Wednesday 13 April 2011

Living In Bombay

The lights were dim outside. She missed her twilights, her life. She was faced with an endlessly repeating cycle of work and home, children and too many people inside a capsule of a house. She used to imagine these lives when she was young and not married, shuddering at the thought of how a family of ten, that included three couples, could live in a constricted 2BHK off the grinding railway platform of Byculla. Little did she know she would land in precisely a family like that.


"Where do they have sex?" she wondered then. She never dared ask, though. On their first night together, they were hustled into one of the two bedrooms, decorated with wilting flowers. It was miserable - she hardly knew this man, but she was not going to complain about sex, of course. She had waited for this night. It was an anti-climax of sorts when he fell asleep within seconds of resting his head on the pillow.


Sex was always hurried, performed in strictly traditional positions, at the most random times of the day or night, with quickly stifled moans, of mostly pain. On days that they found themselves alone in the house, when her ribs would hurt from all the jostling they put up with, in the local trains, she was expected to be sufficiently lubricated and ready to take the ramming. And clean up after him too. Not one word of love, not one caress, not a second to wait and ask her if she had enjoyed it.


So it was not surprising when, on one particularly tiring work day, she bumped into her cubemate at work, in the office restroom. They both quickly apologized, smiled in unison, and she stepped aside to let her out. Instead, she got pulled in.


There was shock and disgust piling up inside every pore of her body at first, as the girl pinned her to the wall. "I cannot get you pregnant. Relax," the girl said. "You are fighting too hard. Let go. Elope with me, I am going to make you so happy," she whispered.

And to her utmost chagrin, those words sent up a thrill of the most beautiful tingling up her spine, her hips. The girl let her fingers run over her collar bone, raising goosebumps on her skin. The girl knelt down at her feet then, her eyes raised in a worshipping stance, slowly hiking up the saree, and it was then, looking into those eyes, that she realised how much she had wanted her husband to do this to her.


He was just going to have to pay for all those hurried nights and days of insensitivity, wouldn't he?

Saturday 9 April 2011

By The River - Part 4



His mouth in the hollow of her neck, when he lay spent and panting one night, she pulled back his head. Why did you not come those two evenings, she asked, her voice casual but determined. Just wanted to test you. Wanted to test myself, he whispered. Test the waters, she asked. He smiled in agreement. You were angry, weren't you, he wondered aloud. I heard you raging. It was nice in a very odd way.


So you are here. You failed then, did you not, if your test was to keep away?

No. I wanted to know how badly I wanted to be here, with you, this way. I learnt that I wanted very badly to be with you.

It is odd, how your method of finding things out about yourself, must hold somebody else at stake.

Why are we talking about this now? I thought you were happy to be here with me.

I am happy you came back so I could see you again and ask you, what is it about men and women of the earth, that makes them curious? So curious that you play with other destinies. Why is it difficult to ask straight questions and get straight answers?

Things are not that simple.


But they are. It's your ego, is it not? Your need to feel important and vital? I will tell you what's vital. It's vital when I stop watering your fields. When I toss back the ashes of your dead. When I trample over your lands and leave everything barren despite being the most fertile river you have set eyes on. That is important.


She stood up, snatching his hair, dragging him to his feet.


You enjoyed humiliating me, didn't you? Here's how it feels.


She threw him into her waters, her currents catching him in violent gushes, tossing his body back and forth against the rocks before attempting to drown him. She stood on the banks, her legs rippling into the now dark waters, her eyes red and lit. He screamed silent screams for help, for mercy, but she plunged back into the waters and with one powerful blow, threw him out, wet and breathless, bruised and broken.

You are cursed, she screeched, her hair flying out behind her like a black curtain while the heavens opened up, putting her in spate. You are cursed henceforth, man, to bear the burden of your ego. In this lifetime, you shall have no other woman the way I let you have me. You shall enter no woman, you shall create no other. It is time you learnt that to spite a woman is to spite nature.

And she sank, never to surface again. She changed course. The Sindhu, incidentally, has moved out of Indian soil inch by inch over the centuries. And although she watered an entire civilization, right from the Harappan and Mohen-jo-Daro cultures, she also wiped them all out in a massive flood that took away all connections to the history of where we come from. Where you come from. The price man has paid, for his ego. For Edging God Out.

Sunday 27 March 2011

By The River - Part 3



So the next day, he forced himself to stay back at work. He stayed back and sorted different kinds of cinnamon sticks into neat stacks. The shopkeeper was happy that his helper was finally taking his job seriously and asked no questions, hoping this new change stayed for a while.


