She moved gingerly towards him. Step by step on the grass laden with dew and her anklets made such a sweet ringing sound that the preoccupied nightingale stopped her song in mid-tone to look about. Small flowers peeped out meekly of their little holes in the grass whereas the bigger flamboyant ones displayed their full colours, trying to beat each other out in hedges and bushes. The birds sang their own sweet songs and moss covered the trees, like a predicament of what was going to come. Spring had come.She thought, who could have though that these tough gnarled branches of trees, which had laid dead for all these months, could house something as tender as these little beautiful flowers now. Only someone with a very wicked sense of humour. And thinking this she smiled to herself and deliberated for some more time.

Amongst all this beauty,bird song and ringing anklets, he lay still, deep in prayer, oblivious of the many cycles of nature had completed while he had stood still. And this is what had attracted her. Whereas men prefer women of a certain age, just this quality-sincerity, in a man of any age, wins the heart of a woman. His sage-like demeanour, the force of his prayer, his imperviousness... had filled her with a longing that she left the heavens for him. No, Indra did not send her, he never does. He was too consumed by the politics of his own heavenly affairs. She moved closer and the sage opened his eyes. Seeing such magnificent beauty in front of him, he forgot about his prayer. Taking this as Indra's attempt to bother him, mad with fury, the sage turned her into stone.

Many many centuries later, people from all around the world came to look at the statue of a woman of awe-inspiring beauty. Tour-guides attempted at telling impressive stories regarding the origins of the statue with their wild imaginations. But nobody could explain the hint of a smile on the woman's face, almost bordering on ecstasy.

I knew what I had done and I was ashamed. Well, nobody knew, because he lay there in my arms, one hand in his hair and another tracing his backbone continuously, even as he grew colder and colder until I stopped feeling him. Feeling everything. I don’t know how long I stood there, staring into the sea, my feet sinking in the sand which became wet now and then, smelling his hair. Or thinking that I could. His lovely crown of curly locks. That’s how I spent my time earlier I think. Untwirling each of those locks and watching them curl back. So obstinate, I would laugh out. And he would look up from whatever he was doing to give me his shy smile. I loved him so much.

I open my eyes and try to look for that familiar warmth. Instead I find it extremely difficult. So painful to look down. And when I do, I can feel that he's gone. Dissolved into what surrounds me now. Stone. Corals. Anemones. Growing from my decaying skin. Something stirs inside me but I think even that is coagulated. It stops. But I cant open my eyes to check, so I don’t.

Then one day I hear a child. A baby laugh in the midst of the sound of the waves. Sound. I slowly open my eyes and feel as if a screaming orchestra burst into its crescendo suddenly. And behold what I see. The same crown of curly locks, on that baby’s head. The baby moves towards me. I want to shout out to him to keep away. I am filthy, dangerous, a sinner. But not a syllable is uttered; my throat has been blocked with lead. The baby keeps moving in my direction, gurgling, laughing 'his' sweet laughter and the resemblance strikes as so strong, that I cant help crying. Tears collect in the mold below my lids before rolling onto the the rocks, to the sand, all of a sudden feeling very wet. I want to reach out to it, but should not. Cannot. Now hes very close and I am trembling. But he doesn’t see, he doesn't stop, he keeps crawling his way, smiling, towards some unknown call. I feel a deep sense of relief and along with it an upliftment, as if an absolution of my sin.

Her red lips.. so red.. without any make up.. just inches away; close enough that with the slightest bend of his neck, he could touch them, with his. But no, he can’t do it, he is not drunk enough. Looking at them reminds him of all the instances they were “close”-moments which were opportunistic in themselves-like when they were stuck behind the door; when she brushed her hands over his cheek by mistake, like when they were forced to squeeze together in those small pub seats where their thighs touched and their lips… just inches away. I know I started with that, but then, you have to understand his temptations.

Those close moments together, she often looks straight into his eyes and gives him a smile, a very “foreign” smile. She reminds him of his past relationships. None of them understood him. But he never complained to any of them. How could he, when he was unsure himself? Though he’s sure about a few things: first, he is never going to understand this one, she’s too foreign. And second, that he was alone, eternally alone.

He is in general an affable person with no visible idiosyncrasies. People like him, for he is a good talker and a better listener. Only some kinds of conversation interest him, others he just listens. In reality, he’s quite bored; bored with the people around him, his work and his helplessness with his boredom.

