Baavri

Baavri – The Crazy One

Sitting under a naked tree, with clothed emotions, she was looking at the vehicles pass by. Vehicles of all colours passed her by, except the one she loved, Blue.

This time she had decided to live her life the way she wanted. She wanted to rule it, she wanted to bend it over and spank its ass. Her life was becoming unruly from past few weeks or maybe months; it felt as if she was losing her control over it after taming it for years. She needed to prove who the boss was. Because she was the boss and life was her bitch.

Blue was her favourite colour and her resolution for the day was to take ride in a blue car by any means. She had just broken up with her man, who always overpowered her. She knew that nothing could overpower her, except nicotine. A drag and she was its slave. She lighted a cigarette, stuck it between her left hand’s fingers and continued drawing random figures on the ground with her right hand.

Two hours later, she felt like giving up and letting reins loose. Maybe, she had presumed too much, maybe life always won and she was supposed to lose. But hey, how could she? Then she felt something on her shoulders, sending a chill down her spine. It was a droplet of rain. She smiled; it was just like the way she wanted. Finally, life was accepting her orders. It didn’t take long before the rain washed away all the sadness off her face. She was drenched, and daylight was trying to penetrate through her dress. Her concealed body was trying to take a view of the outside world, as she continued waiting for a blue vehicle.

Suddenly she heard a loud horn; she hated loud noises, except hers. No one was allowed to shout in her presence, or else she bawled the shit out of them. She treated world like her bedroom, handled it the way she wanted.

“Hey girl, get inside the car. What are you doing, sitting in the rain under a leafless tree?”

Mesmerized by the voice, she searched for the face of her mysterious saviour hidden behind the translucent sheet of rainfall. She stood up and walked at her own pace; she wanted each droplet of the rain to kiss her body. Reluctantly, bidding farewell to the rainfall, she opened car’s door, and entered that electric blue vehicle.

One of her favourite Jim Morrison songs was soothing up the car’s environment. Ironically, her love for that song was the only thing she had in common with her ex.

She remembered the moment when she broke up with him, he was the 3^rd man in her life and as unsatisfying as the previous two. She always felt that there was something wrong with the men around her, but that was the first time she realized it was her. He was the sweetest person she had ever met, and her conscience led her to break up with him in the cruellest way. She couldn’t bring herself to explain to him what she felt or couldn’t have blurted out the number of times she had to fake an orgasm.

Her life was turning into a mess; she was having a hard time understanding herself. She couldn’t accept the fact the that she was dancing to the tunes of the life, who once danced to hers. She felt betrayed by her own thoughts. Therefore, she planned to take some strict action, and decided to go on a long vacation. She had decided everything, including the exact place she would be drenching herself in the unseasonal rainfall. She had decided everything including the way she would be meeting the man of her dreams on this vacation. This time, life was supposed to have no say.

She had always felt that it had been years since a man was able to satisfy her, whereas, the truth was that there had been none. She knew those vacations will work wonders and she’d find the man of her life. The one who’d love her, the one she’d enjoy. She had always relished being in control of life, instead of letting life do the needful until she heard that voice again along with an outstretched arm,

“Hey I’m Maahi.”

Photograph by: Sarika Gangwal

Written by: Abhinav Chandel

Kuch Yaadein Africa Ki

Whenever I look at the pictures from Africa, each one of them tries to show me the pain hidden in that continent. But then I found this one in Sarika’s album, trying to inspire me, trying to reveal that it’s one of the most beautiful places on earth and trying to find beauty where everyone tries to find the beast.

 

आज़ादियाँ आज यूँ बुलाती हैं मुझे, 

वादियाँ आज यूँ रिझाती हैं मुझे, 

हवाएं आज यूँ झुलाती हैं मुझे, 

और फिर कुछ यूँ उड़ता हूँ मैं…  

Blue and Blues, I’ve seen every shade of them. These lands are my bed and these skies are my canvas now. All I have to do is make myself a child once again somehow. All I have to do is learn to dream once more, and all I have to do, is learn to let out this scream once more.

I have been burnt and left to die; I have withered in the hostile winds.

बारिशों की खोज में, 

न जाने कितने काले बादलों को हमराज़ बनाया है मैंने,

ख्वाहिशों की खोज में

न जाने कितने अनसुलझे ख्यालों को आवाज़ बनाया है मैंने, 

As I see those kids, fearless and tearless. I remember the one that was lost somewhere, sometime ago. I sit and look at the sky, as if it’s an album of everything I shouldn’t have forgotten. Then suddenly, a kid pulls me towards them, asking me to join their game.

I want to join them, but I feel something is holding me back. I want to be free once again, but there’s something I lack. I want to smile once again, but the only colour I possess is black.

फिर अपने दिल को ही टटोल कर 

शायद उन भूली यादों को ढूँढता हूँ मैं, 

उन बंद पोटलियों को खोल कर, 

फिर खुद से किये कुछ वादों को ढूँढता हूँ मैं, 

The kid leaves, leaving me behind. Autumn leaves, shedding from the tree of worries in my mind.  I look at the clouds and pull out my pen; I let the sky fill it with ink once again.

