Dreamy conversations

Let’s assume that I, the writer, don’t know where and how this conversation actually took place. So now you, the reader, are free to imagine and create your own visions and images regarding this matter. Just assume there is a couple—a beautiful girl and a handsome boy. If you are a boy, just imagine you are that boy. If you are a girl, just imagine you are that girl. Now you are my character. This is your story. You already know what is going to happen in this story. Nevertheless, you want to read it. This is going to be a boring love story, and yet there is this vague underlying intense feeling that forces you to read it. So, now, you take a deep breath and being to read the story, titled Dreamy Conversations seriously. I, the writer, become happy to share with you this dreamy story.

She lives in the eastern part of the globe. He lives in the western part of the same globe. When she wakes up, the first thing she says to him is “Good night”. And before he closes his eyes to sleep, the last thing he says to her is “Good morning! And, have a good day”. When it’s time for her to sleep, she promises to meet him in her dream. And, the next day, they talk about their meeting in their respective dreams. She says she came to meet him in the form of the wind. He says he was standing outside the restaurant where he works just to feel her. He says he danced like crazy when the musical wind that carried her fragrance blew his long and silky hair. And in his dream, the boy goes to meet her in the form of food. She chews the food very slowly in her college canteen at break time and devours it fully as she can taste and smell the heady fragrance of his clean body in every bite.

She loves to eat. He loves to drink. She loves to sing. He loves to dance. She loves to read. He loves to write. They both love each other. They talk about love and life. She asks some profound questions regarding life and he ponders for a long time before he rep-lies. She is always satisfied with his answer. He answers in such a way that the questions dissolve on their own. When there are no more questions, there is no need for the answer as well. She tells him that he is her teacher. She requests him to be his ‘mind-guard’.

“If we were together, I would make you my body guard,” she says.

“Why would you take such a risk?” he says, “If there ever were to be an emergency, it would be you who would be protecting me. I know you are stronger than me, for you eat more than I do.”

She laughs like crazy. And, he joins her. And both of them laugh so hard that the birds sleeping in the branches of peepal trees wake up and flutter their wings in irritation. Some neighbours even mistake the laugher for a thunder storm and go out to check the sky.

Out of time

The cantankerous hubbub of people waiting in a queue for their turn to fill their vessels overwhelmed the surroundings. There were some who were cleaning their dishes and others who were washing their clothes. In front, a few women from the neighbourhood were arguing about someone cutting in line. Amidst the noise, clad in a simple faded dhoti, Khem Baaje with his long, wrinkled face walked toward the tap carrying a worn toothbrush with yellow bristles in his hand. He hated coming to the public tap for his daily chores but there was no other option. For the past three days there has been no water in the house he rented. The check valve on the boring pipe had broken; the tanks had all been empty since. The landlord had said it was Baaje’s sole responsibility to fix the pump and he wasn’t going to spend a dime on it. After filling the jug with pint of water he squatted on a nearby rock and started to brush his teeth. 

From the crowd a familiar voice yelled, “Baaje, congratulations! When is the party?”

Baaje’s head turned towards the direction of the yeller. As he had suspected, it was none other than Babu Raja, his next door neighbor.

Spitting foam Baje retorted, “What party?”

“Why, you don’t know? Yesterday’s news....Didn’t you watch TV?”

“My TV’s broken. What’s the news?”

“You are getting promoted. That’s what.” Baburaja said smugly.

“Are you kidding?” Baje spoke with his brows furrowed.

“No, I am not. The government has decreed that all government employees who have been serving in the same post for over fifteen years will be automatically promoted. The ordinance has been signed by the president.”Babu Raja replied with a grin.

Baje couldn’t believe his ears. He had heard similar rumour swirling a few years ago but there had been no such indication lately. He had stopped hoping. But now, suddenly, his heartbeat quickened. A rush of ecstasy as well as doubt over took him; his temples throbbed in the excitement. Babu Raja’s words had come as a shock. Meanwhile, the others in the crowd who had overheard the conversation also joined in and yelled “Congratulations!” Unable to react rationally he got up and rinsed his mouth immediately.

“This better not be a joke. Because if it is then it’s very cruel.”

“Why the hell would I be joking? It’s in today’s newspaper as well,” Babu Raja exclaimed.

