Feelings Are No Smooth Roads: EDITED

Reminiscence : Chapel Lane, Moscow ; 08:42:23 P.M. :

I strolled down the winding street. It was a cold autumn night in Moscow. Winter was just setting in. As it was, the night was cool but the remnants of the day had made the chill go a little bit dim.

A-2/356, Putin Road, Moscow ; 11:48:09 P.M. :

I looked around once more.

It was another nice, long look. I sighed.

It was nearing midnight and yet everything within me seemed so brightly lit up. I was restless. So much so that the empty, silent room seemed to have sensed it; and, had it the means to, it would probably sneer back at me in disgust. And it would be such a muted sneer at that. I sighed again.

Gods, I had told her! Finally. It just felt so right. So involving a feeling.

For all the bone-jarring work i had been up to the entire day and that equally exhausting stroll down the deserted lanes of a sleeping Moscow and the argument I had had with my mother last week over a set of trousers I had bought that she didn't approve of; for all that, I felt so - restless! There had been a strange sensation that had started squirming inside my gut after that one-way conversation on the phone. Since then - if anything - my insides had only begun to water.

May be I am getting sick, after all. One of my friends had once related to me such a strange incident in college. The protagonist had been a simple, unmemorable face, I remembered. With freckles on his nose and cheek. And a terribly fragile gut. Poor Mayne. He had gone and proposed to one of the prettiest girls in college who he had been drooling after since the beginning of the term - and no, I had no idea how he had managed to go in the first place. Then, just before she could say anything, Mayne had vanished from sight so quickly, one would think that he knew he would be kicked in the butt. He had run to the washroom and spent most of the day there.It was said that horrifying sounds were heard in the corridor. It wasn't until the toilet-staff worker had gone in that we came to know he had passed out.

But I pushed the thought away. I was not that dull of heart. I had never been scared of such things. Only...hesitant.

My mind wandered off that conversation yet again, and I wanted something to do. Someone to talk to. Even old Grumble would do. I let out a breath slowly, looked around.

Reminiscence : Chapel Lane, Moscow ; 08:49:37 P.M. :

I kicked the can mindlessly.

Gods! This will never leave me. Man, you're such a gods-damned coward!

Something was squirming in my gut; I could almost taste the bitter unease on my tongue. Feeling constipated, I looked up.

My heart froze.

The street wound carelessly before me, traveling through the most secluded and lively parts of the city. The bright twinkling lamp-posts that lit the the dim corners and the dark lanes of the street were lined so orderly that it seemed as if they would bow low any moment to hail me. Their fuzzy and shabby lights soothed the eyes. The broad meandering street, at the farthest point I could see it, divided into two arms in front of a chapel – that stood proudly like a single pillar to the seemingly endless dark of the skies which had no visible stars that night, their dim lights blanketed by the fuzzy glow of the street-lights. I looked up. My heart performed a summersault. A huge full moon rose into the dark skies beside the chapel. Simply the sight of it brought immense solitude to my heart. The night had a strange yet special eerie feel about it, a graceful grayness that lit the dark places of my mind. Damn you, Shanes. Don’t try yourself with such words! Everything looked just so…so…beautiful!

And I thought I knew what had brushed past me that night : Desire!

A-2/356, Putin Road, Moscow ; 11:51:01 P.M. :

The T.V. probably aired all boring stuff. I remembered it was all action and thrill on the lists tonight and put the remote aside once again. They were also playing the Russian-dubbed version of Baywatch these days but I was not in the mood.Gods, how her breath had caught when I said that. How slow, how calm, how reassuringly steady that breath. Halted for a moment on my words... The shelves were packed with Susan Breen, Tolkien, Agatha Cristie, Dan Brown, Veinkovsky, Jane Austen, and a collection of scores of others - black-spined Lies of Locke Lamora was tempting, but not tonight. Their regular array annoyed me. Books that I loved so well, always careful about their tidiness, their health, mindful of the bothering dust. Her voice, damn me! That honeyed Central-Asian accent, the delicate rustle as the syllables rolled out - 'Hello?' Gods! She had sounded so close I could nearly taste the word, melt in her breath... The fishes in the aquarium were restful in the dim light, not bothering with the food I had left them. The clock moved too slow, anyway. Oh, how she'd said but one word...But I had finally let it all out. All I ever wanted her to to know. And I am a happy satisfied man now, am I not? The damned world seemed to have drawn in a deep breath. And now, it's holding it. Shit! I am NOT a poet, dammit! LOOK at me! Shit... I had decided in that moment. I had let it out.

