Study of unknown woman

Large eyes, not too large but large enough to be beautiful. Straight hair, touch of brown, very soft.Well made eyebrows and ya that trademark nose.They say it runs in the family.She was beautiful, sat down in her red dress. Beaming , happy , in control.Large bag, the only element of her which seemed out of proportion.

Unsure what to say, a presence formidable.Next to the right corner of her head you could hear music play. Strange circumstances. Strange days,strange places.

Coffee getting bitter, or was it supposed to be bitter.Some fancy relativity stuff about time is when you see a magnificent dame you loose track of the tick tocks.

Well, time had stopped for me quite unknowingly. My thoughts concentrated on a single nothingness.In her eyes, i saw the eyes of yore, in her cheeks i saw the red of better days.And in that woman sitting in the corner I found a reason to write.

Amen. :)

Jannat to Anonymous

Jannat was her name and she was merry
Danced her way to school so sunny
Whirled around in sweet fantasy
Jannat SUltan was so happy

When the small girl became big
Little did she know of the gig
Big words, big city.
Unholy minds and no pity.

Shocked was she ,confused and pained
In the middle of the night she cried.
Hovering around her head Imaculate dimay.
Alas where was Jannat?

And so years took toll on her
she became wise,
stripped off her name which reminded her of fairy land.
and put on a mask and a cloak to hide
from dangers unknown,,,
and so became Jannat, the Anonymous

The Keyboard Player and his cocktail

Ram was 25 now.He looked up, out of the window. the cloudless skies, huge shadows leaping upon the veranda. The wind was gay and the breeze cool.He lighted his cigarette with a dragon faced zippo.Ram liked collecting small things of bigger beauty.Though his cigarette was still navy cut, he said that imported ones didn't have 'em kick.It was Saturday and he yawned off the week's decay.

There was one thing Ram could not understand.He thought a lot about things he could do and things he was doing.He was not happy with the present order of things.His mind always in a constant state of strife.Conflict from the moment he was in his senses.The problem, he was a genius.

He emptied the contents of rum tea into the sink.Too much heat the rum was inflicting on his tender tummy.Rum tea was a recipe of his own and i can't give that out.So here's what happens.

Someone's at the door.Not expecting anyone he opens the door.First impressions last longer, a shady figure dressed in grays, looks amicably at him.He questions this man with an inquiring look.
"I have come to give you something in return of a favor" he says.

Ram though unsure of his strange guest allows him in for this man carried an aura around him.He was a replica of some greek God.Perfect face,lush eyebrows, high forehead, aquiline nose, exquisite features.His body as agile as a cheeta's .Well defined muscles. His neck strong, with 'em muscles beneath bunching up in superb tension and sensuous vitality.

"Ram can you write a rhythm for me?"- Jason asked.
"Rhythms are not written Sir,and how do you know my dexterity with the keyboard?"-Ram.

"I know what i know and i can help you create the single best piece of music which you can play"-He said.

"I am listening"-Ram was now listening intently.

"Do you know that every note you play is a footnote of your life, and that struggle would consist of a harmonic at a particular frequency"-Jason

Ram knew this ,and instinctively struck some chords on the keyboard that depicted more of chaos. But he liked them.

"Keep the rhythm straight and let your right hand play some tinkering song. Like I loved you yesterday ta boom, But yesterday i was a sane man Ta Da.Today has gone, dum dum and i get your memories Na na na"-Jasaon grinned.

"Thats sick"Ram said "listen to this"
Ram kept his rhythm and started a blues wrapper, Just imagine this as i write.Silence, and it said everything.

Tears rolled down his cheek.Ram looked up at his saviour."what now?"-he demanded.

"You were never made for music.Music is like worship.Just playing an instrument won't make you better.You need to improvise and impoverish yourself with the chaos.Starve on notes and do nothing but play.Its not weekends that will make you a great musician."-Jason

He continues.
"Do something that comes natural to you.Love it as your work and never let down.ENjoy every second of your life. Love women and have lustful nights.Make money and give the poor.SMile and be happy.This life is not your last.But the best thing you can do in this life is the only thing you can do here.Never forget that."

Ram has an elegant mustache now sprayed with genuine white.Rama's cocktail is the name of the sporadic inn in Goa,his liquors are an exquisite taste of herbs, alcohol plus secret ingredients. He serves from day to dusk.Luminaries illuminating his inn.Rock shows,folk dances and exhibitions finding a way to his patronage. At 60 Ram is content, a connosier of rare tastes. A family of varied cultures , wife of Italy , children, two adopted from Brazil.But Ram knows his trade and what do you think is his last wish? That when he dies the last item on the menu be changed from Rum Tea to Ram Tea.

The mental connection

CAUTION : Not for kids appearing for exams, and for teens who were once passionately involved.

There was no pain now. Peace consumed him.He did not move, head skywards.His eyes were shining.The end was near he knew.This end was beautiful.He was not dying alone.He was dying in his sweet home with the only person he loved.Death did not part us he thought, almost grinning.