He went back home from a different longer route that day, avoiding the banks of his river. He heard her gushing currents rage and flow, fertilising her banks but still crushing weeds and pebbles with her force. He wondered if he was the reason for the rage or if he was imagining things. He liked how he affected her, that proud river who said what if she disappeared. He would show her. He would make her wait.


He kept away the next day too. It was tougher though and he found it difficult, the fantasy had worn and he had to tear himself away from his usual route again, his feet protesting with pain, his head buzzing. The river raged, egged on by the unseasonal rains. He swore he would go back the next day. He swore he would pretend that nothing abnormal had happened.


But he did not go. He awoke the next day to find his father's body lying limp and lifeless on the bed. Torn with grief, he spent the day arranging his father's funeral and last rites. His father was cremated in the temple compound, and a day later, finally, he found himself making his way to her banks again. This time, to release his father's ashes into her waters. It felt like an intrusion but he walked and he reached her banks. But no Sindhu came strolling out. He waited, half scared, half eager, but an hour passed and finally, he tossed in the ashes and made his way back home, his head shaved, his house lonely.


Ten days later, he went back to work. While coming home, he took the route that passed the river bank, like he did. He did not look up this time, he did not expect her this time. He knew he would go home, he knew he would never see her again. He had kept away too long.


He was wrong.


She was perched on a rock, looking at him, dressed in white. The white of mourning? The white of peace? The white of renunciation? He did not know. He walked, a little taken aback at her appearance. He stopped in front of her. The minutes passed, slow, stretched out, until the sun sank in the horizon and Sindhu embraced him.


Her hands were icy like they always were, her breath came short, her lips were at his ears and her hands were on his shoulders. He automatically lifted her off the rock and threw her down on the ground, tearing off her white, her white of peace, of renunciation, of mourning, grinding into her flesh, violent, painful and wild. he left the marks of his nails on her back and hips, he left bites on her neck and navel, he left her womanhood pounding and throbbing. Those luscious and ample breasts were finally his, and he claimed them like he would claim his woman, his mother, his goddess.


She held on, letting his violence course through her veins, gasping, moaning, weeping, begging, laughing, sobbing and screaming.


He was sure the whole village must have heard them, the next day, when we woke up, sore and scratched. But evidently, they did not. And they would not, for the next few days as he ravaged his Sindhu, and she filled him up with her currents and waves. He knew every contour and mood now, he knew every pleasure and pain, he knew every need and desire that coursed through her.

But there was still something he did not know. There were shadows in her eyes he did not see.

Monday 21 March 2011

By The River - Part 2


She called herself Sindhu. And she was like the river. Monosyllabic and moody in summers. Bursting with life and emotion when it rained, insatiable like the flow of her waters. Wintry, distant and a little scary too, when temperatures dropped and she froze over.


She always asked him questions. And he found he finally had a genuinely interested audience in her. He told her stories of his village, his dead mother, his old father, his friends, the temple near his house, his time in the shop where he worked, selling saffron and cinnamon.


She listened. She observed. She smiled, Her eyes brimmed over. Her lips parted in wonder, her brows shot straight up in shock, strands of hair loose on her forehead, wringing her saree and throwing it over her head, gently placing her hand on his, her hands always icy cold and wet, her touch causing little pinpricks of heat to rush down his spine.


He asked her if she would be disappointed if he did not come one day, to see her like he did every evening. She looked amused. It's the other way round, she whispered. I may be here forever, like I have been. If one day, you lose sight of me, will that be alright? He went back home that evening, a strange and heavy hollowness in the pit of his stomach. He could not be falling in love with a river could he? Was she really the river she claimed to be? The village wiseman had spoken about spirits of the river and trees long ago. Was she one of those spirits? Were they real? Was she dangerous?


But how could she be dangerous, she of those silken tresses, she of those soft parted, bow-shaped lips, she of those arched eyebrows that cast deep shadows on her midnight black eyes, she of that slender neck that plunged into heavy, full breasts that he tried so hard not to look at, she of that swanlike grace, she of that gentle waist, she of those full and fertile hips, how could she be a dangerous spirit? How could she hurt him?

Friday 18 March 2011

By The River - Part 1



Lakhimpur is a small village. Flanked by the river Sindhu, just before she gushes into the neighbouring country, the village is close-knit and everybody knows everybody else. There is a small amount of tourist population that flows in and out of the place on their way to the origin of the river. But they are few, the Sindhu being a little less celebrated than the Ganga.


