A New Day...

She was unlike most women he had befriended before. He had always been taken in by strong women and she was no less - that unique mix of flamboyance tempered with the rationale of Indian abstinence, arrogance towards the ineptitude of men and society restrained nevertheless with a respect for sensitivities and acceptance of idiosyncrasies, and a fiery passion for independence was the most potent aphrodisiac that could tantalize his senses. Samir was not a complex personality and his dislike for such a representation of his self - an outcome of his inability to avoid the double entendre and express appreciation was not as evident that he would have liked it to be when he thought about it in those moments of nostalgia that he tried hard to occlude. 

It was half past five and he had taken longer than his usual fifteen minutes packing. He looked around the room that had been visiting for close to three years now ever since he took up his new job as Sales Manager of South Zone. He had lived in better places than Hotel Monarch and although Madurai had better offerings, he had developed a close relationship with the Hotel Manager Shambu who had gone out of the way to make his short stays comfortable so much so, that Room 312 was permanently reserved for Samir. "Best room in Madurai Saar" he had proudly proclaimed while taking up Samir's luggage in November 2005. More than the spartan decor, it was Shambu's pride that had genuinely amused Samir as he gently offloaded the night bag and laptop on to the bed and fiddled with the dial on the old BPL TV. When Samir threw the door to the balcony open, it was not difficult to imagine why this room was special. The view of the Gopuram was spectacular, and situated at the right height and distance, it offered a fantastic view of ancient architectural splendor in all its glory. The lighting  that night was spectacular and the festive spirit of the season was captivating. The drum beats and naadasvaram was mildly audible in the background and Samir started smiling involuntarily. "Best room in Madurai Saar. Marriage season favorite honeymoon room" prompted Shambu handing the remote to Samir as he took leave. 

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Like so many things in his life, meeting her was inevitable and he knew it right from the word go. They were dreadfully alike which was partly explained by their similar backgrounds and they were a powerful couple when together. They did not need to compliment each other, because they possessed the same measure of everything in their personalities and they were the kind of people who could take away any gathering by storm due to the intensity of their being. What one thought, the other understood and conversation between them was minimal and restricted to a few words. To any careful observer it was a show of ethereal understanding between a couple and it was always unnerving yet captivating for Shambu to observe them from close quarters. He seized every opportunity to serve them even if it meant personally carrying water to Room 312. 

"Both of us will check out tomorrow morning" said Samir entering Monarch that night at 8 p.m.. 

"How was the darshan Saar", enquired Shambu trying to detect if they had really enjoyed the trip into the city. 

"Very good, Thank You", he said and she smiled approvingly at his choice of the place, route and driver for their evening. 

"Anything else you would require for the night Saar?" 

"No. I will settle all bills together tomorrow if it is ok with you" replied Samir. 

"No problem. Good night to you two" beamed Shambu. 

They took the stairs as usual walking side by side with many pairs of eyes following their graceful exit from the foyer, each looking to be deep in thought. They entered the room together and she immediately walked out to the balcony to watch the ceremonies.  The festive season was officially coming to an end that night and celebrations had attained peak fervor. Samir followed her and they stood together for close to 30 minutes waiting for the ceremonies to end and the procession to start. The moment was an involuntary trigger for both of them and when it came, they were naturally prepared for it. He looked at her and they smiled at each other as they entered the room hand-in-hand. 

It was a night that they would never forget. Never had both been so spent and when the early morning activities in the temple started again they finally closed their eyes for the day. 

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"When will you be here next Saar"? quizzed Shambu as he zipped his overnight bag shut. "Should I get some breakfast packed for you?" he continued without waiting for an answer. 

"Breakfast will not be required Shambu. You take care of yourself and your family. Here is my card with my personal number written on the backside. Please call me when your daughter is getting married ok?" said Samir. 

"Sir, I will call you as soon as I find a suitable boy. But when will you be coming here next" asked Shambu, anxious now at the quantum of words being spoken by Samir. 

"I will come here to attend your daughter's marriage Shambu", said Samir smiling at him like never before. He was done with Madurai and could never get himself to come to the city anymore. "Never again unless unavoidable" was not something he wanted to tell the Hotel Manager who had been his friend for the last three years. 

He returned a smile at the Air Hostess at the Security Gate who had recognized him from the many past journeys in the same route. It was a short trip to Chennai and he hoped to get some sleep when airborne. It was a busy day tomorrow and he wanted to set some aggressive targets for the next quarter. He drifted to sleep thinking about the wonderful time spent and people he had met in Madurai over the last three years. 