So why this creeping sensation, the feeling making home in my consciousness?

Reminiscence : Chapel Lane, Moscow ; 08:51:00 P.M. :

Decided, I cut across the street immediately. I did not know anything else right then, only that I had had a sudden surge of passion within me and it was still squirming in there.
I scurried over to the phone-booth on the street's right, opened the door and huddled in. I paid the coin, and dialed the number. I was going to tell her tonight. No matter what, it had been a long time and I had never said a word about it and now, it was hard to resist. I had to! And I was quite sure about it!

Her phone rang for the first time…tring-tring!...I have to say it tonight, I thought…tring-tring!…Tonight!That's it!...The third time…Oh, come-on!...tring-tr-…and the phone was picked.
"Hello!" Her calm voice rang pleasantly in my ears like the chapel bell in the morning. Shit, I pine for her so badly!
"Hello?" She said when there was no answer made from my side.
I prepared myself for the task at hand. I wanted to speak.

“Hello –"
"Isabel, it's me – Shanes!" I said in a heavy, saturated voice.

A-2/356, Putin Road, Moscow ; 11:51:58 P.M. :

I had looked up at the melting snow, at the silver moon, at the darkening sky, at the city laid out so orderly before me, at the impossible beauty of it; and then I had looked across at the phone-booth. Then I had called her in the tenth hour of the night – when most of Moscow usually slept. She would have been calm again a moment later, trying to figure out, relate the name 'Shanes' to the image of a man she should know. The night was chilly still, but I felt my heart drawing a strange warmth from it. Curse you, Shanes, she probably doesn't even know you. We never even talked, you fool. She hardly ever GAZED at you, dammit! And for Christ's sake, hearts DON'T "draw warmth" anyway!

I had been such a pitiful coward back then.

Not anymore. Now she knows my heart. With that enlivening thought, still wearing my snow-and-mud soiled shoes, the heavy rain cape all soaked from snowfall, the hood now thrown back, my dark hair glistening with moisture - and in my mind, a maelstrom of burgeoning madness - I made an effort to rise and make for my bedroom upstairs -

- when the doorbell rang.

I started despite myself, almost jumping off the sofa. My heart eased after a moment. There was another bell then. Now, now, somebody is really impatient here. I scowled, trying to figure out the reason for this midnight visit. But my mind was too full. I shook my head and headed for the door with a dismissive grunt.The expression she must have had on that pretty face, the astonishment in those perfect almond eyes, the curvy eyelashes tautening. Oh how I long to see surprise in that serene, imperious visage. I grunted again, turning the knob.

My heart performed another summersault.

Reminiscence : Chapel Lane, Moscow ; 08:52:17 P.M. :

I continued, "Isabel, you're drivin' me mad these days!" My heart rocked between my ribs. "I cannot sleep, I cannot talk, I cannot think. I see things… and I see only you…I dream… and I only dream of you…I talk and there is nothing on my mind… but you! I love things, Isabel, a lot many of them. But in all my loves, I hold you the highest. I love you from all my heart, with everything I have and I really mean it when I say this. I try to find flaws but they don't catch up with me. Oh, I love this feeling! Its just so beautiful. And truly Isabel – I don't want an answer…I don't expect, you know!" I gave it all a pause. She did not speak. "Never mind. It was so kind of you to listen to my stuff so patiently. Thanks. Bye!"
With shaking hands, I put off the phone.