Some of the tourists call it the Sindh. He does not prefer that name much. There is something very anglicized about it. He likes the very homey sound of Sindhu, the way it rolls off his tongue. He wakes up every morning to hear her gushing outside his windows in summers, frozen and still in winters, flooding and furious when it rains.


But she hardly makes the sounds she once used to make when he was younger, when his bones did not creak every time he squatted, when his skin did not sag like it does now, when his muscles did not seize up because of walking long distances. She hardly makes those sounds now. Those moans have gone, those sighs have gone, those sharp intakes of breath have vanished.


She does not meet him anymore, like she used to, either. She does not walk out of the river, her hair wet and rippling in the sunlight, black and wavy, reaching down to her knees. She does not gather her saree in a bunch and throw it lazily behind her back anymore, like she used to, when he used to call out to her, resting on her banks. She does not wipe a drop of water from her brow anymore, smiling at him while he stared at her. She does not push him back on the grassy wet shores anymore, her body silhouetted against the shadows of the sunset, her back arching to take his shape under her.


She stopped coming out to meet him decades back. He had met her first one evening, when he was young and believed in only what he saw. She was lying on the bank, her hair spread out like a fan on the wet earth, her breasts heaving, water glistening on her neck, her arms and her cheeks. She was a stranger and he had never seen her before in the village. Was she a tourist? Why was she lying there in the mud? Why was she so distractingly sensual at the end of the day, when everybody looks tired and haggard? He mustered up some courage and walked to her, trying hard to smother and hide the bulge between his legs, adjusting his dhoti hastily.


She was no tourist. She sat up at his arrival, shocked that he could see her. He found it odd. Why should he not see her? Was she invisible? He was even more shocked when she said he was right. He thought she must be mad. He was no longer turned on. If anything, he wanted to get away from this mad woman as soon as he could. He ran.


But she never went away - he saw her everyday after that evening, strolling out of the waters, coming out to talk to him, intrigued that he could see her, and she would then splash back into the water. He stayed behind a couple of times, wondering if she would come running out, choking, drawing huge gulps of air. But she never did.

Saturday 12 March 2011

Motorcycle Diaries

The speed was not exhilarating. He rode at a speed that screamed caution. She was okay with that. Speed was meant for empty highways, not main roads with traffic at every seam. She held on to him needlessly, the wind on her face. One hand held his shoulder, the other wound itself diagonally up to his chest.


When they halted at the crossroad, she glanced sideways. A couple sat, perched on a bike. The man was in his late forties, the woman close behind. They were slightly over weight and the man looked impatient to start riding again, obviously in a hurry. The woman behind him asked him to be patient. He muttered what sounded like an agreement. That they were a married couple was overtly obvious - both looked wary and tired.


The woman held a steel grip under her seat to position herself on the bike. She avoided all but unavoidable contact with her husband. The husband perched himself nonchalantly on his bike. The signal changed colours and they rode off into a cloud of pollution.


She felt her hand against his heart, the dull thud-thud clearly perceptible under her fingers. She resolved never to reach the stage where she would have to sit precariously on the bike, avoiding contact. She snuggled up closer. He shifted, aware of the constricted space he was stashed in.


"I am not moving, okay?? Don't ask me to shift back."


"Okay, I won't. It's just making turning on the bends a little difficult."


"Manage."


"Okay."


She tugged his T-Shirt down and licked the bare skin on his neck. It prickled and she laughed.


"That feels nice. Is anybody watching us?"


"Perhaps."


He gathered speed. She continued nibbling, tracing patterns on his skin.


"Remember to focus on the road. Pillion riders are relatively free for this kind of behaviour."


"Mmm, okay. My turn for that kind of behaviour when we get home then."

Midnight

She was tired. A long day at work, a strenuous workout session in the gym, a full fledged cooking session later, and a visit to an old friend later, all she wanted to do was collapse into her bed. And not wake up for two days.


She left him working at his workstation in his study, kissed him goodnight on top of his head and dragged herself to their bedroom. A minute later, she was asleep.


Her dreams were fuzzy, violet satin slipping away to the floor, his eyes, a random song playing in the background, the shocking sensation of cold water on her skin, and the welcome rush of warm moonlight on her bare body. She turned in her sleep and her dream turned too, from royal colours to dark browns, the brown of her blanket as it was swept away and she felt smooth fingers cupping her breasts.