I sit silently, letting those memories grind me. I sit intently, letting those stories find me. I feel, I wonder and I smile, I do everything I had forgotten all this while. Now, I feel at home, I feel alive once again. I feel the happiness that once remained veiled behind the pain.

I want to fly; I want to steal some colours from this sky. I want to run, sing and dance. Once again, I want to enter that trance.

नीली ज़मीन, हरा आसमान 

सफ़ेद बादल, काले ख्याल 

इन सबको पीछे छोड़, मैं फिर चलता हूँ 

एक सपने की ओर, जिसे न जाने क्यों देखना छोड़ दिया था मैंने 

I stand up and move slowly towards my new friends calling me. I close my eyes, spread my wings, and fly away from the loose ends stalling me.

Trapped

“As the moon will soar high in the sky, I will embark on another painful journey. What is a night to me when every moment is dark in my life.

It has been three years, and I am still to know about the happiness he promised me the day we got married. A happiness which I have to derive from serving his happiness, a happiness which I have to derive by being trapped in this house or the happiness I’ll derive by killing my own dreams. Just like every night, his hands like a lizard will crawl on my bare skin that has been polluted by his dirt since day 1.  And as I lay all night staring at the ceiling and shouting in the silence, I wonder if he has ever heard the screams which explodes from every pore of my body. A body he uses to fulfil his thirst every night.

From the silhouette of the bed, every night I see a monster staring at me. It is growing in size by each passing day, and laughs at me, at my misery. I wonder if I should be scared of that monster, or of him.

Last night he came home all drunk, this has become a regular affair in past few months. And whenever he’s drunk, he loves to slap me. However, who am I to say anything, who’s there to listen to me. His family asks me why haven’t I given them a grandson until now, but how can I tell anyone about those lonely evenings I have spent in abortion clinics killing the underdeveloped offspring of this evil. I don’t want my child to grow up in an environment which reeks of hate and helplessness.

This house, which I loved once is clutching me inside its jaws more tightly with each passing day, every corner reminds me of those dreams I killed to get married to him. Every light bulb reminds of the sun that I haven’t seen from past one week since he locked me inside this house for complaining to his mother. Every word of his hits me like a spear and draws a drop of blood. With each droplet I am dying, just like her, my baby, whom he killed because she was also a girl like me.

I think that monster is actually my saviour; I have seen him smiling at me. I guess he’s calling me towards an abyss, a beautiful abyss and today mirror shows me the face of a victim who would prefer death over life any day.

Death over this kind of life.”

—–

He turned over to the next page and it was blank. It was the last page in her diary lying under the bed.

“What did you say, what happened to her?” Inspector asked him after closing the diary and keeping it in his bag.

“Last night when I returned from the office, I saw a window broken and I found a letter in which she has mentioned that she’s going away forever,” her husband answered.

“Jayesh, note down the report and take all the necessary information,” the inspector instructed the constable and walked out of the house.

The early morning sunrays fell on his face as he looked at the diary again. There was an expression of satisfaction on his face while he whispered to the winter wind as if asking them to deliver his message to her,

“Best of luck for a new life.”

He smiled and walked on.

 

Photograph By: Sarika Gangwal

Written By: Abhinav Chandel 

Mr Ahmed and his Diary

 

13th October 2011

“Tuition and computer classes are more important for them than you dad. Will you be answerable if in future they’re not able to bag high paying jobs. Will you give them the luxuries they require with your meagre savings and your idiotic wordplay etc. activities? They don’t need your fables; they need real education which isn’t possible for them as long as you’re around being a distraction.”

“Yes I know they’re your only source of entertainment. Therefore, we’ve decided you to shift to a retirement home where you’ll find many like you. You can talk to them all day long because just like you they’re also free for the rest of their lives.”

“Of course it’s your home and on important occasions you can come here. In fact, we’ll make sure that every year we celebrate your birthday at our home but at this moment you’re becoming an unnecessary burden on us.”

“I guess you should be relieved that I’m not selling this home like Meher wanted. She wanted us to shift to Mumbai with the money we’ll get after selling this house. However, I’ve told her that you’ve struggled a lot to build this house and thus we’re not going to sell it until your death.”

“Yes dad I’ve talked to the authorities, we’ll be leaving this weekend once I’m done with my official tour.”

This was the last conversation I had with him before leaving the house. My son, my dream, my nightmare.

I have no regrets, I have always lived my life on my terms and do not want to be a burden on anyone.

*****

That was the last entry in the diary lying on the berth no. 55, side lower of Goa Express. The owner of this diary had forgotten it on that berth before getting down at his destination. Except this entry, there were entries about the activities with his grandchild, younger generation’s perspective towards life and some related to his late wife.  I looked for the address or any other kind of information about the owner but none was present except ‘Mr Ahmed’ written on the first page.

“Adnan Ahmed M66 55 SL” displayed the 3AC compartment’s reservation chart along with the information that he was travelling from Pune to Gwalior.

“Do you remember this hand towel and the watch?” A police constable came up to me and asked.