A-2/356, Putin Road, Moscow ; 11:54:21 P.M. :

Faint lamplight illuminated the threshold of the doorway before it descended in three steps to a narrow yard and a beautifully crowded garden on either side of the walkway. The night was too dark, too ominous behind her and the snow still fell in soft sheets. The gold-hued light silhoutted her slight form against that background in an otherworldly aura, the damp light dancing lively and warm in her amber eyes. The soft wind sighed and whispered between her flowing black curls and with it, wafted her pleasant scent. And it was of orchids and wild roses, and smells of a savannah on a sunny dawn when the air melted sweetly to one's senses. Her skin was so pale and smooth that it seemed too fragile to touch, the cheekbones high and bringing out the pink in her cheeks, the lips so full and kissable that it was all I could do to simply prevent myself from pouring my soul into her. And those eyes, Gods...those eyes! Kill me for that... The amber in them was so bright, its sensation so overpowering that despite my efforts to assert control, I all the more was drawn into them.

She was looking me straight in the eye, holding me stuck in the doorway. How did she know my place? How had she come at this time of the night? Gods, how did she even know me? And for all my restlessness, I could neither move nor avert my eyes. It was a long time before her long face animated with emotion.

In an expression of disdain, Isabel spoke – ‘What the hell, Shanes, in all the gods' names, do you think of yourself?’ The voice seemed so distant, the eyes so vast that I barely heard her. ‘You call up anytime in the night, out of the blue, someone you hardly LOOK at, and tell her you love her with "all-that-you-have" – ’ The expression changed to one of utter disgust.

Gods be damned, she looks so pretty like that. Oh Isabel! How I love those eyes, those midnight curls, that sugared voice... I stared, closed to everything but her depthless gaze. I had never been so close to look. And now I was.

‘ – and hang up the phone, and believe the prank would work with 'stupid-Isabel'. But I grant you, it's not that simple Shanes. You think you - a man who's never even so much as said a "Hi" to me - would say that at ten in the night and I would believe, huh? I would BELIEVE? And to top it all, damn you Shanes, you're now staring at me like an ASS! ‘ She stamped her foot, breaking my moment of trance.

Her face twisted into a painful sneer and I could but gasp in admiration of the beauty she personified even in that emotion. She snapped at me, ‘You think you'll play with a simple woman's emotions like that and poor Isabel would let go? I know how low you think of me, the way you always avoid looking at me, the way you always have. As if...as if I was...’ Tears welled up in those intense eyes and I simply controlled the need to hold her, knowing how she would hate my touch. ‘...as if I was INFECTIOUS! Oh how I want to hit you for this Shanes!’ This was all going wrong. ‘How I want to slap you!’

Then she broke into sobs. I feared my own tears would show. My courage was faltering, whatever little I had in me. I was trembling. She covered her face with her long-fingered hands. I felt myself crumble. Even as I thought about what to do, the words came out all by themselves as time itself seemed to halt in its stride. ‘But I meant every word of it Isabel. I really LOVE you!’

Her face lifted at that, her supple frame quivering with the sobs, the tears having marked her now blushing face in streaks of dampness, curling around the corners of those hazy beautiful amber eyes. Then, all of a sudden – with the two of us standing a hand's-length apart, the soft sobs reaching me on the chilling breeze mingled with her pleasant scents, and Moscow dark and sleeping - and all the world stopped in between us, lightning played on the periphery of my vision, a thunderous roar reverberating in the night air; and the world rocked to the beat. And somehow, I did not start.

Isabel started, and even as my arms lifted of their own accord, she was wrapped tight and close aroound me in the next moment. I drank deep and slow in her soft smells, her head buried in my shoulder, I felt her heartbeat clam slowly against my chest, taking relief from each rise and fall of her breath; I closed my eyes and whispered her name in the suddenly wet night air. I held her closer and felt myself melt to her warmth.

She looked up and I met her eyes then after a long, streched moment. Those beautifully sculptured amber eyes, so vast, so absorbing, so mesmerizing, now so...so filled with love. I felt the hair rise on the nape of my neck. She blinked slowly - Gods! - and whispered to me over her shallow breath : ‘KISS ME!’

The Voice of Dream: Dream Speaks

Dreaming, I lie upon this willful sea,
This sea of grey midnight tides,
This endless stupor,
This magical trance.


