All Too Soon

Time, it flows in strange ways. Sometimes years pass at the blink of an eyelid and at other times, even a week lingers for months. The amazing part is that for the years that pass by too soon, we wish they hadn't and for those that don't we hope they do.

That sunny June morning of Bangalore is etched clearly in my mind. Not because it was a sunny morning -- Bangalore after all, is known for anything but a sunny morning -- but because it was the day the devil was to be tamed. My husband and I had been up early -- a habit that I am glad that we share -- but unlike other days when we enjoyed the peace and quiet of the morning with our respective cups of tea and coffee, we were a little worried. Mishti after all, had to go to school. And knowing the monster of a child that she was -- and still is -- it was only natural for us to be a little nervous.

The good thing of having a disciplined man for a husband is that you can leave all the dirty work on him, in any case Mishti and I never saw eye to eye, and all crucial conversations with her were made by her father, he had taken the crucial task of getting her up and ready upon himself too (Thank God for Bengali men!), something he continues till date. Since she was being handled by her father, she was quite in control and only when we had reached the school and he had left did her discomfort appear.

What followed was a session of bawling and screaming, so hard that the poor children and teachers of the school were left scandalised. Not only that, the anti social girl of mine, had refused to talk to, or sit with the other children. In the end, I was asked by the principal to shift her to the afternoon slot. "There are fewer children at that time, and we will be able to pay more attention to Lavanya" she had said. I got the point.

The next few weeks were perhaps the toughest. I had quit work only a few weeks before and was expecting to live a leisurely life of a housewife; what I had forgotten was that the leisure entailed living with a monster of a child. She would howl and shout until she turned red and her throat parched; the soft spoken, shy and reticent women of Bangalore were not able to handle her tantrums and would almost be in tears by the time I went back to pick her; I could only empathise and apologise. But their submissiveness and patience paid rich dividends -- Mishti eventually fell in line. And today, she went to class two. The reason why I am reminded of that day however, is not because she has grown up -- I am glad that she has, it has made her a little civilised -- but because today Pakhi went to school for the first time.

"Do you expect her to be as difficult as her sister?", their father had asked me as we got into the car this morning. "Not half as much!" I had replied. The two sisters are poles apart, and today I was confident that things will be smoother -- and they were. As soon as we reached the school, the girl happily went in with the teacher, not even bothering to look back and I was told to come back in an hour, but I decided to stay -- just in case. I had company -- another lady from my apartment block was there with her daughter.

There were more parents waiting: some eager to see their children on the screen, urging the staff every now and then to get the CCTV turned on, the others discussing weather their child ate 'onion' or not, or if he 'vomited' while crying. Then there were those who would, at every given opportunity check on the welfare of their child, "Is my child all right?", as if the child was not in a classroom but in a hospital ward. Yet others seemed more worried about the bag and water bottle than their child, they reminded the attendant to take care of the 'belongings', every two mins. Thankfully, the lady with me was as amused at the entire thing as I was. Perhaps because ours were the only children who seemed to be enjoying themselves. The kids soon started to come out: some crying, some howling and some too dazed to react. In time, our girls came out too -- the last ones to do so -- smiling, not only that, they did not want to leave school at all. It took us all our might to pull them out of the gate.

As I walked back, I was reminded of the afternoon four years ago, when I had walked back with Mishti, after her first day at school. I suddenly felt old. Four years had passed too soon.

 Meanwhile, as I fuss over the four years passing by too quickly, my parents are presently in Amritsar -- the city where they began their journey from -- and I am sure they are also thinking the same: these forty years have passed all too soon.

The Bengali Bou

The signs are hard to miss: there is excitement in the air, chatter in the house, the girls are unusually cheerful and the boy remarkably relaxed; the kitchen no longer smells of zeera and hing but that of paanch phoran and posto bata, the fridge is stacked with sandesh and rasgullas, while the fish -- it has travelled twelve hundred kilometers to be with my husband, hides slyly in some corner lest I discover it and throw a fit. And, the mother in law waits patiently for me to step out so that she can fry it in peace. You guessed it right; my parents-in-law are home.

In the heart of North India, where I grew up, I was surrounded by stereotypes: the mother in law being a devil incarnate and the daughter in law a mute doll, although my family was different and none of the women had to cover their heads or wake up at day break, but I had seen enough of it to shudder at the very thought of being married into such a family. My biggest fear was, and it still haunts me at times: being married into an orthodox joint family, where I am expected to be dressed up like a bride, cook all day and live with dozen other people in the same house. Nothing wrong in it, my father would argue, nothing wrong with that I agree, just that it would have been very, very tough for a compulsively independent person like me. 