She smiled at the man who brought her lips to meet his, as her hands rode up his chest, grabbed his shoulders. A throbbing guilt consumed her at the same time as she struggled to realize whose hands these were that she was allowing on her body, when her man was a few feet away, working.


She partly also knew that she dreamt and her pleasure at this dream broke a dam of fresh guilt on her again. She struggled to open her eyes as his hands swept down to her hip, riding up her legs to find her womanhood. She awoke with a start, panting and felt his hands dragging her down again. She glanced at him, relief breaking over her as she realised he lay next to her, his hands on her breasts again, carressing, squeezing, sucking, licking, teasing, her breath catching in her throat in short gasps as waves of pleasure overtook her senses.


His hands travelled back to her womanhood as she pushed the guilt of not recognizing the familiar contours of his body. She clasped his shoulders as he climbed over her, his fingers between her lips, her tongue drawing lines on his smooth skin. He scooped his fingers out of her eager mouth and led them to her wetness, checking her readiness.


She was moist beyond measure and he tickled her, teased her, sliding his fingers in and out, drawing wetness with every stroke. He loved the wet sound of his fingers pulling out of her flower, climbing down then to taste her sex.


She tasted of musk and her perfumed bath salts. He lingered there, taking in her scent, smiling in anticipation for he knew what she would go through in a little while, the sounds she would make, the way she would egg him on to enter her, the way she would moan in pain, her hands clutching his hair, pushing his mouth, his tongue deeper and deeper until she would surrender and come, her breath shallow, her face aglow, his manhood hard and ready to pleasure them both again.


He drove his tongue in then, flicking her lips, tasting the new wetness that emerged, while her hips threatened to shiver out of control. He pinned her legs down with his hands and then...


He woke up, his manhood hard against him, his breath shallow and raspy, beads of perspiration on his forehead, his hands clutching the sheets crumpled up around him. He glanced to his side then, and saw her.


Asleep. A smile on her lips. That glow on her face. One hand limp on her breast. He caught his breath, gazing at her. He had had a long and tiring day. He curled up against her and kissed her forehead.


"Goodnight, baby."

ASAP

She didn't like him one bit. He was too tall, quiet and ...hell, who cared, she wanted to marry a man that she loved, not one that her parents decided was good for her. She decided things in her life, her job, her clothes, her hair styles, her new motorcycle too.


It upset her no end when her mother called one evening to inform her that she had to get home a little earlier than usual - a prospective groom was coming home to see her.


That did it. She stormed out of her work place, went home, with full intentions on bringing the house down with her protests when she walked into a house full of people who stared at her with what she could only call curious interest. There was the mother, of course. Who sized her up quickly, introduced herself and her family. The father smiled genially and asked her to 'feel comfortable'. Of course she would feel comfortable, it was her house, was it not?


She sat herself down, threw a miserable look at her mother who had decided to not look in her direction.
She was then introduced to the man himself. So he was tall...and quiet. And he was so polite, she started feeling exactly what she didn't want to feel - uncomfortable.


The family asked them to go for a stroll and get to know each other while the folks stayed home and hoped they would like each other. She led him down, walked to her motorcycle and then paused. Weren't they supposed to walk?


"Sorry, I forgot. Let's go out, we can walk behind the apartment, the road is not very traffic heavy there."


He smiled. "Is that your bike?"


"Yes."


"You ride a bike."


She shifted on her feet. Dare he say that it's odd that a girl rides a bike. She would take him back home immediately and refuse to ever see him again. Bloody chauvinistic world.


"Will you take me for a ride instead? I will be your pillion."


She dropped her key and stared.


"Okay."


They rode off, into the traffic, an orange sunset witness to the sudden change she knew was happening. She rode, that feeling of speed seeping into her. He talked in the meanwhile, briefly telling her about what he did at work, the colors he liked, the food he liked to eat, the movies he saw, the music he listened to, the sports he played. He then started with his questions - what do you do, what do you do with your free time, what movies do you like, what do you want to do later, do you have dreams that you would die for...


And she spoke and laughed and giggled and listened and she knew.


She knew she wanted him to inch closer. Put his hand on her waist. Smell her hair. Kiss her neck. Tickle her and tease her. Now. On the bike. And later too. Tomorrow. The day after. Forever. Make love to her. Hold her. Kiss her. Laugh with her.


She inched back, turning the bike to a particularly rocky road. The bike lurched. He panicked.


"Do you want to go slow?" he asked.


"Yeah, sure. Hold on to me, will you?"