Vanishing

I turned seventeen last month. My temples greyed; a black halo formed around the lower half of my face and started to grow. The smudge of black below my nose darkened—I got my present without celebrating my day.

That day or perhaps some other day saw me taking an empty tempo—one of many such wonders that circumnavigated a small portion of the expansive and labyrinthine city. The body of the tempo was enamel white, with parallel streaks of blue slathered over like suntan. Overcast as it was, the day waded slowly through the square-shaped hole it had for a window, through with also came in dust, remnants of arid roads that beckoned for spring to arrive.

The rear-view mirror reflected a chin sporting a stubble that was only a few days old, a pair of eyes that seemed to have drunk the red from the lids, an aquiline nose, and lips that were an equal number of shades away from the pink of a blush—or of two daubs of rouge—and the black of anthracite. Silence hung like an enormous beast, breathing heavily and rarefying the atmosphere. Only after a long while—punctuated by jarring glances exchanged through the mirror and the clanking shut of the stained glass that framed the windows—did another passenger, a young kid, come in. He took the seat across from me, and it bothered me that the game of noticing somebody noticing you had resumed. The silence felt more tangible all of a sudden.

Out of the larger gap that was the door people got on and off from, the landscape continually changed: The buildings nearest got small, and the further ones got smaller; the road reflected the sky and took on the over-clouded pewter hue. It seemed endless; it provided more of itself to compensate for every small part of it the vehicle overcame.

The boy sitting opposite me thrust his hand into his breast-pocket and fished out a thin roll of money, the outer layer of which was a five-rupee note—an outcome of similarly silent and fidgety rides, I thought. He moved a seat closer to the driver, and asked that he stop the vehicle. Ten rupees, the driver said, and the boy handed his neat roll of money before getting off and heading to the left of the road where, upon seeing a lorry reversing in his direction, he stopped and waited for it to pass.

A sullen sun appeared somewhere, and the dust still rose.

Stalker

If I were to visit a psychiatrist with the mental state I am in, he might accuse me of being a voyeur, but believe me I don’t take pleasure in peeking into other people’s lives so I am not a voyeur. I just do it because I am bored and pretty much have nothing else to do. The story I am going to unfold took place over a year ago. Those were desperate times for me. I was sick and tired of being a loner back then and I was looking for a relationship of my standards, and quite frankly I had set myself very high standards. 

I love entering other’s lives, nudging their doors open in a quiet, noiseless way, being their uninvited, invisible guest. It really puts me on edge. Glancing at people through the peep holes of their social networks (especially Facebook) seeing their lives, their moments of happiness, their times of tragedies, making assessment of those and comparing them to the data of my own life tantalises me. It entices and invites me. It is my favorite and only pastime in a room radiating absolute boredom and dullness diffusing from every corner.

It was a chilly winter evening when it happened. I was preparing tea in the kitchen when I heard that irresistible sound of a Facebook notification. It was from a group called “WORD FIGHTER”— those kinds of groups where rookies with a very limited sense of rhymes and poetry judge themselves as poets and act as though they are Keats or Wordsworth. On a normal evening, I wouldn’t have dared to enter that group, but it was the dullest evening of my life so I checked it out anyway. There was a crappy poem from my friend Angela moaning about how her boyfriend dumped her and how love hurts so no one should ever fall in love and other depressing rubbish; I was just about to exit from that group when I saw something. Some girl named Alonika Sharma had commented on Angela’s poem. She wrote, “He was not your true love anyway. You should get over him and try searching for true love again. Say goodbye to minor bumps and be ready for the journey of life”. Such cheesy lines of consolations, I joked in my mind. It was not those lines that got me drew me towards her. It was her name. Alonika, what a weird name, I thought and within a few seconds I found myself looking at her Facebook profile.

Alonika Sharma, boy she must be alone then I chuckled. From her photos, she appeared to be in her late teens, with a fair complexion, and maybe had a height of about five foot two. Wow, I thought, exactly what I need in a girl. Marilyn Monroe was on her current cover photo with her quote, “ It’s better to be absolutely ridiculous than to be absolutely boring. Wow, we share the same philosophies too, I thought. A girl who suits me in every possible way. I thought my mind up would swell up any moment and if I did not stop thinking about her it might explode.