Conjuring realms, razing worlds;
Wishing things about,
Painting the waves, the lashing roll
I lie.


Upon this heaving ocean of unmindful sleep.
I am Dreaming;


Upon this sea of Dreams.


– My words from the poem, ‘The Voices Lost In Time:’ Chapter Three: “The Voice of Dream: Dream Speaks”

This is for Grand-father :

I am a 'gifted' man good at almost everything that I do. Be it sports, oratory, cooking, sketching, decision, academics, looks, or even something as small as scribbling a little " D-A-M-N Y-O-U ! " on a piece of paper, I always do things with a touch of perfection. Excellence is a drug, and I am a demanding patient. But to state the plain old truth, the trait is hereditary. I can recall almost no one in my family-line who does not have the genes. My short time among the peoples of this planet compels me to believe that it all must have started with my grandfather.

From whatever little I remember of my early childhood, a few particular memories have made home in my mind, staying there as faint - yet powerful - impressions of a cherished time.

Though an Indian by birth, I spent my first few years with my grand-parents in Sweden. Being the first grandson, even until now I remain to be the most loved and pampered kid of the house. It was never any different earlier. And though I cannot hope to recall much of that time, I have vague memories of the days when I had grown enough brains to tell a bath-towel from toilet-paper.

My grand-father was almost sixty and my grand-mother fifty-five when I was nearing five. It was always the three of us in the villa, and a train of dumb, noiseless servants. While Granny was the 'Lady' of the house, Grand-father was the one who fascinated little Anant.

Tall, handsome, quick, fit, intelligent, smart, imposing, serious, calm, economic in his words, and so full of love when it came to me - he was everything a grandson of the Tripathis could ever gaze in awe at and never mind losing his footing. His stance would never betray the slightest of hesitation. His eyes would never wander aimlessly when he talked to you, but hold you fixed in your shoes. His lips would move ever so slightly when he chose to talk and his voice would always be rich when he did. He would always give you that intelligent, knowing look when you did something stupid, but would then smile at you with such pure affection that you could but melt in the warmth of his love. He would lift you in his arms whenever you did something pleasing, no matter if you were thirty pounds or fifty. He would bowl to you in the park, get you the day's first ice-cream, kiss your cheek every-time you recited him a poem and never fall short of interesting bed-time stories. He was a grand-father like every other caring grand-father; and yet there was something about him, something in the aura around him, the air of confident, perfect smugness, that made him different. He was the original whole of what parts we Tripathis carry with us today.

He used to go to a local Hindu temple every morning and always took me along with him. It was like a daily pilgrimage. We would do our private business early in the morning and then go out for a nice, long stroll to the temple. Grandpa would spend almost an hour reciting hymns and prayers at the holy place while I would fiddle around, play with the local Indian children or simply sit beside him and listen to his timeless, heart-felt prayers. He was learned; he was efficient; he was intelligent. And he was pious.

He was a rich man. With all the gathered wealth from his successful employment with the Indian Government, and that from his personal assets, he was one who could retire eight years earlier than the probable age and provide his grandson with all the comforts of the world.

I never saw Mother and Father until I turned six. My uncle had secretly smuggled me away eight days after my birth. Mom never got to know until he called. It was from the airport that he had called her. He said he had known Mother won't let me go with him - when I had just been born! He said he wanted to take me. I told you : I am a pampered kid. I mean - who, in all-the-seven-hells, steals a child from his own brother just because he thought he loved the child too much? That is madness; yes, I agree. But we are Tripathis, you know. There are many kinds of 'extremes'.

I grew-up in the following years with my younger sister - I had never seen her before I came back home - in India, at my parents' place. Meanwhile, my grand-parents also shifted to India. I visited them every Mid-summer and at all the festivals. Those were times I could never miss. Grandpa was always the major attraction with all his tenderness, his care, his love and his balance. He could walk for long hours without stopping, recite chants and prayers all through the poojas and keep himself clean and handsome as before even when he had entered his seventies. He would never bend, never ask for the littlest of help. He was the epitome of perfection, of self-esteem, of pride, and of a satisfaction so palpable that I will forever remain in awe of that man. He was The Tripathi. And that made him no lesser fun.