I had expected to meet similar fate, and therefore, as soon as I had reached home after my wedding, like a good bahu, I had bathed and dressed up early in the morning and had gone to see my maa in law, who I had never met before. To my pleasant surprise, not only was I admonished for waking up so early but also was asked to remove all the bridal paraphernalia, including the pallu. I was in heaven. For the next few days that I was there, I was pampered to the hilt: after having discovered that I drank only coffee, my father in law, who probably had never bought coffee before, had brought a five hundred gram pack of coffee home, just so I could have one cup. I was not allowed to help with the chores or cook and did not have to do anything that a bahu is supposed to.

While on one hand I was revelling in the love and attention being showered on me, on the other hand I had some uncomfortable encounters too: dal chawal no longer meant arhar dal and basmati rice, it had transformed into masoor dal and boiled rice, something I had never eaten before. I was suddenly being called maa by a strange man ( I later discovered that the strange man was my husband's uncle and that maa is an affectionate way to address one's daughter), but the funniest and the toughest part was to wear flower jewellery for the reception dinner, I suddenly looked like Ramanand Sagar's Sita!  Thank God I have no pictures to remind me of it.

Marrying a Bengali man, in itself was an irony of sorts. Until I met him, I had, for most part of my grown up years, disliked Bengalis -- I found them annoying, overbearing, gluttons even. This of course was based on the very little exposure I had had to the community until then and the trigger was a particular Bengali wedding I had attended where the hosts had served only a dry preparation of aloo parval for the vegetarian guests (that too in a separate enclosure), I had felt like a criminal that day -- all for being a vegetarian. The feeling had only intensified in the years that followed when I had to live in Calcutta, amidst the chaos of the street -- with or without the Pujas, the smell of fish and the stink of sweat. The only exception to this rule had been the men -- the only men I ever found worthy of my fancy were -- and still are -- Bengali.

In the last twelve years however, everything seems to have changed: I have a long list of Bengali friends, I know and love the language, I have fallen in love with the charm of Calcutta, I have converted into being a Durga-Puja fan, and not only do I love Bengali men but also the women. I am, after all, a Bangali Bou.

How Soon Is Too Soon

‘Where do you use stayfree, mumma?’ Asked my five year old as I hurriedly dressed her that morning. We were at Gir and had to shortly leave for Gandhinagar, in the rush of packing and unpacking, the packet of sanitary pads must have been left unattended and she had probably seen it somewhere.

‘I am not sure, I don’t use it.’ I lied and changed the topic. The rush and the confusion that precedes a journey, especially with two young children, ensured she forgot about it soon. But for how long? Thanks to the brand wars, free media and marketing strategies, it is impossible to keep kids away from things that they may be a little too young to understand.

I remember even as a three year old, the first thing she picked up at the supermarket would be pads, ‘badal ke’ as she would call it, referring to the tag line of a famous brand. Full marks to the advertising guys! Her brand awareness and her curiosity had made me so paranoid that I would rush to the TV room to change the channel as soon as there was such an ad. I know I sound old fashioned and stupid, but the fact is: given the nature of our society and social conditioning, such reactions are almost a part of our being. Remember our parents doing the same when we were young?

Soon there was another set of ads that I had to protect her against: Condoms. I mean, what business does a little kid have knowing the flavours and the variety and to watch Sunny Leone pose seductively in different parts of the house. Although in my heart I know that she probably won’t even get the context of the conversation, but I really do not want to take a chance, that I am quite a prude can be one reason, and that I do not know what or how to tell her could be the other.

But being a person whose first ever article to be published in the newspapers almost fifteen years ago was on sex education, I should know better than to be embarrassed or sheepish about it. As a mother, I should be prepared to share with my daughter what was never shared with me, as should all other mothers of my generation. The sooner the kids know about things like periods, childbirth and maybe even sex, the cooler they are with it.

I had told my daughter about how babies were made when my second daughter was due, and when children much older than here would say that their parents had bought the baby from a hospital, she would correct them and point at a big belly to announce that babies are made inside mummy's tummy.

This is when she was just three, she is soon going to be six and looking at the way the children grow these days -- both physically and mentally, I know I need to sit her down and explain her body to her. Although I am yet to figure out what to tell her and how, I am sure I will have to do this sooner than later, lest she comes up to me and tells me about it.