"Sure. Marry me. And  I will keep doing just that." He put his hands around her waist, pulling her closer into himself, smelling her hair, nuzzling her neck. She stopped the bike, arched her head.


"As soon as possible?"


"As soon as possible."

It Rained

She peered out of the window. Late afternoon, the sun was beating down heavy and moist on the cracked, barren land. Crops had failed this time, families were upset and silent at dinner time and nobody smiled as much as they used to any longer. It was as if the delayed monsoon clouds had snatched away all traces of hope from the village.


She hadn't seen him either. Not in twenty days.


He has sent word that he was planning to move out of the village, head to the city, use his education to find a job. She has decided to not think about that. If she could just assume that he would be right here, fighting the dry spell by day, letting her make him happy by night, she would be fine. Just for another day.


He has said he would come tonight.


He had said he would come to spend that one last night in her embrace. One last night before he would go away. One last night drowning in her scent, one last night listening to her breath come in sharp gasps, like it did every time he touched her where he knew there would be rain.


There would be water enough for crops around the year, there would be parting enough to let her land ready for his seed.


One more night though...and there would be a flood, there would be life, there would be love, again.
When he came that night, there was despair in his lovemaking. There was hopelessness, there was that strong fight against succumbing to staying back in the silhouettes of her hair and skin, under the unwavering gaze of her almond eyes. There was a recklessness, uncaring if they were discovered, her pleasure escaping her lips in sounds louder than usual.


There was fierce passion, there was anger where his teeth left blood clots on her smooth skin. There were tears, tears of pain, of joy, of loss, of separation, of there being no tomorrow.


Not now. Not ever.


When he came in her, she wept, quietly, holding herself from making her clasp stronger than usual, stopping her chest from heaving from suffocation. Tears streamed down her cheek, dropping softly on the barren earth they lay on, begging for mercy, begging for another chance.


Begging. No relief.


Not now. Not ever.


A heavy price indeed, to pay for the soil that fed them, she thought, when he got up, kissed her forehead and walked away into the dead of the night. She wiped her tears, the sky welling up, miserable and defeated.
It rained that dawn.

Four Years

Drops of dew sparkled in her hair. They glinted in the sunlight, white light scattering into winking rainbows, catching his eye, several feet below, as he gazed up at her. She had her chin up, her hair in one swirl over her shoulder, pristine womanhood in virgin white, a few minutes after her bath, hair dripping wet, loose ends knotted with a flimsy towel.


He stretched his hand out to catch the scattered droplets of water that she tried so hard to shake off. Unaware he stood to catch them five floors below.


Anita.


She didn't know his name. Her name was the first thought he had when he woke up each day in his empty bed and home. Few people knew her. His friends most obviously did not. There were fairer maidens to notice in the town.


Anita was not beautiful. At least, not beautiful in the way most men expected. She was too frail. Dark. Her hair was plain and long and straight. Her eyes jet black. Her clothes mostly white. her voice husky.


Nobody noticed the sway in her hips, the rise of her bosom. Nobody saw the frailty in her gait. The flush in her cheeks. The tremble in her hands. The deep lashes that sheltered her deep, dark eyes. The fullness of her lips. The serene simplicity of the virgin whites she was always clad in.


Four years he spent, walking by her house, catching drops of water from her hair, her hands. Four years he spent, seeing her walk by the river in the evening, sit on the rocky ledge and watch the sun set. Four years, hearing her sing in the temple every Saturday, quietly in her own corner, the plate full of jasmines and hibiscus balanced in one hand, her delicate, transparent shawl held in another.


Four years he spent, looking at her retrace her steps to the temple courtyard, her face to the idol inside, refusing to show her back to the god who alone knew her longings. Four years he spent seeing her hang her head in anger and humiliation as all prospective bridegrooms rejected her.


To tall. Too dark. Her voice too husky. Awakening the lust that no man wished to acknowledge.


Until she called his name one day after she had left the temple courtyard. How she knew, he knew not. But he knew she did and that was enough. Enough it was that she had noticed, she had accepted this subtle intrusion, his observance.


He followed.


She led the way, walking all the way to the river, the sway of her waist sending his heart leaping into his mouth, suddenly awakening his desire in ways it hadn't been beckoned before. at the bank, she swirled around to face him.


What do you want, she snapped.


He withdrew in shock. For he saw in her eyes the rage he did not know existed. Raw, red anger, its flames reaching into her pupils.


You, he whispered.