It was when I entered my thirteenth year that things with him took a 'U'-turn.

He had this sudden attack of Parkinson's while he was in his Study. Fortunately, Grand-mother decided to visit his room a few minutes after that. He had fallen from his arm-chair, probably trying to rise, and had gone unconscious. They had rushed him to the nearest Hospital.

Nobody told me. I remember being taken home hastily from school in mid-class on unknown pretext. They told me we were going to visit Grandpa. I had been too excited to ask further. And Mother had known better than trying to elaborate.

But I had known when I saw the Hospital. It was an...an uneasy feeling, one I cannot begin to describe. This was not a place for a Tripathi, I had thought. Not a fit, healthy and loving Tripathi, no!

I could never have even guessed anything, had I not seen him. At first, I thought it must be some accident and still remember the creepy sensation that had gripped me with the dawning of the notion. But I more clearly remember the shivering I could not ward off when I had finally seen his state.

He had been lying in the 'general ward'. Unconscious, pale, gaunt and so...so...diminished in form. He looked like a ghost of the man that he was, that he would have been just two days ago. I remember how helpless I had felt. Believe me, if there is anything a Tripathi can never accept, it is helplessness. I could not move, I could not take my eyes off him. I could not stop wondering how this strong, imperious and adorable old man could crumple so easily before something so mundane as illness. I could not but sit there beside him all night and cry. He was my father. He was everything. He was little Anant's dream. He was The Tripathi.

We Tripathis are strong at heart. We have that eye for detail. We have that perfectionism forged into us. Genes, some might say. I know it is what you see, what you learn. What leads you. It is principles, it is family. For me, it was Grandfather. And he is still and always will remain to be the Guiding Angel. He is The Tripathi.

He is seventy-seven now. He has severe Parkinson's, several mental-impairments, diabetes, rheumatism and another fifty problems, one-and-all related directly or indirectly to his mental state. Doctors say it could have been some childhood-injury, something hereditary or may be simple stress. But I know it's not the latter. I can still nearly feel that air of satisfaction about him.

His hands shiver terribly at times, he soils his clothes as often as not, his voice shakes when he prays, and his calculations have gone slow. Occasionally, he talks of things he himself cannot recall later. Sometimes his words have no sense at all. He would sometimes be found lying unconscious somewhere in the house, his clothing soiled and his form still. But still he tries. He would not appreciate it if you lent a hand without his asking. His voice shakes, his throat dries, but still he speaks about your health, your studies, and how charming you look in a particular dress. He still has that intelligence in his eyes, and at times, I can even find echoes of his rich words in his tome. He still looks you in the eye when he tells you something. He still kisses your cheek when you do something pleasing. He still has that self-respect about him that makes him stand out even if his legs gave way under him. He is still the man I can look at and say - Yes, he's the man I call my father; he's the man I idealize, the one I truly respect ! He is still The Tripathi that inspires me.

And I know that whatever the circumstances be, however strong the pull of Fate, Grandfather will always fight. He is the fountain. He is where we Tripathis actually begin. He is the Time I can look back at and believe in the sheer power of Persona and Satisfied-Success. He is The Tripathi. And helplessness, dear reader, was NEVER a Tripathi trait. And as I said...it was with Him that things began.

Yours lovingly,

Anant Tripathi.

The Worst Thing About Red Roses

Roses are red.

It's needless to add that they have thorns.

I had been a prosperous, young - short,hairless,ugly and at the threshold of puberty! - man when I first saw her.She was tall - taller than the average girl in our batch,if you take my meaning - and skinny and fair and graceful. At least that is what I could see in her frame. She was not in my section,so there was always a distance. And (gods!), distances are like fertilizer for the weed of fascination. She was the kind of girl I would have liked : closest to the possible best.

Well, she was - no,she seemed - 'The' epitome of my latest hormonal-demands anyway.

