The Pink Uniform

“Dad, do you like pink?”

“No, I don’t.”

The little boy was very disappointed. He felt rather deceived that his father did not like pink. He was seated on the bottom stair in front of their handsome home, watching his dad repair his bicycle for him. His father continued to work, oblivious to the chagrin he had just caused his only son.

The Wait...

Beauty was not a word that anybody would attribute to her. She was neither slender nor delicate. She was neither tall nor short. She did not have a voice that resonated with melody. She was not a witty person and she certainly wasn’t the most athletic one. She was not a dancer, writer, dramatist, scholar, or an artist. If one were to be go by physical appearances, she would be one of those people who would certainly go unnoticed. And yet, people seldom failed to notice her. Her eyes shone with an eccentric grit she embodied and all the innumerable other virtues, which gave her a personality that towered above the rest.

And as she sat there outside the hut, under the shimshupa tree, looking into the blushing Western skies, brushing and disentangling her thick black hair, she hummed a silent tune to herself. A cloudy day she thought dimly. The wind had been rather high all day long, shepherding the clouds away from the beautiful orchards where her hut was. The sun, however, had been as unforgiving as it always was on these strange lands… She leaned back against the tree absently and went into a stoic and composed silence.

The restless nomad (Part 1)

PART 1

She liked jasmine, he thought as he saw the jasmine climber dangling from the mossy green rooftop of the dormitory he was staying in.

He sipped the coffee that he had managed to get his hands on in that hill covered, rainy town accessible only by rickety buses. It was half past two; had he been in his city, it would have been the hottest, most drowsy, and most irritating part of the day. After spending all his weekdays there, surviving and enduring the monotony he had created around his life, he nearly always found himself seeking refuge in the wild unknown lands during weekends. The limitless skies, lush forests, fragrant air, and meandering streams eased his restless soul and reassured him of his being alive. He was a nomad who was not free.

The Flight or the Pursuit?

The man stood by the street light. He could hear the train winding down the railway tracks that he had been trekking on all day. He got off the tracks to let the train pass and leaned on the lamp post. It was nearing dusk and the evening passenger train, as was the norm with the trains in this region, was carrying twice the number of passengers than it was built to carry. The clouds had started settling into the valleys that the mountains towered around, and the temperature was rapidly falling.

The engine moved past him slowly when the lamp post that he had been leaning on suddenly sprang to life. He absent-mindedly scratched his unshaven face along the protruding straight jaw line that seemed chiseled to perfection to portray him as the man he was – a determined uncompromising creature. Against the background of the full moon night sky, the train's windows put a procession of lights, sometimes obscured by curious passengers peering at the tall hefty man with a huge backpack, leaning against the light pole.

First Rains

The intolerant heat lashed in fury day after day and the sticky days get stickier. With the exception of kids who were basking in the glory of their summer vacations slurping ice golas and playing fervently in the playground, without wasting any bit of daylight, the entire human race seemed worked-up with the heat. People, already tired of chasing dreams that eluded them like a mirage in a desert, get all the more thirsty under the punishing summer sun that took pleasure in dehydrating them just as easily as it parched the vast fertile lands. Tempers became shorter, days grew longer, nights seemed clearer, winds were scarcer, temperatures raised higher, water problems dipped deeper and irritation bred quicker. There were so many people awaiting the first rains that season. They were awaiting ME.

Posted with love

The monsoon rains had washed the red post box clean and made it appear freshly painted. As it hung casually, its colour stood out in the exuberantly green environs that housed it.  It had received only a dozen mails that day, two of which were regular; and the other, from the man with a thick moustache and fat black rimmed spectacles, to some bimonthly magazine in a far off town that he posted every other week. The other ten mails were posted by the same person, and looked like invitations to some occasion. The postman wasn’t due to pick them until the next day morning, it thought. It approved of the latest postman, who was a very punctual individual when it came to his duties. He promptly came cycling around, wearing his clean and crisp uniform, at the exact same time every alternate day to pick up the posts. He also oiled its lock and its creaking joints of the door once in two months, thought the post box fondly!

Was he or was he not?

The very thought of him brought a grin to my face. What was it that he had that the rest of them did not have? Was it the boyish face? Was it the wit or was it the crudeness about him? Was it the way he read my thoughts? He had made himself central in my life I guess, or I had made him so myself.

A word here, a sound there, a sight somewhere, a laugh elsewhere, they all reminded me of his existence. He lived somewhere, vital and vibrant… He was full of life and he lived it vividly; high on life, that’s what he was! He was indulgent in life as anybody could ever dream of being and this somehow made him so absolutely disarming.

The road is pretty deserted. It is terribly windy, but it doesn’t matter. Nothing seems to matter. Where am I going? Does it matter? What’s the time? What day is it? Well… does it matter?