It Really Was Like Dying…

They threw away destiny, as if it were a bauble for the vitriolic, and embarked on a “Let’s See” experiment somewhat believing they had been moving all along towards each other… like cosmic dust. However, reality is no such rose garden. It is a stodgy, painful, slow movement towards everything one never wanted for oneself; a struggle for hope. Naina and her maudlin ways, often trap to her own fervid imagination had little space in Rob’s overly compartmentalized life. Yet, it was Rob’s perseverance and Naina’s hope for deliverance, that saw them come together and remain mutually affected.

It started with an auto ride and a back rub that lasted well into the night over some expensive dark rum on the rocks. Naina and Rob had just stepped out of a theatre after watching a classic epoch about hobbits when the skies opened up in abrupt fury. Naina’s flimsy white kurti was drenched immediately, leaving very little for the imagination. In desperation when she looked at Rob for cover, a sliver of awareness passed through them. For just that moment, friendship was left behind, and an inevitable sense of irony made its mark. They wanted each other but preferred to keep things platonic. You see, Naina wanted security and Rob didn’t have any to offer.

That rainy afternoon, when according to lore the crow and a sparrow make love to each other behind a truculent sun, two unlikely friends made a dash for an auto. The auto drove through narrow streets, deserted now by people but their cars and bikes still haphazardly claiming space. Soggy dogs skunked in dirty corners of khaka shops and departmental stores. The roads gleamed, the auto driver angst-ridden speeded James Bondish through blurs of buildings, street lamps and potholes. All the while poor Naina could not control her shivers or shame. In hope of being buffeted by Rob’s warmth, she moved closer with a plea that was answered immediately.

Regardless, Naina’s home came in thirty minutes and the lovers-to-be let go with a pang while pretending to be more concerned about their sodden clothes. Rob in Naina’s over-sized tee and shorts, and the lady in her harem pants, were dry, thirsty and looking for comfort. Irony was sighing heavily again and Naina was skirting around vague plans of seduction. So Rob decided to wait for the amber rum on the rocks to spike truth to the floor, where it could writhe and wriggle in it nakedness, and make converts to its martyrdom.

All grey was soon suspended, and their black and white world took on a vaseleen-like hue in the back rub that Rob gave Naina. Their eyes pleaded with each other, to stop this madness and relieve them of the terrible pain of yearning. But what does truth care about your inner, worthless struggles? Make peace, make peace with your inevitable death, it said. So when Rob lowered his plump lips to Naina’s half-done ones, irony won, death gloated and apparently love slyly walked in.

Wooing, Falling In Love And All

Centuries of tenderness passed

Before you, me created

This time infinitum

Where spaces bent,

Light fluorescence burnished

An aglow realm.

Map to a burgeoning maze

Hi, thanks for stopping by. Just as a quick introduction, am posting my story as it develops on this blog. You might find going back to the first before coming to the last a bit confusing (grin). So have posted the order of my story in the table of contents below. Hope it helps and you find the story a good read.

Why Air & Water Loved Each Other

Table of Contents:

I. Introduction

II. When Water Subconsciously Felt Air Was The One (Part 1)

III. When Water Subconsciously Felt Air Was The One (Part 2)

When Water Subconsciously Felt Air Was The One (Part 2)

...She started withdrawing and tunelessly humming to soothe the journey within...

Right then he came to her, in an orgy of pre-cognition, spared no moment to decide and asked if she wanted to explore. Unwillingly, her tongue dropped, numbed into affirmation; her feet sprang, embodied the satyr while her bewildered self looked on. A silent leering went between them as they skipped over stones, jumped off boulders, and wadded through shallow pools. In an almost Crusoe-ish discovery, they found a miniature water cascade falling, sounding like the coquetry of amourous lionesses, tucked inside a small cave. When Naina shyly mentioned it would be great to feel the water fall on her shoulders, Rob just took hold of her hands and helped across the slippery moss floor.

Map to a burgeoning maze

Why Air & Water Loved Each Other
Table of Contents:
I. Introduction
II. When Water Subconsciously Felt Air Was The One (Part 1)

When Water Subconsciously Felt Air Was The One

It was the day when toes curled up, breasts jiggled and penises vibrated to thrum of a summer day that seemed to hang on the precipice of a hedonistic paroxysm. Somewhere, somnolent kids dreamed of slurping mangoes, and lovers sucked fruit pulp off their partners’ bodies. It was a day when single people went on a picnic to drink themselves silly and ignore jerking pheromones.