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The mild jerk when the pilot hit the brakes of the Embraer Jet woke up Samir. The short nap had done him more good than he had expected and he began to realize that the Madurai chapter in his life was well on its way to an end. Neither did he feel remorse or pain, nor did he feel any vestiges of anticipation at the new challenges that lay ahead in his new role and a new city. It was almost as if he was conditioned for all that had happened over the last three years and it was something he felt uneasy about. 

"Would you like anything else Sir?" asked the Air Hostess, poised alongside Samir and helping an old lady with her cabin baggage.  

"Not really. But thank you for offering" replied Samir before moving on to deplane leaving the Air Hostess staring at his back. 

As Samir walked down the foyer of Terminal 2, he switched his mobile on and started reading the messages that he missed over the last hour of travel. He quickly replied to most of them in his traditional cursory way and instructed his staff to make bookings for his travel over the week. If there was one thing he found amusing about air-travellers it was their impatience in receiving their checked-in baggage. The fastest people to rush into the Terminal were ironically the business travelers who determinedly found their way to the front of the Baggage Belt, only to wait for the longest. As if in response to their eagerness, the first baggage to appear on the belt was the holiday travelers' big bags and to add salt to their injuries of having been ignored in-spite of appearing earlier at the Belt, the baggage suddenly stopped spewing luggage. The rhythmic motion of the empty decade old Belt unnerved a few of them and one of them started opening the flap of the Belt at the entrance and peering in to hurry the Airline Staff to process their bags faster. Frantic activity like this for retrieving luggage unnerved the rest of passengers who started hissing and cursing the Airline who charged a premium but acted low-cost. The animosity towards the Airline started brewing as minutes ticked by and the premium travelers started using the most premium of abuses vilifying the parentage of the owners, promoters and airline staff who operated the Airline as a rundown brothel. 

Samir started sipping his coffee a few meters away watching the scene in amusement as the the belt next to his started humming. An announcement for the next flight followed and Samir jerked in anticipation. It was a flight he was waiting for and would have done so even if his baggage had arrived on time. He quickly finished his coffee as the travelers from the latest flight started pouring into the Terminal. 

The sensation was there as he come come to realize and expect. Her presence was always obvious to him even before their eyes had met and physical proximity was no precursor for their meeting. It was a strong force that bound them together and the locus of this magnetic influence on each other was as reserved for them as it was incomprehensible and inexplicable through thought or words. It was just moments before they visually met and whenever it happened there was a rapid exchange of emotions that preceded and expended the need for words.

She walked down slowly and determinedly with each step measured and calculated, constantly looking at him and talking to the person next to her mentally processing two different streams of communication. He continued to look at her understanding most of what she was saying but missing out increasingly due to the other thoughts that were going on in his mind. He finally broke conversation with her and glanced to her right, looking at her companion from college days, the person who had helped her reach where she was - someone whose encouragement, love and maturity was paramount for the stability that had been brought to her life and she loved him like she loved no one else and never could. Samir found himself evaluating her companion and jerked himself awake - he had never done this and did not want to start thinking on those lines. He glanced back at her and looked away thinking about whatever had happened. 

"Are you ready or would you like some more time to organize your conflicting thoughts and emotions"? said a voice from close by and Samir snapped back to reality, smiling in recognition. 

She was unlike most women he had befriended before. He looked back to see that she was no longer there and smiled again. 

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The Walk - Part 4

The shrill bell broke my reverie and I glanced at the clock on the plastered wall. The nurse had been late for the third time this week. “Not much work today anyway”, I thought to myself inching towards the door on my crutches. The everyday ten-minute walk in the park had become the most dreaded part of life for the past few months. The most irritating part of the task not being the physical exhaustion or the constant drone of encouragement from the nurse, but the ignominy of having to bear the stares of all the other people. Making quick progress I reached and opened the door readying myself to lash out at the undependability of nurses and I caught myself staring open-mouthed at Goyal and Sudhakar.

The banner saying “Happy Birthday, Mr. Yugendran” stood staring contemptuously at me. I started inching towards the front, one-legged, and on my crutches which would never be stolen from me. Kids started clapping, and elders followed suit. With tears streaming down my face, I started moving faster and faster towards my goal – the front row. With every passing second, the rhythmic beating seemed to get louder and the pain in my leg started to ease until finally, I felt nothing, save the hot tears on my eyes.