The Guilt -- Of Being A Woman

Many, many years ago, as a ten year old, I had read a column in a children's magazine, it was titled kaash main (I wish), the magazine had invited entries from its young readers and had published some of those in one of its issue. While reading that I had noticed that while all the boys had wished for things like toys, train rides, sports goods, rockets, the works. Girls – quite a few of them, had wished they could be boys. I did not get it. Why would some one want to be a boy? As I grew up, I saw their viewpoint. I saw little girls being discriminated against, I saw women being humiliated, I saw girls being confined to homes while their counterparts, often brothers, enjoyed uninhibited freedom – of word and action.

To me being a girl was – and has never been – a cause of concern, I have never seen it as a deciding factor for anything in my life. The women and girls of our family were loved and respected as much as the men and the boys were,  sometimes even more, but never lesser. The women I grew up with – my grandmothers, mother, aunts – were all educated, independent, self respecting, self-sufficient women. At a time, when women hardly went out of their houses, my dadi travelled alone, around the country, ditto with the other women. They were strong, resilient, powerful. Never meek or weak. Although not many of them went out to work, but work, according to me, is never the determining factor of a woman's standing in her family and in the society. If it were, our housemaids would probably be the most empowered among all the women.

And then I went to work, where I met an absolutely different set of women: ambitious, career oriented, independent, empowered and often single. They earned their money and spent it too, they lived in their own houses and drove their own cars, paid their bills, travelled alone, spent money on themselves. These were women who lived their lives on their terms, the kind every one aspires to be. A tribe I was proud to be a part of. 

With time, however, I realised that although diverse, the two sets of women had a lot in common: they were responsible, smart, intelligent, loving, honest, ambitious, headstrong, sensitive, independent, powerful, and guilty.

Those who chose to work were guilty of not spending enough time at home, those who chose to marry and stay at home were guilty of not contributing to the household income, those who had children were guilty of having them too soon or too many, those who did not or chose not to, were guilty of not having any. Each one of them had something to feel guilty about. 

Being a woman, I often find myself struggling with the same feeling: for not paying enough attention to family when I have had to spend long hours at work, for being incapable of carrying my first baby through the term, for not spending enough time with the two I eventually had, for not being the best at work anymore, for quitting and living off my husband, the list goes on.

A few weeks ago, I happened to be at the Indira Gandhi memorial, where among many other things, I saw some pages from her personal diary, which have been printed and put up on the wall, one of which read, " I went to live with my father, at the Teen Murti House, The Prime Minister's residence... My father asked me to come over and set up the house for him.... I used to stay for sometime and go, it became more and more difficult to leave. My husband was then working in Lucknow, he did not appreciate my going away.... I was living for about half a month in Lucknow and half in Delhi."

Even the Prime Minister of the biggest democracy in the world, a woman known to be fiercely ambitious and courageous, a ruthless politician and a strong leader, went through her share of guilt. She was, after all, a woman. 

That Sunday Afternoon

Around one - thirty, Sunday afternoon: The sun was bright and hot, but the cool breeze flowing in from the ocean seemed to be apologising on his behalf. I walked into the bus terminal, pulling along a much heavier bag than I had pulled out of the same bus terminal the morning before. The bag, which just had a pair of clothes and some other essentials until then was now full of some fine pottery and other knickknack that I had picked up from some of my most favourite stores, it was perhaps the most potent reason for my being in Pondicherry, at a whim.

 I had expected the bus to be as empty this afternoon as I had found it yesterday, in fact the emptiness of the bus last morning had salvaged me from the shock of discovering its condition: Here I was walking into the bus stop dreaming of a plush two by two bus and I find an old, dilapidated and dirty vehicle beckoning me with great élan. Looking at its condition I had half a mind to take another one but it would have been foolish to expect another one available at six thirty in the morning that too at such a godforsaken bus terminal. It had taken me almost an hour and four hundred rupees to get there -- almost twice the amount of what I had paid as the fare to Pondicherry. So I went along. I was dead tired and slept in no time, and had woken only fifteen minutes from Pondicherry. 

I have this strange habit -- a quirk of sorts: However hard I try I cannot sleep beyond five in the morning whenever I travel, the positive side of this is that I get plenty of time to myself -- to read, write, take pictures and just be, the negative, that I am almost always under rested, but rest is usually the last thing on my mind when I travel. This morning had been no different. I had been up since four -thirty and out since five, I had spent almost three hours sitting by the sea and walking along the boulevard, and after a scrumptious breakfast of idlis, vadas and two cups of coffee at a roadside stall and a lunch of vanilla ice cream at a quaint cafe, I was ready to crash in the bus. I had expected it to be as empty as it was the day before, but when you want something desperately, you never get it, and here I was boarding a bus that was already full, half an hour before its departure time. 

