Approachable

Every time she looked out someone was staring out of the white window on the other side of the road. She could see the rough outline of a man through the glass panes covered in the morning mist.  She opened her window in her morning pajamas and  sleeveless tank top with a coffee mug in her hand. The voyeur will now have a coffee-commercial image of her. She thought.

‘What if he is a handsome bachelor consumed by work and chanced to see her. What if he wants to make a move ?’ She looked around everywhere except the window. The morning truck was delivering mangoes to the shop downstairs. ‘ I should buy mangoes’

The coffee didn’t taste good. She had lost the habit of putting Sugar way back when she was in school but today it didn't taste that good. She walked into the kitchen and looked at the ice-cream pouch in the fridge. “I have already put on 3kg, maybe I should run. I will quit smoking this weekend’. She added sugar to her coffee shot and decided to light a cigarette.

The voyeur must have gone. She went to the window again and smoked a cigarette. “Somehow woman who smokes seems to be nicer and more approachable”  her ex boy friend had told her once in moments of an afterglow smokes. She hated what he said.

‘I will quit smoking this weekend’.  She finished her coffee and non-nonchalantly looked at the window. Definitely there was someone and she smiled at him.

PASSWORD

He was dressed in a suit. A fucking suit in this humid Bombay weather. I could see that he already had an upper hand over me. A suit over my ‘grey t-shirt and tethered jeans with a captain america colored sandals’. He had a tie too. I was sweating a bit less than usual but nevertheless I took my tissue and wiped my forehead. He looked like he was carved out of soap and the wrinkles added to give character. ”Hope I am not too late ?” He spoke with a tone that demanded respect. ”No , I saw you walk in , i had a hard time crossing this road” I smiled like a servant who wanted a raise. “You want to order something ? Cappuccino or Espresso or something ?” “I will order a black tea. Put more sugar or give an extra bag” He sat down and took his iPad out. He kept staring at it as the waiter took the order. My smartphone searched for free WiFi and i was embarrassed to ask for password. What would he think of me ? He looked up at the waiter “ Free wifi ... what is your passowrd” with a lot of confidence The waiter replied with a smile “coffeeandbiscuits@123” He connected , I connected and we connected . ‘So krishand about your project ....” we spoke for a long time.

GODS and GODDESSES

Six stone idols were made from a large rock mountain in Irunutty (South Malabar).

Two female and four male.

One of the goddess was stolen and was lost for several years.

Men went looking for it.

Some say they have seen it in a mall in Sharjah (Saudi Arabia). Others say it is in a musuem in Paris.

The other goddess got herself a shrine and a thousand followers.

Hens travel all the way from Tamil Nadu in crowded cages to sacrifice themselves in front of her.

She likes blood. She is always angry.

Three male gods found temples for themselves however on the walls of the outer arch.

One got its nose broken nose during the annual carnival renovations.

The last one among the six had divine powers. Providence.

No temple was made around him. No one knew that this piece had sacred strength from the cosmos. He waited in sculptors shed for  a number of years and several hundred years after his death withered down into sand and soil. A passing birds dropping fell on the sand soil rock blend and miraculously  it had a small seed buried between shit. The seed grew into a tree and rock idol particles intermixed and became a part of its branches and leaves. The fruits it dropped healed birds who could not fly.

Years later someone found the stolen goddess in the local river.  

He placed it under the secret sacred tree. The god and goddess merged.

Forests grew around them.

Cliche

"What is it that you want now ?" She asked him by the beach

"To freeze this moment in time", He smiled.

" That is a cliché" she walked a little further and sat on a broken boat. “Is that a boat? “

He looked into the farthest point in the horizon where the sky and the sea merged.  A fish jumped up and disappeared in the blue. “ What boat ?”

She was looking far ahead into the horizon.  A cloud seemed to be staying still. “I want to go there “. She started walking towards the water.

“There might be an undercurrent”, he stopped her held her hand and kissed her.

She pushed him off and ran, “someone might be looking at us”.

He sat down by the boat as she ran away far from him. He looked at the horizon and the beach. She is now a speck on the edge of beach far away to his left. He looked towards his right. The crabs crawled back into tiny holes on the beach. He turned around and she was gone.

He ran behind her.

So I get up early in the morning and try to wake her up. She is not a morning person. She wants to sleep a little more. I tell her “it’s Ok”. You sleep for some more time”. I badly want her to wake up.

Wake up and make love to me. Make love and start my day. Start our day.

I give her a hug. She receives it like a mother protecting her child. It doesn’t seem to wake her up. I kiss her. First slowly and then passionately. She smiles in her sleep. The morning sun is in my room.

I get up and go to the loo and shakes hand with the president.

I start my day.

Nothing

When someone calls me a photographer I am embarrassed there are so many out there equally bad and worse. A lady once called me a painter and I showed her my paintings ... she stopped the reference. I could write scripts but they don't have an innate flow. I could draw graphic novels but my style can be connected only by a few.

So that makes me a nothing. "NOTHING"

Suddenly I am surrounded by a lot too many 'nothings'. A 'nothing' in design and I went to drink coffee and we spoke 'nothing'. The restaurant  guitarist took his guitar out but played ‘nothing’. A friend actor came to meet me but there was 'nothing' left to perform. I saw a 'nothing' performance artist and a 'nothing' painter in a nowhere tea stall.

Then I met a ‘something’ stranger in a ‘nothing’ museum.  A man with clarity. He was neither a researcher nor an artist but both and ‘nothing’. But he was something. Something was different. I told him ‘nothing’ about me. He listened. He asked me to stop trying hard. He asked me to relax. I told him “you are something “. He laughed and said “that’s nothing”. We said goodbye to each other and he left with ‘something’ and me again with ‘nothing’.

Hanging

“So this is the deepest pit of hell”, he thought to himself as he descended down the deepest pit of hell. The walls seemed medieval and the scent of freshly burned oil reassured him. The harness was fastened to a sturdy rock somewhere above and all he could see now was the tunnel above and below. Perhaps he will never be able to see the entrance of the tunnel through which he climbed down.

The gas mask has to be used once the toxic level goes red in the digital belt. A loud scream echoed from somewhere down the pit. “Perhaps that is the devil himself”, he smiled and dangled down the rope. He felt the carabiner which held his life line.

The pit seemed to get narrower as he climbed down the rope. The gas mask was now indispensable. The temperature was getting unbearable. The saturated halogen glow was filling the tunnel from somewhere below.  “Maybe it is not greener on the other side”. He took of his gas mask. He could hear people talking feebly somewhere far away lost in the clicking of a life supporting machine.

“Should I let go or climb back” he thought as the loud scream

echoed through the tunnel.