Afterall, its him!

As you walked into the hospital

To hold your bundle of joy,

What did you think dad?

What did u dream that day?

Do you remember, when carrying

a plump bag on two tiny shoulders

I had dragged my feet

to get home one day?

Its you, I had looked for

As I had entered,

To inform you about the big race

Your daughter had just lost.

I was crestfallen to

See you not bothered.

But you had your mind

On something much better.

The day I had cheated at school

& was caught by my teacher & complained to you.

I was scared & ashamed, to be heard or seen,

Because of the disgrace that I had been.

I lowered my eyes &

broke in a sweat.

You just said- ‘I have high dreams for you

This is not what I expect.’

I stood there dumbfound

I had feared you’d admonish

But this is not what I deserved

I expected to be punished.

And a few years down the line,

I had waited impatiently for you

To return from office, to hand you

my certificate, beaming with joy.

You planted a kiss on my forehead

& u patted my back.

I had felt like an Oscar winner

That night, amidst thunderous claps!

You took a long look

& with pride filled eyes u said,

‘You’ll go a long way, my girl

You’ll go higher some day.’

And that day when on hearing noises

Into the kitchen I ran,

To see you & mother fight,

I cried to having seen such a sight.

The very next morning I was astonished

To see you hug mom & say ‘sorry’

& I knew I wanted someone like u father,

In my own love story.

As you’ll walk me down the aisle some day

and place my hand in another’s,

You’ll still be my favourite hero, dad,

You’ll always be my first love.

Bright Black July

‘It’s not going to work out’ she said, tears streaming down her face. ‘Tumi keno bujhte parcho na?’ (why don’t you try to understand?) His gaze fell to the floor & he pleaded – ‘Give me a chance to make it work, please’.

Couple of minutes back, he had come over to her house for a casual visit. Her dad had answered the door. She came out to meet him and her dad went to their backyard to tend to his plants. They both sat in the living room.

And after some time of talking, when he thought he could, he had popped the question. Her face had turned crimson. She tried looking away, but he saw & smiled. He knew the answer. Just had to hear it from her.

But she denied.

She struggled with her thoughts, fumbled with her words & hesitated to look him in the eyes. He was crying from inside. He badly wanted to give her a hug to assure her that he was serious about them.

She went into the other room sobbing. He sat dejected on the sofa, thinking what his next move would be. He was angry. He wanted to storm out of the house. But he knew, she was the one he would want to go to. And she was here, crying in the other room, still undecided.

He knocked at her door, ‘Please don’t cry. Please would you come out?’ ‘If you are trying to convince me, please don’t’, she said inconsolably from inside the room. He stood, his fist clenched against the door, thinking as to what his parting words would be. ‘Remember this, nothing will change between us.’ And he left.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

She thought he had a smile to die for. Just the thought of meeting him would make her get butterflies in stomach. Just his reassuring presence beside her made her forget the world around her. She never had a worry when he was with her. She trusted him blindly & never gave a second thought to anything that he suggested for her.

There were no sun rays pouring into her room that dark day of July. She gloomily looked at the heavy downpour through her window. Her heart was crying louder. She brought down her phone from the side table and dialled.

‘Can we meet for coffee?’, she asked. ‘As always’, he smiled.

He had arrived five minutes earlier & watched her get down the auto, carefully angling her umbrella against the pelting rain. Aqua-marine wasn’t her colour. But she looked beautiful nonetheless. She hated rain, but he liked her coming out for coffee with him.

He was standing just inside the door. He smiled warmly. She nodded lightly. She suggested sitting near the huge French window of the café. The rain drops trickling down the glass helped her instantiate her thoughts.

He had already ordered for her favourite chocolate flavoured coffee. She drew her thoughts from the rain outside and turned towards him. Looking at the steaming cup placed before her, she said- ‘When you were not there for me, I realised what you meant to me. I’ll not say I can’t live without you because I survived through last week. But I’ll confess I don’t want to live without you. I want to live, and not just survive & not without you anymore.’

All the while she spoke looking into the steaming cup and playing with it. She tried looking away from him, stealing glances at the other guests in the Coffee-Bar lounge. But time & again, she was drawn to him.

She tried speaking again. ‘It was difficult to stay calm & sane knowing that you are out with her. It was difficult to suddenly get to know of another person in your life who held so much importance. I felt bad to know that you had so safely hidden her from all. I wanted to know who Poulami was. More than that, I wanted to know why you liked her.’

 ‘I kept pulling the reins of my mind not to think of you with her. As much as I tried to be normal picturing you both together, I felt myself flaring. My mind wouldn’t stay put with working. It kept lapsing into the void territory where it refused to think of anything but you. I’m not myself again, without you.’

He took her hands in his and –‘May I?’ She smiled, surprised. He lightly kissed her hand and said ‘How could you even think that I could have gotten over you? I love you.’

 She looked at him askance. ‘I have never known a girl called Poulami.’ He said & winked, ‘I wanted you so much in my life.’ He continued, smiling, looking at her bewildered face. ‘I had always loved you, I knew that. I just wanted you to realise your feelings for me.’

6 Signal Crossings

I knew what I was heading to. The weather didn’t look inviting. It was cloudy & hot. The roads were less crowded as it was a ‘bandh’. Now, a bandh in Kolkata is as common a Saturday. I smiled to myself and thought, ‘Bring it on!’

There was no more work at office, and I thought to make something of this day.

 We decided to walk from office.

 I had a friend to accompany in this crazy brainwave of mine.

Considering my previous experiences with this pragmatic friend of mine, I decided to count, not sheep, but cars! And I chose red coloured ones. Some were zooming past us and some simply moved at a lazy pace, as if enjoying the empty roads. The ones that caught my attention most were the yellow-black taxis. They would come honking from behind and slow down near to us. The driver would then peep from behind the wheel, asking if we would prefer a comfortable ride? The answer would be a smile & shaking of the head.

 The roads were wide & clean, the plants looked fresh in white & blue pots. The rout was scurrying to get back home, cursing their bosses for making them work when the government had decided to sit back.

I was convinced that the walk if nothing else, would shed a few grams off my weight. At the outset, our conversation was about work, & then it slowly drifted to the City of Joy.  The history & typical stories, rivalries, superstitions & sentiments, that only a localite can relate, I was hearing.  And we were two signals beyond where we had decided to take a public transport.

Chattering, giggling, dodging the traffic, running across signals, skipping over the potholed road, we had done it all. And after the tiresome expedition, all that we thirsted for, was an ice cream. And the joy of quenching your tiredness by an orange bar is incomparable!

The last leg of my long journey to home from office had to be completed by an auto. Period. My leg nerves were pleading for rest...& finally I thought yes, they deserved it. They had served me well today :)