Four years, she retorted sharply. What were you busy doing for four years, she snapped.


What were you doing when I was undergoing all the humiliation at the hands of men that did not deserve to even see me? What were you doing for four years when I went walking down this lonely river every day in the vain hope that you would take me? What were you doing when I stood on my terrace every morning, to catch one glimpse of you waiting to trap drops of water that had touched with my skin? What were you doing when I retraced my steps from the temple in my hope to not lose sight of you? What were you doing all those afternoons when I feel asleep wanting you inside the warmth of my sheets?


What were you doing when I pleasured myself to sleep every night, imagining your manhood deep inside me? What were you doing when I wanted you to take the only few treasures that I bear before any other man set his intention on it? What were you doing on all those mornings when I woke up, wet with exhaustion from wanting your hands to mold me into the woman I could have become?


He stared at her, shock registering on his face. She stopped to catch her breath, shallow and ragged. He took a step towards her.


No, she hissed. Don't come near me. Don't look at me anymore either. I have been seen by a man today. I am to marry him. And I am to not look at any other man. Not anymore. He came this morning. He saw me. He is my father's age. And I am to marry him. He saw me, she repeated, her eyes welling up.


Is something wrong, he asked, sudden bile rising in his stomach.


He saw me...he saw me how I have always wanted you to see me, she said. But it gave me no happiness. I was so disgusted, I wanted to drown. And I will. I just had to tell you that it is not this man who is the cause for my death.


It is you. And the people who need to know this, have been told. You will pay for the woman that I could have been but am not. You will pay, she said, her eyes flaming again.


He wanted to stop her. He was late only four years.


He knew he would pay for it with his own life.

Sleepless Nights

I can't stop looking at you while you stand a few feet from me, in front of the mirror, your back to me, your strikingly distracting face in the mirror while you look yourself over, smoothing out creases from your shirts, so you can be on your way to work. I sit curled up here, on the bed, wishing I could think up something to freeze you there, freeze the day.


You turn and you ask.


"What do you like about this bed?"


I am stumped. You cannot be thinking what I am thinking. That would be too much of a coincidence.


You continue. "When you come back home after a tiring day, and you sit down on it, what is it that you feel?"


Aah. That makes sense.


"Relief. Happiness. I also feel sleepy."


"Except in the nights."


I pretend nonchalance. "Yeah", I say casually, picking up my book to read again.


I am not sleepy in the night, I tell you in my head. You are there every night, inches from me, and I cannot sleep because it is such humongous waste. I will not allow that. Inches from me, your skin glows golden, your eyes are dreamy and all over me and I have this maddening urge to reach out and touch your cheek. Trace my fingertips all the way down to your throat so I can see the shiver running up your spine. I like it that I can do that to you.


I cannot sleep in the night because your hands trace invisible lines on me, paving paths to mind numbing delights that echo in my body all through the next day, that make me stop whatever I am doing so I can allow the throbbing to slow down to a pace that I can stand. I cannot sleep because your mouth draws gasps of painful sweetness from mine. I cannot sleep because I am so empty that I need you to fill me up before I can even imagine a night of peaceful sleep.


I cannot sleep because you body lies entwined with mine, molded to my form, your breathing controlled and in rhyme with mine, while I try hard to not wake the entire neighbourhood.


Of course I love my bed.


You sleep on it.


And I lie awake telling the skies that I would trade a million souls for every sleepless night.

Catching Her Scent

I regret sharing this with my colleague.


It was so casual; I walked past her one morning, on my way to the work station, when she looked up.


"What are you wearing?"


I was taken by surprise - was I not dressed right for a day packed with client meetings?


"Why what's wrong?"


"Nothing, I am just trying to place your perfume."


"Oh!" I breathed, relieved. "It's Dior. Midnight Poison. It's the only one I ever wear."


I regretted saying that immediately. Like I had spilled some family secret. No, even worse. Like I had admitted to some disgusting intimate secret that would be the death of me.


She nodded and said she would check it out. I hated that. I did not want anybody else smelling like me in a fifty mile radius of him. No, five hundred.


He knew me by my scent. He knew it would draw him to me eventually, every night, every weekend, and he would start by sniffing exactly the places I had dabbed  a bit of it on. We eventually turned it into a game and he would tell me exactly where he wanted me to smell like Midnight Poison. He would start by smudging just a bit of it onto his fingers and then continue leaving those marks on my shoulder, my eyelids, my ear, my lower lip, my left nipple, my navel, my thigh, my clit...