It was on a day like this when Naina was floating that she saw Rob, rooted with an ether cloud hanging over his head. A piquant pulse of irritation later, she left him to find her way upstream, away from the gaggle of her friends, two of whom tadpole-like were squirming in the water with their crocodile eyes. Other more human, vodka glazed eyes were screening the sex potential of the moment while their ears turned sun-soaked red. Mundane mating calls picked beef through non-verbal fist fights and everyone grumpily thought what a bad idea it was to have traveled so far. Before them was only a bouldered backbone of a stream and small lines of water running deep through its craggy depths. Summer had stripped the stream of its charm and laid bare the truth of how the quiescent face of the water had in reality, violently, relentlessly fashioned its mute lover beneath.

Naina was beginning to feel too self-conscious to enjoy the others. A familiar restlessness was stirring; a discomfort and a shortness of breath that came while in the presence of unrecognized faces. She only knew two other people in the group, her friends having invited their other friends. Unsurprisingly, her shoulders were already stiffening, so on the pretext of examining her feet and a non-existent aquatic life, she slowly walked away until no voices were heard. She started withdrawing and tunelessly humming to soothe her into the journey within.

(to be continued...)

Why Air & Water Loved Each Other?

They were like Air and Water. One viewed the world through his black & white glares while working up a no-nonsense tongue. The other dawdled in a picturesque world, branding it with her thoughts and unconvincing monologues of social injustice. They were fiercely independent feeling little need for friendships or relationships. They secretly desired the world built in their heads, though it often lead to frustration none knew how to handle. They attributed it to a world that didn’t understand them. So when Air first spotted Water, he thought her lovely in an impersonal way. Then she wrote a poem about the peregrines and freedom at a friend’s birthday party over marijuana smoke and splashed whisky. He made her show it and that was his downfall. It wasn’t the best poem he had ever read, but suddenly, he realized another of his kind of child-like ego and self-absorption. Despite himself and her rejection, he persevered to bring their worlds together. And together it did come, with a passion so intense that the first time they kissed it really did blow their minds. That was how they started. With passion, rejection, hurt, love and confusion.

Naina preferred the sea, its languorous clime appealing to the insipid wanderer in her. She liked to dawdle and drag her feet over anything and everything, tasting and discarding fruits of experience, often believing it meant nothing to her. It was a strange, confusing world that she inhabited, as if a kaleidoscope had taken flight and defined its own rules. Strangely, she looked like her confused, LSDish world. Deeply kholed eyes stared at anything that caught its fancy. People were often disconcerted by her intense interest, her rapt attention that seemed to register and understand everything they said or not. In truth, however, she rarely registered anything her audience wanted her to understand. Her dusky skin too changed chameleon like, answering to her constantly mutating moods. On happy days, her skin glowed with some sort of an inward glee while the slightly stubby nose disappeared into a generous grin. On less perfect days, her skin became opaque and the only discerning feature on her face were listless eyes. It seemed, she felt and lived a life of such fervour, that even a whiff of someone’s curdled breath could be the reason of catatonic gloom or joy.

Rob, on the other hand, was everything that Naina was not; which is a rather dopey description. He was like the Air, slightly luminous, somewhat omniscient and infinitely arrogant believing his love had the right to chastise everyone to achieve perfection. When he spoke, it seemed surreal but staccato like to others, as if a black & white world threatened to take over their technicolour hues. He secretly gloated over their unease and discomfited laughter, enjoying how his binary world rubbished their complicated theorems. This intimidation came naturally, his tall back and broad shoulders occupying both mental and physical spaces. Yet, what gave away Air were his full, sensual lips, as if every harsh truth uttered, came with a promise of an all-consuming passion, of a lyricism that is both shy and generous, and of a loving which was tolerant and patient despite the restlessness of his words. A description of Rob wouldn't be complete without an ode to his smell. He smelt divine most times, an earthy, stirring whiff that was redolent of spices, camphor and worship.

An Experiment Begins

I have been dreaming of way too many adventures, and waking up uneasily. It seems my unconscious, my ID, my child or whatever one would like to term it, is a storehouse of stories and adventures that has been expressing itself in furious nightly jaunts. There are faces I have never seen, adventures that never were, grand tragic-comic love stories, all of which play out in brilliant colours. Before I perish from the scoldings of my unconscious, here's an attempt to record the stories.

I will begin with a story called "Why Air & Water Loved Each Other?". Every day, I will post parts of the story as it progresses. What I would like from you dear readers is to give this experiment of mine some of your time, and tell me what you think.

Here's to your curiosity and to my perseverance!