All this had started 15 years ago.Raj Roy was a sentimental creature.He has sharp features and athletic body. In mind, he was not that stable.One day while returning from work, he sighted a shadowy figure crouched on his porch.Curious, he slowly edged towards the silhouette.

Alarmed, the figure raised her head.She was beautiful.EYes like moonlit pearls twinkling with love.Lips full and sensuous and an angular face.She was crying.

"Hey what happened miss?"

"I am Aditi and i want a place to stay tonight"

Roy was unsure but the senses inside men and women talk for themselves.
"come in and tell me whats wrong"
The girl told her woeful tale.Poverty has forced her father to force her into prostitution.She ran away and reached Bangalore and awaiting the same fate that had dawned on her before.

Roy was sad.He loved a girl named Aditi too.And this girl looked so much like her.He could give the small room to her. He had money enough to feed her.His Aditi has left him, and this one would leave him too whenever she wanted.But a woman made a house warm and so it was done.

Each morning before going to work he had breakfast alone and stacked the rest in the kitchen.When he came back he found food laden in his table.At 12 he first checked if she was sleeping ,then had his dinner and went to sleep. In the weekends she would go to visit her sister.He was happy and he loved her as she was.They talked sometimes, snuggled under warm sheets ,watching TV.But, he never made love to her lest it made her think that her eternal fate had dawned yet again.

Things went wrong when Jay, his office buddy came to visit him. "Where is Aditi?" he asked. "to her sister's as usual"-Raj replied.Jay went into the kitchen to fix himself a sandwich.He almost puked at the stench.There, before him was stacked rotting food,piled in a corner of the kitchen.He knew that this was the end of Raj's stable life.

For a week Jay and a psychiatrist cajoled him to get rest under medication.Schizophrenia was incurable but his earlier imaginary friends have eventually vanished with a month of rest under medication, after torment and willful abstinence.

Raj did not want her to go.He had fallen in love with her and he wanted her to be there till his death.Indeed, a difficult situation.Jay reminded him that this way he would end up contaminating his home with rotten food and his work would be affected too.He took a stand and forced him to go to the asylum which he believed to be for Roy's own good.

He came back after he stopped seeing Aditi.He reasoned she was real and so she could not come to the asylum.That was also sound logic.

As soon as he reached his home he got a call from her. "where did you go?"
"I went on a official tour"
"Oh, I'll come i don't like my sister's place too much"
And they were together again and Roy made love to her.

Jay was furious now.He demanded Roy be fully cured, and he must go back to the asylum.He forced him.This went on for 15years,and slowly the medication crept on his mind.And he was dazed into absurdity.He screamed in his cell,the name of his love,inflicted wounds but that made it more difficult to get a release from the asylum.

Two years later Roy escaped the asylum after long and meticulous planning. He headed straight home.He had given the key to Aditi and asked her to wait for him.Aditi was waiting for him at the door.

"you bitch!!"
"you are the reason i lost 10 years of my life in an asylum"
she looked blankly.He clasped her throat and started choking her."I'll kill you now, coz i can't take it no more" he yelled.She slouched and lay on the floor.He was confused now,How did one get rid of an imaginary girl who was dead.He ran around wildly, the world was spinning around him.The images became blurry, and he ran in circles.His mind was giving up at last.This was his limit off endurance.He couldn't call Jay coz he had escaped from the asylum.Then he took to the streets, brought some cyanide and lay beside his love and closed his eyes to bliss.

Next morning Jay looked mournfully at his friend lying dead ,his left arm stretched out and head tilted towards that direction.'If it was dark I would think that Aditi was there lying beside him'-Jay couldn't help but ponder.

The masterpiece

He was almost limping, leaving off a trail of blood. He trudged forward moving first his left foot and dragging the right one. His face was shrouded with the darkness of the unforgiving night. Ajeeho could smell sweat clinging to his scrawny beard.He had come to the crossing.The busy crossing was bare at this time and no street dog dare cross his path.Just a few steps across the road and he would find home.Mother would forgive him and bangdage his torn leg, give him love and make him warm.His mother had warned him that his eccentricity would cost him.She was forgiving unlike the city that did not care.

This day was a lifetime of achievement summed up in a package for Ajeeho. Ajeeho was a cleaning boy. He cleaned all filth with graceful strokes of his equipments.His hands moved swiftly to clean ugly stains off cursed toilets, but his mother warned him of his eccentricity.

Ajeeho liked shapes and his brain was flooded with artistic ingenuity.It all happened a year back when he was cleaning a public toilet in 5th avenue.He was sweeping the floor with brash strokes of his long wooden broom to whose end was the wet cloth clinging.The public toilet floors made eerie shapes with halogen effects filtered through the dingy window sills.He started making colours in the darkness. His colours being aided by nauseating stench which he would clean eventually once work was finished.Work had to be finished first.He had to see his painting first.It was then that he had the urge for red.Red mixed with light from the streets and the tinge of mossy green brought his paintings to life. And this red was his own.