Sadly,I was a lame man.Though not in the literal sense of the word : just that hair had finally started sprouting in my armpits, I had just shifted and the school was as new to me as my pelvic hair,and, - to top it all - I must tell you guys, I was a stupid,shy,self-conscious and pansy-kind-of-a creature,always busy making a fool of myself. I was hesitant to approach her.

I am an Indian,you see,and as boys grow up,no matter the secret desires - and the bathroom sins, if you don't mind - and the passions unquenchable,we need to be shy in front of girls;sort-of distant. It works pretty well to the effect of the concept of 'social behaviour' here. And - even though my parents are as open-minded as anyone's who reads this - I grant you,I had always portrayed myself as the good child of the house,as if I was India's last innocent soul.

I was that lame, you see.

Naturally,there had to be a certain tinge of that shyness in me when it came to the girl.For half-an-year I did not approach her.I did not even as much as glanced her way,avoiding any chance of her getting to know my 'basal-desires' .I told you : lame.

Well,I finally got to know the girl on an olympiad-trip.It was the first year of high school - ninth grade.Indeed, I got to know her.

She had this characteristically unusual name,the typically irregular array of teeth - canines,to help the image - that made her look like a horse with dental subscription - but a wonderously beautiful smile at that-,she had some good words in her English,she had this mature way of talking and teaching I never had,and she had - gods take me, how I still love that part - such beautiful eyes! I mean, that's what gave me a pause when she looked me straight in the eye.O.K, I'll tell you the name. Her name is Rohita. And I always called her Rohita.( Oh, just in case you're wondering about the name : Indian names,one-and-all have a meaning,an aspect. And both her name and its aspect is unique.)

She said she liked me as a person.Well, I say that to every second person.I got my chance to understand her,and start knowing her. (Notice one thing,if you may, here - I take 'understanding' and 'knowing' people as very different ideas. You can develop an understanding within a week, a day, may be an hour. But knowing someone takes your time.) We grew great friends. She told me stuff no one ever got to know. I din't do the same,however.

They say it is always an even exchange between friends. Mine was,too. You try to find how.

I know all this is going towards the philosophic side, but - I tell you - it has been two and a half years since the puberty thing started and it is not all that exciting anymore.

So, where were we? Yeah, puberty! NO, understanding and knowing....

It's like I say - 'when you start getting familiar with life,it gets difficult to love it'.(I like my own one-liners, you see.)

So, though the 'tall, skinny and fair' thing about her was all in good health,knowing her was not as wholesome an experience as 'drinking her smells', 'bathing in her warmth', or 'sinking in her eyes' was.She was not the typical, 'good-girl' i wanted.

Granted, it is not all that difficult to say this today,but I would never have accepted such truths when infatuation and puberty were mating with my hormones. You neglect them when you're so close to something you've secretly desired for what has felt like ages.Not to mention the puberty-thingey. But deep down somewhere I always knew she was not the romantic girl,nor the emotional one either,or the 'good, gracious lady' or even 'the little miss sunshine'. She was real. Practical. Uncaring. Demanding. Hurtfully straight-forward. And may be that is why I accepted all the vices.Or maybe the puberty thing was on a high.

Whatever be the truth of it, we had a nice long friendship for about an year.

Then things worsened for the best. I had a fight with one of her friends. The other girl was wrong. Rohita never said a word. She smiled, she laughed. I didn't appreciate that. I stopped talking to her.Things came back to normal with both of us after few days. But there were two normal worlds now. We didn't share one. I wouldn't accept the apology. She wouldn't exactly apologise. So I left it there.I think now that she didn't know my actual reasons back then.But I have some principles in my rule-book.She just took it all very casually.Not the emotional kind,I told you.

Another year went by. We seldom so much as exchanged a "Hi". And the times we did,the greeting came from her side.

Then there was another talent search exam.Olympiads, and exams! Gods, such unfortunate events of my life! Three students who sat around me in the exam-room qualified for the State-level exams.( Don't tell me I didn't tell you I was good at academics...fairly good.) Basically, she was there among the three. They all cheated.From me! We cheated,I mean. It was fun doing it right in front of the invigilators.

Oh, lets try to see the point here(Not puberty AGAIN,I grant you).