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1) I had written this way back and not done a preliminary research either I guess ( I mentioned I am a lazy bum somewhere). So you have to forgive the technical error with gangrene etc. Have not edited from the basic draft I made in 2004.

2) Formatting is screwed in my blog. I guess I will have to learn quickly to enhance readability :(

3) Thanks for the patient read ;)

4) I might be accused of being maudlin etc with this. I promise a raunchy sex thriller sometime later. Keep visiting.

The Walk - Part 3

Water tastes sour with coagulated blood mixed in it. I had opened my eyes to a few bare-chested villages towering over me. Never before had I seen such genuinely emotive eyes. I looked around and saw the Nayak family lying a few feet away seemingly unhurt. Sudhakar and his wife had cuts on their faces and what looked like glass jutting out of their legs. The Goyals were being pulled out of a window, unconsciously. Meanwhile, the Nayaks were now being lifted and put into a waiting auto. I closed my eyes and felt a strong pair of hands sliding beneath me. I woke up with a jerk to see a smiling fifty year old man close to my face. I turned my head around and saw people, the Vasans and the Chaturvedis being pulled out of different windows, their bodies a bloody mess. I never know what overcame me at that moment - whether it was pent up fury at the sight of so much suffering around me or a love for mankind that I had possibly inherited in my genes. I motioned to the people lying around and those neighbors still stuck inside the ill-fated bus. The village initially confused, understood my request. Setting me back on the ground, he moved towards the Goyals.

The auto-driver drove eleven full trips to the Hospital, 5 kilometers away, with tears in his eyes and pain in his heart. When the last trip with my mutilated body was done, he had made his last trip on that eventful night. The two night-duty Doctors, completely exhausted, had decided to take a short nap and had to be shaken awake after my arrival.

The Ambulance driver had been on a holiday and the fifteen year old vehicle had refused to start.

My left leg had to be amputated as gangrene had set in. "Maybe a couple of hours earlier", mused the Doctors.

The Walk - Part 2

The coughing and spluttering of an auto well on its painful last days stole the dull monotonous quiet prevailing in the area around the shamiana. Men from the group moved towards the auto and greeted the emerging occupants – an ominous Mr. Goyal and a white cloth rolled on short and stout wooden pole. Ramu started carrying the pole towards the tent followed by the elders and a few kids who had now materialized, with a seriousness that was not uncharacteristic of him, nevertheless melodramatic. Held high over his head and with people looking solemnly and respectfully, it resembled the journey of the Olympic torch.

I grew up this in a picturesque town with colorful people during my first fifteen years. Padma, the Hospital Sweeper who took the motherless infant as a godsend to relieve her of the drudgery in her life was the diametric opposite of the Gurkha. Somewhere in between lay Mr Patil, the Headmaster of the Corporation School who thought I was the brightest boy in class; Lingam, the sweetmeat seller who gave me a free Burphi everyday and Shyamala, mother's colleague whose dosas I could never forget. Years flew by and when I was fifteen came familial discord with the arrival of a long -lost drunk husband. Why the rightful head of the house had turned back to re-establish marital accord was not a question asked. How a fifteen year old who had been longer with Padma than he could have no ownership was esoteric. Mother cried when I left.

Ramu was now indisputably the center of attraction. He had dug two holes with an iron crowbar and started unfurling the cloth banner with the flourish of a Houdini in the making. "Maybe it is some anniversary celebration", I thought to myself. Bored with the proceedings of which I was no part, I moved away from the window.

Promising Mr Patil solemnly that I would come back within a few years and return his three hundred rupees with 5% interest, I set off. Along with the money, I had one set of clothes, three dosas packed by Shyamala and a locket around my neck bequeathed by Padma on my eight birthday. "To protect you from evil and envy", she said mystically. I wondered who would be envious of me.

I reached Coimbatore within an hour, minus two hundred and eighty rupees (as the kind soul had in a fit of righteousness left me with the ticket and change), dosas and clothes. Left with the locket and a used ticket, I got down at the Central Bus Stand with two dozen people who hurried about with some goal in sight. I wandered about the place for around 5 hours begging for work. While the tea-stall owners shooed me off, the well-dressed tried to conspicuously ignore me which was more infuriating. All I earned for the five minutes of pleading was a casual slow-motioned shifting of feet. Few men relented after sometime and glanced at me shaking their head in mock misery while the others moved away as if chased by an evil leper.