A little disappointed, I looked for my seat and discovered it had already been occupied by a young man, next to whom sat a petite young woman. I politely informed him that the seat 9B belonged to me. He smiled and expectantly asked me if I could take his seat instead and reasoned that the girl next to him had a problem travelling on seats that face the opposite direction of the motion. One look at them and my heart melted: problem or no problem, they clearly wanted to sit together. Although I too feel nauseated if I have to travel in the opposite direction for long, but I did not have the heart to separate them, for I was sure this journey was special to them -- it was written on their faces. I agreed.

My new seat was on the other side of the aisle and facing me sat an elderly couple, about the same age as my parents, they had quite a few bags and even with all the adjustments, there was hardly any space left for my legs, I inadvertently kept kicking the lady's feet and kept apologising each time. The backrest of the seat was way too reclined for my comfort and while trying to adjust it, I discovered that the lever was broken. Next to me was a young girl, equally distressed with her seat and her feet, struggling with her backpack that lay in her lap for want of any space below the seat. The sun burnt the left side of my face and the strong, incessant gush of cold air from the a/c duct right above my head, chilled the other half of my face. Out went my desire to sleep.

Now, there is something that not many people know, and those who do, don't believe: As harsh and rude I appear and as arrogant as I seem to be, I am actually an emotional fool. And therefore with all this discomfort that I had inherited along with the young man's seat, I was adamant not to disturb them, for they were in a world of their own: Smiling coyly to each other, exchanging glances, talking in hushed voices. I wanted to let them be, only if I could just be, myself. 

The bus was almost out of the city now and the people around had started to snooze, the gliding of the bus, the warm sun, the cool air and the sight of all about me sleeping had intensified my desire to catch a nap, but with my feet lost somewhere in between the floor of the bus and the bags of the elderly couple and my back totally destroyed by the backrest, sleep was a far fetched dream. I looked out of the window to find peace but failed -- the road was all too familiar and boring, moreover to find peace you need to be in peace yourself, which I clearly wasn't. 

I looked at the young couple again: The man would have been around twenty-five, he was tall and big built and had a cute boyish charm about him, especially when he smiled to reveal a slight dimple. The girl looked younger and by her facial features you could tell she was from the east. Both were simply dressed, the man wore a tailored shirt with contrasting trousers and a pair of floaters -- a sure shot sign of a South Indian man, though he did not look like one, while the girl wore a white kurta with a grey churidaar, a grey stole and floaters, both had a backpack each. They made an unlikely couple -- but were they a couple at all?

In times when people find pride in displaying their affection and fondness for each other in public, these two were unusually reticent. Although their eyes spoke, so did their faces but the caution with which they conducted themselves made it hard for me to guess if they were in love already or in the process of falling in love, the later seemed more probable. 

My back had started to trouble me by now. The lack of sleep in the last three nights and the travelling through the last three days had taken its toll. I had to sit properly, if not sleep. After much deliberation, I finally told the young man that I was very uncomfortable in his seat and would like to sit at my original place. After a little confusion and a whole lot of adjustment that followed, I found myself sitting in front of them while both of them now faced the opposite side of the motion, the discomfort of the young woman notwithstanding (although all through the three hours that I spent looking at her, I had found no sign of discomfort whatsoever).

The joy of travelling alone and being reluctant to strike a conversation is in observing the co-passengers -- their habits, obsessions, behavior -- one can find numerous characters and string several stories sitting in a bus or a train. I tried too, to imagine their story: Were they colleagues or class mates or maybe just lovers? Did both of them study in Pondicherry and were travelling to Chennai? Or did they live in Chennai and had come down for a weekend? Were they in a relationship already? Or were they just beginning to discover their fondness for each other? It was hard to tell. But they sure shared something special which reminded me of simpler times. 

The young woman had now dozed off, hesitantly resting her read on the man's shoulder, the man although awake, glanced into nothingness. The romantic in me hoped and prayed that he put his arm around her but he did not, even when her head almost fell off his shoulder and she woke up with a start. I was disappointed, had a man done this to me, I would have kicked his backside. The girl did not seem to mind though and they got back to their music and banter and exchanged an occasional, meaningful glance.