Our school also held special classes at the end of every full school session for such "honourable" students who qualified the exam. We all came. She knew only me there.

Then she had invited this new problem.Oh, she is a girl of problems, I tell you.It was drinking problem this time. Not hers, but her best friend's.

The girl vomited pools in her bathroom one night after a party and Rohita got pulled up at home for underage drinking suspicions.

She told me everything.She wanted advice and help, she said. She needed moral support, I knew.

I scolded her for her choice of company. She didn't like that.Not at first. We talked and talked. And I spoke for a change.Oh,how she was flat on me!Mind you,it was she who fell for me then.Not me.

AND THAT WAS WHERE THINGS BEGAN!

Gods, those were such dreamy days!

We never stopped talking after that.The "special classes" were on for almost a month.And,officially, the school had closed.Just a bunch of students came to the place for the classes.

We bunked lectures,we played games we'd never played since the second grade,we held hands.I used to wink at her secretly,and I can still recall the day she first winked back. Yes,she was shy when it came to relationships and confessions. I had always known that.The grown-unemotional type.Purposefully so,trying to be "real" and "grown-up".

Whatever!

I presented my proposal to her within a week.That would be 19th April. We went out for the first time on the 30th. And then it never stopped.Not until six months later.

I used to sing to her sometimes.I am not all that bad at it,you see. I bloody learned the songs she liked and sung them to her: when alone,or over the phone.She said she had these goosebumps whenever I sung one particular song to her. She used to say, "You know, you feel that song, Anant. I mean when you sing it to me." I could only listen to her and feel myself fall back into the trance.

I remember the first time she said "Anant, I love you." That was a month before we broke-up.

It happened on the 19th of October.Notice the bloody irony,gods-damn-it!She said tha things were not working out properly.That she was not able to give me back even the tiniest bit of what I was giving her. She said I was getting too involved.That my studies were going all bad.She said that I had begun to change.That she wanted the Anant back.Not the new one.Not the dreamy, the all-too-loving, the occassionally misunderstanding and the usually stupid new lover.She wanted the sarcastic, the funny, the intelligent, the prudent and the stand-out man that was me.She was right.Almost totally right. I had changed myself somehow, without actually knowing it.It might be that the romanticism was responsible.Or may be it was puberty, after-all.

But I didn't want to see all that.Puberty was raging,probably.Romanticism was in my blood.I had always known that.And I genuinely loved her, I think. But even I disliked the new, 'lamer' Anant.In every sense of the word.

Well.She wanted a bloody break-up, gods-damn-it!

Unfortunately,I had told her something right at the time things began.I had said - "Rohita : Whenever,i mean, whenever you feel there's something wrong,you tell me. No one,but me first. We'll talk it out and sort it. If not, then we'll deal with things as they fall before us. Just know that I DON'T EXPECT! You're all I ever secretly wanted. I am happy with just the feeling of having you there. I don't need more. And when you tell me it's not working, it'll be your descision. Believe me."

And I am nothing if not a man of my word.

No matter how I pined for her embrace...No matter how much I didn't want this to happen, - gods,this was all going so wrong !- I told her the same thing when she said it wasn't working out between us.Then she put the phone off.

We tried to stay friends.She went into a whole lot of misunderstanding and things went 'bad,badder,baddest' ! No puberty-surge,no silent acceptance, no understanding of her state and of my own on my part could piece things together. I tried still, failed miserably,and ended-up ruining even the friendship.Things went all-awry, if you understand me. I mean,this was as bad as things ever went with me. I even cried! Curse everything, it was no one's fault ! But we had broken-up.

Well, the things between us never settled. We are in 12th grade and still struggling with our own demons.She's with the worst guy anyone could ever find in the entire city and I have tried three-four relationships and literally jumped out of them.The feel never came back.

It's like : "when you've tasted the finest wine in the cellar, you can't digest a modest kind."(My words, again.)

I go around the school premises everyday, pretending to flirt,check-out girls,bathe in all the attention accorded me (Mine was never that bad a personality, you know!) and seem to love it all. It's called 'camouflaging'.