He would then bend down over me, lower me into the bed, and start smelling the fragrant traces he had left on my body while I writhed and moaned under his fingers, his mouth, that gorgeous tongue that was capable of inflicting as much pain as it inflicted pleasure. I would beg him to not stop, not tonight, not ever and he would tease, slow down, talk, whisper, and tease and bite and lick again until I would beg him to fuck me, to make love to me, to tear me up, to use me, to fill me up so I was useless to all other men.


He would oblige when I was incapable of putting up with his slow torture techniques. We would lie spent, minutes later, and he would then nuzzle his nose, tracing my jawline and say he loved how I smelled mixed up with Poison and the combined heat that would leave our bodies.


"I wish I could bottle this scent," he would say.


No way was I going to let my colleague get her hands on the scent that made up my nights.


Did she buy it? No. And apparently, I did not have to plot or buy off all the perfumes in my city either. She just decided it was too expensive.


But of course - it has been paid for, in full with countless sleepless nights. Who would afford it anyway?

Liquid Days

It's one of those days that you keep running to the washroom.


Just to touch your wetness, that's still slick from last night's love-making. That won't stop making you squirm in your seat and get alone with yourself so you can think some more of the night that was.


And touch yourself again.


It makes you want to come all over again today, warm and liquid one more time, from thinking of his tongue on your clit, the delightful lapping and licking that drove spasms of ecstasy up your spine and abdomen. From thinking of how, involuntarily, you drove him to dive his head into your cunt, eat you up entirely until you are so wet, it feels like you have never been dry before.


You talk, smile, chat, eat and work while he still pulls on your mind and body, your flesh kneaded, squeezed and pulped under his able fingers, your moans turning into gasps, from human sounds to animal-like growls.
He pumps into you, you ride on his cock and with each contraction, he drives deeper and deeper into you until your world zeroes down on him and he is all you are aware of and the sensation of having him fill you up, leaving no vacuum unclaimed.


You collapse on him, your head digging into the hollow between his ear and neck and you manage to breathe. Just to remember you are still alive. He finds that ticklish and laughs. Your liquids churn into his and you moan again. The feeling of having him spent inside of you is so intoxicating, you wish you could hold him in, inside of you all day long.


And you do. You do hold him in. For until you can find that oasis again, that reservoir will help you survive.

Extra Marital Affairs

All my guy friends say marriages are eventually, boring. They all finally boil down to living in this society, surrounded by relatives who expect you will have children as soon as its possible, socialise and attend several more weddings. And yes, I have reasons to believe my friends, who over pitchers of beer and mounting drunkenness, relate tales of how their wives nag and bitch, fight and argue, and are least interested in sex. Like the world believes its unnatural for women to be super-sexual beings.


But not for my mistress. The goddess I have spent so many delicious nights with. As I explore her, I see how hungry she is for me, with that thirst mounting every other night, for months now. I wonder what makes us that way...that it is clandestine, nobody knows? That I can't wait to touch her, kiss her, caress her, let my fingers find their way to her sex, feel the pulsating rhythm of her clitoris against my fingers as my cock hardens, begging to enter her, begging to be licked, stroked, worshipped, to pay homage to this woman that is the focus of my universe, even though I am married?


So I stay mute and smile and nod as my friends explain, how a man's life is finished once he is married. Perhaps a few months of fantasy, a few months of ecstacy but the same old routine, boring and mundane facts of life soon after. Soon after, we are used to the sex, we are used to the fights, we are used to throttling our dreams and soon after, we are aging before we know that it is abnormal to die.


I laugh about it sometimes and she asks why I am laughing. I tell her how we should keep exploring new places because there is so much to see and know and we have so much time. "But you are married and you have responsibilities!" she retorts, pretending shock and we both burst out laughing again, as I pull her over and fuck her while she is on top. She rides me with rhythm, her back arching, her breasts jiggling over my face, inches from my lips, and I sometimes lift my head while I fuck her to nibble and bite her. She jerks with pleasure and I let my hands ride down her waist, her skin slick with sweat and heat.


My friends are drunk, trying to forget things they would rather not face, facts like living their dreams, like travelling for pleasure, like having kids when you feel the universe urging you to receive angels into your life, and not because your people think you must. Facts like women love sex, perhaps more than men, not sex for the sake of sex, but sex for the sake of finding a match. An equal match; powerful, independent, beautiful and immortal. Alcohol is a great soother and it is easy finding escape in its recesses. I smile at their jokes and pour my drink into a nearby wash basin.