All this while, The Bay of Bengal had been running along the road with just an occasional building here or there, but as the stream of ugly buildings started to make their presence felt, I realised we were close to the city. I turned to the man sitting next to me to find out which bus stop would be closest to my place of stay only to find myself answering his questions: Where did I live? Was I in Chennai for work? Did I have family in Chennai or Pondicherry? If not family, did I at least have friends? His questions did not seem to end. He found it difficult to imagine that a woman could be travelling alone, two thousand kilometers away from home, just for the sake of travelling. In the process, I found out that he was new to Chennai too and was unsure of where to get off himself. But he had taken it upon himself to help me -- a woman in distress. He took out his newly acquired smart phone, complete with google maps and GPS and struggled with it for almost half an hour to find me an answer, but could not. Only after he gave up did I ask the young man, who told me that I could get off at the same place as them. My neighbour was now satisfied -- I had someone to look after me. I went back to explaining the purpose, or the lack of it, for my trip to him. Thankfully, he got off soon.

In the next one hour that followed, the sights and sounds of Chennai and its traffic kept me distracted. Also, by now, I had lost all hope of getting to know anything else about them. Crawling though a sea of cars and buses, we finally reached our destination, the young man helped me pull my heavy bag down and the woman smiled at me. As I stood at the bus stop, waiting for an auto, I saw them hold hands and beam. I smiled too.

Amitabh

Nature has its ways of balancing things. It balances day with night, scarcity with abundance, joy with grief, success with failure, like with dislike, love with hate, and of course life with death. Like each of our lives, mine too has not been untouched by this law of nature. While in the first twenty-two years of my life, I was fortunate of not having witnessed a loss, in the twenty third year it was balanced by loosing one of the most precious person in my life.

That night will always be etched in my mind: I had returned from work at around midninght and had found everyone awake. This was something unusual since both my brother and sister were in school then and were almost always asleep by the time I returned, mother was an early sleeper too. The only person I sometimes found up was father. Tonight not only was everyone awake, but also the house was engulfed in an eerie silence: my father's radio which otherwise plays non-stop was silent, so was brother's TV and sister's banter. Something was not right.

I remember walking into my parents bedroom to find my mother in tears and my father sitting  silently. This again was unusual, my mother is not known to be emotionally weak and I can count the number of times I have seen her weep. Mama was serious and was in the hospital, my father finally disclosed. We had to go to see him early next morning. 

I could say nothing, there was nothing to say. I went to bed, waiting for the morning and thinking of him. He was, and perhaps still is, one of the most important person in my life. To say that I had not known life without him would not be an exaggeration. He had alwats been there: picking us up from the station, taking us out, treating us to all forbidden food every now and then, buying the most extravagant stuff and giving us lessons in life. He is perhaps the only person I have ever idolised and will always do, just that he was nice to a fault, but that was him -- Amitabh, a true reflection of his name in every way.

He had been unwell for two years now. Exactly two years before he had had an accident in Calcutta. On his way to work one morning he had fainted in the bus when some people had taken him to the nearest hospital and informed his office. By the time we had received the news, in Lucknow, he was already in the ICU. The next few days had passed in a jiffy: the family had rushed to Calcutta where underwent a heart surgery to get a pacemaker -- he apparently had a weak heart. But he was soon up and about although with many restrictions. Anyone else in his place would have been disturbed and depressed by the bondage, but the man that he was, he didn't even wince. Two years had passed and he was now in Noida, trying his best to get back to a normal life (failing miserably though). On the face of it he was all right, but in reality he was dying -- slowly yet steadily (something I discovered much later, or maybe I never wanted to see it before).

Having lived around him all my life, it was more of a ritual for me to see him every second week, I spent almost almost all my weekends hanging out at his place and almost always cooking for him. It was quite an irony actually: a man who loved food so much had a wife who could hardly cook, not only that, he now had a system that forbade him from eating anything that he liked. My presence therefore was usually an excuse for him to indulge but all he could manage were a few bites. 

In the last few weeks though, I had not gone to see him. With a new set of friends, and with long hours at work my priorities had changed, and in any case I could have met him any day, what was the rush? He seemed to be in a rush however. The next morning when we reached Noida, we realised he was gone.

The easiest way to tackle a difficult situation is to dismiss it, as if it never happened and that is what I did that day, I pretended as if nothing had happened. Being the older and the responsible daughter of the family, I quickly took it upon myself to take care of everyone -- cousins, grandparents, parents, guests all needed to be looked after -- for me it was the easiest way to keep my mind away from the truth, although the sobbing, wailing and crying around me was making it hard to keep my mind off him. And then came the moment of truth.