I know I don't want her as my girl anymore, but her thought never leaves my mind totally.There's still something about her that keeps me stuck.And though she's with the worst and the most morally-pathetic creature in the entire school and one with a face to shame even the prettiest girls here, she knows how it feels.She always will.

I somehow always had an unexplainable feeling that this would come one day; that then I wouldn't even so much as LOOK at her even when she sat right beside me in lectures; that I would often get disgusted with even her mention. But it can never escape me that even today if she is sitting in the next class, I can very well picture her.Her stance, the tilt of her head, the hair, the grace, the pretty feet, the hands, and - gods!!! - those eyes!

I might not even be there in school on time, but I almost always have a feeling if she's present in the class,or has absented herself to go out with her boyfriend,or if she is simply sitting back to study.

For all the things she said later, for all the abuses and the insults - no, public insults - I endured after that break-up, and for all those useless tears I wept, and for all the hollowness,and the bloody fact that I have matured - oh, you don't want to start growing, you don't! - for all that, she's still there in the back of my mind.More than a demon of the past.More than just a surge of hormones.

Roses are red. It's pointless to add that they have thorns.

I think for all that she was for me,my life felt like a SONG!Or may be, it was puberty, after-all!...And...never mind the title!

The Halfman

“Stub”, they called him .


His mother had died in the birthing bed ,
He knew not his father –
Nor did his mother, he suspected –
For two his early years he was made to stay as his uncle’s foster .

The man was a terrible thing, he remembered ;
Hurting, abusing, stinking, drinking and – Gods! – how he thundered !
Then there was a fire, yes ;
Oh, his uncle’s body had been such a mess !


Then They had poked him, They had kicked, They had leered ;
A dog had thrice tried to feast on his butt .
He had raged, he had wept, he had sneered .
And still They whispered, They stared, They hurt .

Women he saw aplenty ,
One-and-all, they saw him too .
Snort they did and aplenty ;
Giggling , ‘Half-man!’ they mocked him and blew kisses his way .


All this for the Lord’s careless hands (he thought) !
Damn the squinting eyes, damn the stubby nose !
Damn the hairy nostrils, damn the hoarse prose !
Damn the shabby locks, damn the stinking smallclothes !
Damn the stunted legs, damn the bushy brows !
Damn all the pretty gods anyway, and damn the bloody roads !

He was short, too short to be living, he gathered ;
He was a dwarf : ugly, tiny and scary besides.
They shunned him, they whispered low –
And he always knew turning thirty, for him, was not enough height gained !


“Stub”, they called him .

The voices lost in time : POEM

I am a bard; they want me to sing.

They are the mob; history’s muted grunt, these;
They are the triumphs, the shames overpowering,
And the emptiness that comes to haunt the living before the end.
They are a multitude of impositions on this my soul so slowly crumbling under the weight;
They are the mob; my timeless hunt, these.

Yet they insist, wailing my name to the silent air
In prayer – or in rage, I can not know –
Not knowing my pain.

For I am a bard; and they want me to sing.

If only I had my legs, if only I had my eyes, a face to paint with oils fragrant :
I tell them so.
I am naught but ashes of mere remembrance –
Of memories of a withered visage but always disintegrating,
Of souls so gaunt that I but remain!
I am naught but reminiscence, an overfraught silence :
I tell them again.

But they will not listen :
They are a deaf race.

For they are the multitude, their’s is the song.
And I am the land’s music.

I am a bard.
And so I would sing!

the voices lost in time

"I am a bard.They want me to sing.They live their lies, their loves, their joys, their glories, their shames; and the emptiness that comes to haunt the living before the end.They show me everything.They are a multitude of impositions on a soul so diminishing under the weight.Yet they insist, not knowing my pain.
"For I am a bard. And they want me to sing.
"If only I had my legs, if only I had my eyes, a face to reveal myself : I tell them so. I am naught but ashes of rememberance, of memories disintegrating, of souls so withered that I but REMAIN! I am naught but reminiscence, an overfraught silence, I tell them again. But they don't listen.
"I am a bard. And so I must sing!"


--------------------The Voices Lost in Time


(Anant Tripathi)