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?

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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?