He had been brought home and after the customary bathing was now ready to see the guests who had gathered to bid him farewell. All this while I had managed to stay away, on the top floor of the house, but now there was no escaping. I refused to go down, I could not see him dead, I had never seen anyone dead before, but I was emotionally blackmailed into coming down: how could I, his favourite neice, not see him, they said. I went down hoping and praying that this turns out to be a bad dream, or a joke. But it wasn't. He lay still on the cold floor, wrapped in my mother's yellow shawl, looking more radiant and alive in death than he had in the last two years of his life, his face as peaceful as always, his trademark half smile intact.

My favourite man was indeed dead.

It has been twelve years since, but even today I expect him to call out to Nupur -- that is what he called me -- and order her to make sabudana cutlets for him, health be damned.  

A Dream Realised

Of the very few ambitions that I have nursed, the strongest was that of sitting in a chaotic office among piles of papers and drafts, wearing my glasses and working on a computer, sipping coffee and attending non stop phone calls. The office of course belonged some big newspaper and I was one of their favorite journalists. The dream did come true, but in parts. I did attend non stop phone calls, wore glasses, worked on a computer for hours at end and sometimes even had piles of paper on my desk but it was never for a paper and I never became a journalist. Since most of the dream had realised itself, or at least the part that mattered the most, I forgot about the rest, until some months ago.

It began with reading a few blog posts, they took me back in time when I  had started working on realising my dream: I would write for the weekly column of a prominent newspaper's youth supplement and diligently hand it over in their office every Monday, it would be published every second Wednesday, I think. It was a great high: to see my thoughts on paper and my name in print. The feeling did not last long though. Destiny had other plans for me and writing became a thing of the past. Until now.

I have always had many things to say but lately did not have many people to say them to, this perhaps fuelled my urge to get back to writing. Another reason probably was the feeling of incompleteness and uselessness of life -- a feeling that invariably envelops me around my birthday. Whatever be the reason, I wrote.

My first post was more of loud thinking, some subsequent ones were attempts to build a story (I gave that up midway), many others were random thoughts about things close to my heart. Although they cannot be considered great pieces of writing in anyway, they will always be special to me. For they helped me establish a rhythm. Once I found my feet, I gained the confidence too: of sharing the blog with a larger audience and writing short, short stories and features for other blog sites. To my pleasant surprise, all of those were shortlisted and published. 

And yesterday I got to know that my article is one of the five most read pieces on menstrupedia, meanwhile my stories published in Femina's Fast Fiction are among the most read too. 

Maybe its time now to see my name in print.

The Road Behind Me

After many years, I found myself at the street of my youth. The street that once gave me my ambition, now gave me a lesson: one might outgrow the charm of the things that once fascinated him but it is often difficult to be indifferent to them --  if nothing else, these remind you that you have grown up. I discovered that  in the thirteen years that I had been away, I had grown up too.

In these years, I had made many trips to Lucknow -- the only city that comes close to being called my hometown, but all these trips had been rushed, and almost all made with my husband. Since he too has a connection with the city, there were things that he wanted to do  just as I wanted to do mine. So like a good couple, we came to an agreement: we did a little bit of both -- his and mine. That our itinerary primarily revolved around food is a different story altogether. Thankfully, since my parents are back in town, we go there more often and eat much lesser.

Last week, I was in the city without husband. The children were more than glad to be with their grand parents and I to be on my own -- in my city, having all the time in the world to do whatever I pleased and when you are in Lucknow having all the time in the world, you head to the one place -- Hazratgunj.

So there I was, standing at the Hazratgunj crossing. On my right was Rovers -- a fast food joint that has stood there for generations is almost invisible now, thanks to the imposing statue of   Dr. B.R. Ambedkar, erected by Ms Mayawati. It happens to be only one of the many precious gifts she bestowed the city with. To my left was the beautiful and magnificent GPO -- the one post office from which we -- my closest friend and I have sent the maximum number of letters, some of which went to her boyfriend, some to mine (rather who I imagined to be one). As I stood there, waiting to cross the road, I felt like I was back in college, standing at the crossing alone, with no specific agenda, crossing the road hurriedly through the moving traffic -- things that I did back then but have not done since.

The thing about youth is that it finds pleasure in the mundane -- part reason is the company you keep and part is that with so little exposure, hardly anything seems mundane: even browsing through a card shop and walking the sidewalks seem pleasurable. Today however, I neither had friends for company, nor the inclination to walk the already crowded sidewalk, I decided to take a rickshaw to the end of the road, where I had a store to go to -- a store I always wanted to go to. 