This night he reached the zenith of his expertise.He got a magnificient shadow perking as a human face looking skywards.And his canvas was exquisite red yellow and halogen washed with the odour of poverty.He was doing himself, rising from filth to fame.He was painting his future.But it lacked something.He was weak with loss of blood so he lashed at his thigh and brought his leg to action.Every time he let go it inflicted terror and anguish in him.The pain made him alive and he had two brushes now, the leg and his broom, and he painted like fiery heaven.Who would have seen the glint of bone in the darkness.

"Ajeeho my boy!!! what have you done??"

"Mom I lived life today , I did my work well"

"Are you mad? You will die you son of a bitch.Who is there left for me, I shall now perish too"

"Mom I love to paint and my stinky job gave me allowance for this. I painted to keep my soul alive. I painted with the filth of people, and i achieved glory in my own sweet way mom. Be proud of me Mom"

He look a painful lingering step forward and his Mom shrieked death as loud as a blistering hurricane.

In the moonlight from the corner of his eyes Ajeeho could make out the shimmering glint of bone from thigh down.

My dear Rocking lady

Dedicated to Ilashree Goswami

And i saw her dancing in the wild...
she made the city streets glow up in the night...
look at her eyes and head upwards towards the sky..
lemme hug you my dear rocking lady...

Once a time you got to raise your sweet voice,,,
Say them people that you can't tAKe no shit ...
Raise your fist high in the air,
And baby don't ever turn back...
lemme help you my dear rocking lady..

there are times when i forget to smile
there are things i have left untouched..
but heaven knows keep ur smile aloft
and heaven knows keep nibbling on those chocs..
lemme smile too my dear rocking lady.

Times are tough and they would be honey
people leave you when u need them so much honey
but hey changes come for glory's sake
embrace the good and never fear the rest..
lemme say ur the best ...my dear rocking lady..
ur the best ohh yaa...
cheers

ronny's persuit of happiness

he was crouched over his stubby ciggarette ... puffing up smoke out of the window. He looked at his
scrawny body streched across barely few inches below six feet. He was good looking but he never thought so.
the simple reason being he could not see his face from the thick beard he kept. he looked down on the sidewalks of delhi.
his work had been eating his time but on weekends he became a frenzied soul. his one room apartment looked like a cage,
and he did not go out.Not that ronny had not tried his luck with girls. But everything which seemed hopeful
came to a abrupt stop, because he was too innocent. he believed everyone on face value.
such an incredulous soul who had been many a times been looted by his most extravagent crushes in most extravagent ways.

ronny had come of age and his dwindling sharp but fickle mind needed some food for the body.
to put it plainly he was desparately looking to get laid .

this morning adi had called him to say that she was getting married. he was horrified ,
because though he was not devoted to any girl as such , he only loved adi. he did not cry,
he was too big for that. he could booze but thts wht he normally did on weekends.

then suddenly the most horrendous picture of love came drifting in front of him. she laying on bed,
he beautiful hair caressing the pillow below, her beautiful shining eyes looking straight ahead.
and another man, his insides shrieked in anguish. he screamed inside like a angry wolf.

with the dying ember of his cigarrette he was in a daze. he decided he would do something that he thought
he would never indulge in. yes there were dangers but at times such as these where love lost,
desparate urges and needs of the body and stale beer painted a gloomy picture before him.

he put on his dirty jeans and headed to the roads of obcession.

the last 2months of his research took him irving street few lanes behind the cp junction.
he was scared , dazed a little but still determined to handle his resort. he walked carefully
looking sideways letting all the figurines transfix him. as he trudged forward he cluctched his pcoket
for the 2000 bucks he had saved for this. was money worth spending on this.

the first couple of interactions proved to him that he could not make himself spend time with
anything such derogative. feautures highlighted by make up, strong perfumes welling up in the air.
ronny felt sick, he turned to go when he saw what he had come for. there in the distance stood beauty in untarnished form.
he could not go away even if he was dragged by his feet. and so ronny found himsself with the beauty and her manager.

ronny with katrina reached her room, small swanky and smeeling of dust.
suddenly her manager burst in.
"ok gimme the room charge 800"
"what we decided on the price before"
and then as the manager raised her voice he saw the truth.
it was an enunch.

he was shocked and frightened, his insides squealing for fresh air.
coz in that room it was stuffy between two aromatic enunchs.
"i dont have nemore"

he thought that his persecutors wud let him go with the 2000 for nothing but what happened next spun the world for him.

a hard strong hand crashed on his cheekbones and he yelped in fury.
he was getting beaten.
no room to escape .
and in a few minuted he was on his knees, on the verge of tears.

they checked his wallet, his mobile for money.

then ronny got another thrashing he could not protect himself from.

he was on his way back.
he could think nothing , but in a way he thanked God. Who had saved him in a way which only
he understood.