It's time for me to go back to my goddess, to the woman who is counting every second on her wall clock because she knows I will see her tonight. To the woman whose universe revolves around mine. To the woman who will laugh and tell me that I am married and I have responsibilities and then laugh about how we should still travel this world and eat more cake. To the goddess I worship and look up to, the the whore I fuck and who fucks me back, to the little girl who snuggles up in my arms after I have made love to her, to the woman that mothers and feeds me when I am ill, to my mistress.
To my wife, who is my wife by heart and not by ritual.

Cast In Stone

Women have been cursed by mythical legends, to never be able to hold secrets. And you will agree; no woman ever kept her mouth shut about anything she had been specifically told to keep quiet about. She promises to share it only with you and before you know it, it's an open secret.


But curses fade over time, jinxes and magic wear over time. Especially in the face of love. Especially so.
I have my own secrets. I stay in a village, off the coast of Narmada, the river that arouses lust even inside sages who have practiced penance for decades now. The Narmada courses and turns and twists and curls and unfurls, like a maiden waking up from her wedding bed, swathed in swirls of saree, her nakedness glimpsing at its first new un-virgin morning. In surprise. With a lazy glance at her lover from last night. The Narmada winds her way into crevices, deep enough to carve caves over millennia. But I am interested in only one cave.


The temple of the Lord. He, in his crowning glory of dark matted hair, who could not be tempted by the great god of love (and reduced him to ashes), in His tiger skin wrapped tight around His waist, His muscled legs crossed over, His trident dripping ashes and blood, His eyes half closed, His deep, dark eyes turned upward in glorious meditation, His arms flexed on His knees, His palms firm.


The Lord, who will not cast a single glance in my direction when I go up to Him with my plate of bel leaves and raw milk. Who I will bathe with milk, pouring it gently down His head as rivulets, like small Ganga rivers, will flow down His forehead. His skin will bristle from the cold milk. His lips will hold steady, stopping the milk from entering His otherwise gently parted lips.


And I will utter unto myself, that perhaps, one day, the day will come, when the Lord will claim me. Perhaps if I visit Him enough, perhaps one day, if He opens His eyes, if He so much as looks at me, just once. Just once, and He will be mine. Mine to keep. If He only sees these eyes, dream-like and almond-shaped, dark with desire to possess Him, these lips, full and blossoming, waiting for His. If only once, He sees this waist, slender and fair, waiting for His hands to wrap to wrap around them.


If only, He will see these breasts, tender and quivering in their eternal wait for His lips, these legs, swathed in fabric that want to be torn by His able fingers. The arms that are waiting to be grabbed, pinned down and crushed under His weight. And this flower, untouched and pining, waiting to receive His godhood, to feel The Destroyer bestow her with life.


Devotees throng His temple everyday, with their offerings and their pleas and I am sure they receive their desires in time. To them He is stone...centuries old, built several hundred years ago. And He grants their wishes. But He won't grant me mine. He won't grant me this although I see Him breathe, I see Him sigh, I see His eyes sway upwards, His muscles taught with the tension of the body responding to the miracles of His mind. If He lets me see Him, why won't He let me touch Him?


Why won't He let me run my hands over His chest, why won't He react to my silent protests, requests, pleadings even? Why won't He let me lead Him home, why won't He let me kiss His palms, why won't He let me show Him how much I need Him to become the woman I really am?


He won't grant me my need to have Him grab me, carry me over to His bed, His pedestal even, tear  my clothes, knead and squeeze and kiss and fondle my breasts, my flesh, my thighs, my back, suck on the honey, the nectar I have been saving for Him, and tell me what it tastes like, hold up my waist to meet His thrusts, His push, His universes inside of me, His dance and His anger and His discipline and His creations pounded inside me until I am just like Her, the Narmada, who ran down His forehead one day, when He was making love to His wife? Just like Narmada, winding, glowing, twisting, turning, writhing, in pain, in pleasure, in agony, in ecstasy, the colors blurring my eyes, still a virgin and yet completely violated, because she was never touched but was born of the perspiration of the Lord in His heat for His wife?


He won't. If the god of love and lust did not succeed, what are the chances I will? What are the chances I will see Him collapse on me, spent and exhausted and finally content, His eons of penance bringing fruit inside of me, His juices creating their own rivers and seas inside the universe I hold within? What are the chances? Unless of course, I turn to stone too, over the years, over these centuries, and wait, wait, wait until He obliges?