One of my greatest aspirations, while walking the streets of gunj, was to be able to buy something from the super swank stores. In the times that I grew up, it was unimaginable for a middle class family to shop from such an upmarket place. Our occasional visits were usually made up of some strolling, followed by some chaat or ice cream. Shopping was never on the agenda and walking into the posh stores and walking out with overflowing shopping bags always remained a distant dream.

One such store was the Benetton store. I can't tell why was I so fascinated by the brand, it could be because it was probably the only branded showroom at the time when malls were yet to be discovered, or it could be because being able to buy something from a store like that would have meant I had arrived in life.

I vividly remember walking into the store one day and instantly falling in love with a  pair of greyish blue drawstring pants, they were priced at over a thousand rupees and there was no way I could afford them, I walked out, heartbroken. But I had to buy something, so I waited a few months, collected some money and bought a tee shirt instead, it was a nondescript, unflattering, dull brown tee shirt but it was Benetton and had cost three hundred and sixty five rupees -- it went on to become my favorite.

Thirteen years later, I entered the shop again. As if to welcome me, Richard Marx sang I will be right here waiting for you, a pretty north eastern girl ushered me in and left me alone to browse in peace. I was reminded of the time when the shop assistants would hound us until we told them that we were there only to look, trying hard to look nonchalant. Realising I have outgrown the brand since, I soon walked out of the store, without buying anything -- yet again.

As I walked out, I noticed that the street was now abuzz with activity, it looked more like a weekend than a Monday afternoon: there were frantic shoppers out to make the most of the sales, there were students who probably had bunked college for their share of fun, there were office goers out for the daily dose of sunlight, and there was me.

Walking along the street, I crossed the various shops and buildings: Sewakram and sons -- perhaps the first lingerie store in the city, a store from where every girl wanted something from but never could afford, the stall at the intersection that once sold tea, coffee and cheap ball pens other than cigarettes, now also sold momos -- veg, paneer and chicken, Cathedral -- the church where I diligently dragged my mother every year on Christmas (God only knows why), Sanskriti -- the beautiful Saree shop from where I bought an expensive Saree for my farewell party, Leela bros. -- the only store my father bought his clothes from and where my brother and husband now shop from. It was heartening to see that these iconic shops that I and even my parents grew up with, were still around and flourishing.

Since I have walked the street a million times, I remember the exact order of the stores and was looking forward to browsing through the store that was next in line -- Devi Radiogram -- the most iconic music store of our times and the only shop in Hazratgunj where we  regularly shopped from. Most of the music my father owned was bought from this store -- they had thousands of cassettes and their store assistants were no less than magicians: you only had to name the song and the tape would be with you in a matter of seconds. My chain of thoughts was broken when I noticed the large window: all I could see inside the shop was luggage, to ensure I was at the right place, I stepped back and read the signboard, it was the same shop all right but it now sold high end luggage. To say that I was disappointed would be an understatement, but what did I expect? In times when even the biggest music stores are shutting shop, I should not have expected a stand alone store to sustain.

Reminiscing about the evenings spent at the store and heartbroken at the condition of music in times of piracy, I walked on. I walked past Love lane -- the tiny flea market, Modern Silk house -- one of the biggest Saree shops of the city, Kohli bros -- the oldest branded men's wear store and Bata -- the biggest in Lucknow.

I would have walked on had I not noticed the crowd outside a famous chaat stall. Watching people enjoying hot aloo tikkis on a cold afternoon made me realise how hungry I was. Now, as independent as I claim to be, I can not eat alone. I find it very embarrassing to eat on my own and I would rather starve than to eat out alone. I ignored the chaat and walked on when Chedilal changed my mind. In any case I had to drink and not eat their iconic cold coffee.

With the tall glass of cold coffee in one hand and a cone of bhelpuri in the other, I settled next to an elderly gentleman, on a wrought iron bench and silently thanked Ms Mayawati for installing these Victorian benches.

The gentleman was eating peanuts out of a small newspaper packet and diligently depositing all the waste on the road although there was a waste bin right next to him. Just as I warmed up to  the large poster on the facade of one of the oldest cinema halls of the city, where my friends and I had once chased Hritik Roshan's car, a huge, white SUV come to halt right in front of me, blocking the view. Out came two middle aged, white, starched kurta, pajama, vest clad, men -- as they walked towards one of the many government offices, their car, complete with a beacon and driver, made itself comfortable on the road -- an otherwise no parking, no halting zone. Somethings will never change, I thought.

