you will be mine."

That fat toad looked sinister and the world suddenly seemed to close around me and I couldn't breath.

I spread my hands out and shouted "Leave me alone."

"Never!" he croaked and lunged towards me. I turned and ran out of the garden towards the driveway.

He followed croaking my name and I imagined his wet slimy body somehow hanging against my jeans legs. I ran towards the driveway and saw the part timer open the main gates.

She stared at me in surprise as I ran towards the porch.

Aaman's car took a sharp curve through the iron gates, into the driveway and I watched the jumping toad squelch under the front tire in a matter of few seconds.

I pushed back a scream and tried to compose myself- a talking toad killed under my husband's car. This wasn't murder Dee. I told myself. So what if he was a talking toad. He was just a toad.

Aaman opened the door of the car "Hi babe what's up?" he asked holding his Blackberry next to his ear.

"Er..nothing." I gave him a weak smile and let him pass inside the house.

I stared at the front tires of his car, took a deep breath and followed him in. My toad saving days had come to a quiet squishy end.