Growing up in a village with a roof over my head, under the caring eyes of Padma was different from the city as one had to be on one's toes always for fear of losing the sleeping space and the locket. Months passed and I was lucky enough to be adopted (unofficially again) by a restaurant owner who was impressed by my village-like diligence to work as he called it. The sharp brain in my precocious head was duly discovered and I was sent to school. Years passed and I never failed the old man. Relocating after his death to a new place was both painful and necessary.



No one knew exactly how we hit the oncoming truck. I woke up to a dull ringing in the ears and a numb sensation in my limbs. I stretched in a bid to wake my jaded self and get the circulation going, but felt a searing pain in my left leg. I let out a groan of agony and tasted blood in my mouth. The scene in front of me when I wiped the blood from my face was revolting - the entire bus lay at 45 degrees to the road and bodies lay twisted and gnarled in between iron bars and mangled seats. I glanced to see what was left of my half-torn leg and howled in distress. The metal support bar below my seat had cut through my left leg. Clasping what was left of the seat in front, I tried to get up gritting my teeth. The mild exertion sent fresh waves of pain and I fell back unconscious.


Suman Goyal, the President and Sudhakar were now walking towards the apartment.

The Walk - Part 1

Having lived up to my promise in my first post about being a slow writer, I am back..

This is something I had written in November 2004. Found it in some remote corner of my hard disk and decided what the hell :)

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The eighty- by eighty room with uncared for a bit of a not-so-old rosewood furniture set strewn around was in stark contrast to the street outside the apartment. The rug on the floor flaunted tea stains and patchwork. Dirty towels and underwear hung proudly on a nylon wire connecting two adjacent walls asymmetrically. As far as the animate occupants of the room were considered; spiders, moths, cockroaches and lizards had a field day in establishing base. There seemed to be no territorial dispute. Food and water were available in plenty, thanks to a leaky washbasin. The animal kingdom was in flourish.

Less than thirty steps away, the entire street had been cleanly swept for the first time in many years by Ramu, the community appointed sweeper (that, being debatable because he had started to accompany his dad, one of the Corporation sweepers since he was a kid). The years of hands-on experience wielding the broomstick was not in any way an indication of his talents, as, for most part of the Sunday afternoon, he just stood gazing at a single speck of dust, the rhythmic to and fro motion of his broomstick being the only indication of his conscious state.

Mr. Vasan often joked that Ramu had worked too long with dirt and dust to develop an unconscious liking and feeling of pity to unseat it from its place of rest. The kinship developed was mutual as the dust refused to leave its chosen place of rest in spite of repeated entreaties by Ramu’s broom.

“O Podu” blared the speakers as the adrenaline-charged teenagers at the front danced to the asinine tune with indefatigable vigor and ferocity; each kid hopelessly trying to imitate the neighbor and only succeeding in confusing the one next to him by paralytic twists. Mothers meanwhile tried to encourage their wards vociferously; only succeeding in irking other mothers who felt it was their parental responsibility to encourage raw dancing talent. “O Podu” soon faded into the cacophony of hysterical mothers and confused fourteen year olds who were left to dance to the tunes of the women.

A big shamiana had been erected the day before in the park on Ramaswamy Road. Balloons and colored paper was littered about and the whole place bore a festive look. Kids were having a field day running around the support-poles of the shamiana. Not far away, half a dozen adolescent girls stood watching in eagerness, undecided about whether they were too old for the kids’ antics, as they were supposed to act as young graceful women. A few of the elders, Sudhakar, the Secretary, Jayanth, the Treasurer and a few other men from the Colony leaning on the wall appeared to be in serious discussion.

“Nothing like carefree childhood life”, I thought watching the fun and frolic in front of the bus bringing me quaint memories of my own childhood. Born in a 3-bed Corporation Hospital in Kannur, a village 50 kms from Coimbatore city to Kanaga who passed away within few minutes after releasing me into this world, life was far from being a bed of roses. Hurdles and subsequent desperation drove me to become an acknowledged cynic, a non-believer. There were never taunts. People were much too busy to bother about the un-threatening urchin. The “Who are you? Where are your relatives?” looks I got in plenty. How my mother landed in the Hospital while in labor, no one could explain. To the Gurkha, the pregnant lady in labor who was nowhere around one minute earlier, was lying outside the gate the next. The poor illiterate soul suspected the hand of the supernatural. Unfortunately he could never confidently pinpoint to whom - God or the Devil had conspired to torture his soul. I was thus never picked up and cuddled by the Gurkha, a small man with a big and luxuriant mustache. He always seemed to maintain a safe distance with me, sequestering me as an indelible stamp asserting the supernatural's late night foray into Kannur village.