My coffee was soon over, having nothing else to do, I crossed the road -- once again dodging the moving cars, I walked straight into the corridor of Hanuman Mandir. I have no idea how old the temple is, but it has always been there for me -- to help me pass my examinations, to help me get my first and only vehicle, to help me get a first class. And the things it did not help me get, I am glad it did not. I wanted to thank God for everything but he was asleep behind the curtains. I bowed my head in reverence and moved on.

As I walked on, I realised it was almost the end of the road. A decade ago, I would have wanted to hang on, to delay going home. But today I did not.

Inky Thoughts

There is something very old world and romantic about writing with a pen. Although most of us now write with our keyboards, the verb write essentially means using a pen -- or pencil to form characters on a material in order to record an event, thoughts, emotions or information. But in the world of tablets and laptops the pen and paper have been reduced to being the tools of  school kids only. For even in colleges they prefer printed assignments or soft copies -- they do not want to waste paper I am told.

And why not? typing on the tablet or a laptop is far more convenient than scribbling with pen and paper: you do not need to carry anything, you can edit, delete and even share it instantly and you can write anywhere -- while travelling, shopping, having coffee, waiting for the auto. In order to use a pen however, you need a pen, and paper and space. And of course there is the hassle of transferring the writing on the computer or laptop, formatting and editing it. Not only is the process time consuming but also repetitive. So why write, when you can type?

Last evening, I found out why: for the past one week, I have been working diligently on a post -- nothing profound, nothing philosophical, just a simple thought. But I am yet to make sense of it, even though, in my mind I am clear about what I want to say and how I want to say it, I have been unable to. For the last seven days, I have been writing and re writing the same five hundred words each night and deleting them each afternoon, but it still makes no sense. The whole process has been frustrating, to say the least. 

So last evening, after working through the afternoon and achieving nothing out of it, I gave up. I shut the computer and picked up a book to read. Inside the book I found a couple of folded sheets, it was something I had written while I was at home last week and in my quest to write the perfect piece, had forgotten completely about it. 

I immediately logged back in and started to copy the content, and somehow unlike the posts I write directly on the blog site, this one was almost error free and needed very little editing. While my usual posts take hours just to edit, I completed this in less than an hour -- start to finish. A short, short story written by a humble pen on an old notepad, on my old bed, in my old room, in my old house. 

P.S: Today I opened the unwritten piece again, and again it made no sense. I quickly picked up my most brilliant pen and most beautiful notebook and put together this post -- in thirty minutes flat.  

Tomorrow, I plan to rewrite my unfinished post one last time -- with the pen.

The Other Woman

For as long as she had known him, she had known only him -- that he was not single did not matter, that he was engaged to be married in a few months also did not matter. She liked being with him and he did too. They were happy to be together, even if it was for a little while and that is all that mattered.

Love was not something that she had in mind when she first met him; rejected in love and dejected in life, she had no intention of letting anybody close to her again but she was also determined to let go of her inhibitions and have fun -- something she had always been too afraid of. Therefore when she felt the mutual attraction pulling them closer, she did not resist.

Being with him was a wonderful feeling: he made her feel special and cared for, he made her feel beautiful and wanted, and more than anything else he made her love herself. All was well -- they had a silent understanding: this would end the day he decides to get married. She was aware that he had a woman to go back to and had no intent of playing the other woman -- not until she saw them together.

She could always feel her presence in their life -- her pictures on his desk, her stuff at his place and her calls when they were together. He would often leave their conversations abruptly to attend her calls, he did not take her calls and even ignored her messages if she was around. Sometimes it did affect her: at times felt a little envious, other times a bit jealous, but every time she reminded herself of the reality. That evening, however, she could not. 

She was waiting at the gate to see him off when she noticed him walk out of the door -- with her. They appeared to be in the midst of an important conversation -- the sort he never had with her. She noticed how comfortable they looked together: no sign of nervousness and no fear of being caught. Seeing them walk towards the gate she stepped back: she somehow expected him to introduce them -- the two women in his life. But he walked on -- past her, completely ignoring her. She was shocked. Never before had she been humiliated so, that too by a person she loved so much. 

She was in the car when she saw his number blink on the phone, the urge to disconnect the call was strong, but stronger was the need to get an answer. She took the call and heard him apologise and explain the reason for doing what he did. She swallowed the lump in her throat, held back the tears and said 'You have to decide today. It's either her or me, you can not have both.'

Ten years later, going through her wedding album, she's glad that she is no longer the other woman.

As published in Femina Fast Fiction: http://www.feminafastfiction.com/story/the-other-woman/345/