Then, one of those days, he went to an otherwise very uninteresting party-people mistook his party-going as his socialness(?) and friendliness; which in truth, he went just to amuse himself, flirt with some pretty girls, sleep occasionally(I mentioned he was quite affable, didn’t I?).-but in this party he met a woman. A woman who knew how to talk, how to listen and yet intercept conversations with the most remarkable comments to let them flow the way she wanted. Atleast that is how she was with him. They just clicked! Small bantering emails turned to bigger personal ones. Matter of fact, she got a job in his building soon. It was as if the sun had peeped out of the clouds of his monotony. Each day he looked forward to see her at work. She looked kind off oldish, not very attractive and was married to a man in a touring job. No, no playing Freud reader, but interesting companionship has often turned into love, has it not? So, soon he found it difficult staying away from her and he was quite sure, that his longing was not unrequited. He told her what was in his mind, one of which was that he wanted her to leave her husband. The woman took no time to refuse him straightaway.

Yes, she also loved him but to her, marriage was a duty not a matter of choice. Our poor guy heartbroken and too embarrassed left and went home. The news of his engagement was heard in sometime. His fiancée was the daughter of a friend of his fathers, rich, spoilt and silly. He didn’t love her certainly, but then he was tired resisting the flow of what seemed to lead to certainty-for his parents atleast.

This older woman, I mentioned earlier, was not the luckiest of all. Her husband died in a car crash, and as if all her life came shattering to pieces. The hero of our story, as soon as he heard about her, he was right there beside her and he offered for marriage again. Though how tempting this offer was for the woman; she knew about his engagement; she couldn’t let him shirk away from his responsibility and destroy his life (what would people say) as she hadn’t let him destroy hers. Good advice is what she gave: it was his duty to be with the girl and to break off all contacts with her (that would be adultery, right?).

He did what she said, he kept his promises. He married, but was too bored to live upto the expectations of his wife. His mind was away, he was a different man, but still the same in many ways. He was too disinterested in this arrangement, but he held on. But his wife couldn’t.
I heard his wife left him, and he left off for somewhere then, no one knows where. It must have been like his previous life of loneliness revisited him, but he couldn’t react to it as he could have when he was younger.

I miss him terribly, his memories came back to me again and again, and I get confused in the grammar while writing his story, in the tenses. I often think, how worthwhile is it to hold on to promises, to ‘duties’, for I am that woman, I was talking about.

the stench of their decaying carcasses fills my mind,
of men whom once i admired most,
heaped together, with filth, sweat and blood,
of others; i hate to even look at them, now anymore.
but a final ordeal remains, to light the pyre,
and finish it off, forever.
Finally. to protect them from the foxes of insatiable hunger.

Yesterday, the sky was charged up, all evil forces seemed to be at play. while the moon along with 2 other planets looked as if left askew, at an unmoonly hour of the evening; that was just the first hint. Someone had broken down the smiley face it formed the day before and created that pattern, I am sure, like a cruel joke.
And then I saw the sky turning red. Red, flaming red. One end of the sky was let on fire, massive fire, for the whole semicircle of the sky that I could see was in those flames.The waters are deceitful, I always knew. A healthy blue during the day and carbon black on certain nights. It didnt let the fish go. While some escaped from the burning end, they got caught up in the green sentinel that met their end; so far they could go. I heard the raucous cries of the birds, the ones who had not been devoured already; fleeing away to the east, away from those deadly sky flames, as if hoping to find the sun there!
The sun had been defeated long ago. The evil waters on the other side must have lapped it up by now. And the soot of the fire spread, contaging the air, spreading towards the world, making the whole sky darker, blacker. As the last strips of lights were stripped of me, I started dissolving into the darkness, as the whole world was... until a call came, and I fled, onto a stranger with a bright white shirt and black pants.

12:48 PM 3/12/2008
a solitary sunset at lake side, one tends to think such things :)!!!

Shallow the waters my thoughts tread,
knee deep of big strong men,
splashing around making fun of it,
that they anyway will.
Walls echo with the sounds,
they like to stay,
absorbed none, ripples may;
Oh! in my well of crumbling stone.

I had been standing there since time unknown long,
with my back against the brick wall
my eyes shut and i dare not move
someone came and whitewashed us.
not just the wall but me white,blenching white.
i was the wall;it didn't care
scared i looked around;the room seemed to shrink in around
devour me;i dint want to be like the rest of it
ah! but what can be seen!
a rung ladder also painted a part of the wall!
nobody watching i climbed it up

up on the roof parapet sat that guy musing,
playing some nice music filling the horizons beyond
the earth seemed vaster than the sky above
i liked it,i stayed awhile
but suddenly like the clock struck to cindrella's fright
i ran down again leaving no glass shoe behind
i 'turned to my position,shut my eyes,
with my back to the wall,and dared not move
i decided to act like paint.

5:28 PM 1/9/2008