He showed me a mustard coloured hand towel and a round dial HMT watch.  The golden polish of watch’s frame was peeling off at places and the black strap wasn’t looking as old as the watch. Certainly the owner of the watch got the strap changed recently, the watch was working perfectly but I noticed there was a crack on it as if it had a fallen off owner’s wrist.

It was Mr Ahmed’s watch. I remembered, asking him the time while waiting for the train to depart from Pune railway station.

*****

“4:30”, the man wearing a white kurta pyjama replied in an emotionless voice. He didn’t even bother looking at the person asking him the time.

There was something about him that attracted me. He looked lost in his own thoughts as I tried hard to concentrate on the novel I had bought to keep me occupied during the journey. However, after every few minutes his presence was distracting me. He had a look of serenity on his face, as if the man had nothing to lose or gain as if he had lived his life without any regrets. A smile was plastered on his face all this while, but it wasn’t a smile of expectation or some beautiful thought, it was an expression of contentment.

I tried striking conversation with him but monosyllables were all I received in reply.

Throughout the journey he kept his head rested on the windowpane and was looking somewhere far, as if searching for a clue amidst the blue sky, beyond those patches of white clouds. And as I sat there, with all the hustle bustle of the train, I found a look of peace and calm on his face. There was something about him, he wasn’t upset, neither was he happy.

 Does he have any emotions? Was the question popping up in my mind whenever I stared at him. Then suddenly he got down, leaving behind his diary at one obscure railway station.

*****

“Do you remember it?” The constable shook me breaking my thought process.

“Yes I do. It belongs to the man sitting on the berth no. 55.”

“Are you sure?” Constable questioned.

“Yes, but what happened?” I asked but constable just thanked me, and left. Before I could ask him again I spotted some blood stains on the hand towel.

“This can’t be true, he didn’t look like a man who….” Then it hit me,

Gwalior was still 2 hours away.

 

 

 

 

 

My morning raaga

No Name No Face: There’s something about backless dresses, Maybe it’s the element of surprise and the fact that from the front, a dress can look totally demure, yet a glimpse of the back reveals exposed skin and a nod to all that makes women alluring. I tried to give it a classical look! – Sarika

Another day, and another morning I’ll spend staring at her. While she sits in the veranda, and lets the sunrays reflect off her beautiful dusky skin. Creating a wonderful maze while making me explore her some more.

This has been a ritual from past few years, every morning she gets up early, takes bath, drapes herself in a piece of cloth and sits there. All this while thinking that I’m sleeping, but I’m not, how could I miss a chance stare at this marvel of nature every morning. Her free flowing hairs are trying to cover her smooth back, it still holds the imprints of my fingers. Her piquant face is staring into the oblivion as her appealing eyes still contains the recollections from last night.

I guess she knows that I am awake, and therefore, I think it’s her way of giving me an early morning gift. I don’t know, maybe, she just wants to spend some time alone and I don’t want to snatch that space from her. Like an emerald her eyes are shinning as she turned her gaze towards the sparrow sitting on the windowsill, I wonder what that sparrow might be thinking. I guess it might be wondering, if it has arrived in the heaven by mistake and is she a goddess?

A goddess with a smile so pure that it makes world a better place every morning. And her neck so alluring, which still doesn’t fail in making me fall into a well of cozy emotions, every time I kiss that slender piece of marvelous artistry.

Every morning as I search for her scent on the bed sheet, my thoughts debate amongst themselves because I am still undecided if she is a human or a fallen angel. Her touch does not feel like a human’s, it still ignites a fire in me whenever her thin and long fingers caress my hair. On the other hand, maybe she is an angel, because how else can I explain the sweetness in her voice that puts me to sleep every night.

I am looking at the mango tree in our courtyard dancing with the wind, I wonder if the tree dances like that every morning as soon as it gets her first glance. She is still lost in her thoughts; I guess she’s wondering how is she going to wake me up. Like every day, by covering my face with her hair, when as always I find myself surrounded by a mesmerizing darkness and then she places a kiss on my forehead, with her soft and enticing lips. Or is she going to make those random figures on my palm with her soft fingertips, she knows I love those innocent games she plays with me.

It has been fifteen minutes, since she is sitting in the verandah next to the lamp. I guess every morning the lamp derives its fire from her skin, and later radiate that brightness to light up our nights. Maybe, just like I derive my life from her presence, every day. In next few minutes, she will get up and walk towards the bed, her anklet will make a soothing sound, to make me aware of her arrival.

And she will walk like a song, a beautiful song with each of her body part creating a hypnotizing tune, and like every morning she will make me fall for her some more. She’s a beautiful song…

My morning raaga.

Photograph by: Sarika Gangwal

Written by: Abhinav Chandel 

Caterpillar and the cutest girl I have ever seen

Lying in the green grass on a December morning, she saw a caterpillar crawling towards her. She observed its movement as it surged towards an unknown destination.

“Atleast it’s still crawling,” she thought while wondering about the difference between herself and that tiny creature. She tried to smile but a tear rolled down her eyes wiping away all the hints of the smile.

Her beautiful skin was glinting the purest of sunrays, and her black hair were weaving magic around the guy sitting a stone throw’s distance from her. His gaze was fixed on her as he tried concentrating on the book he was reading.

She was lost in her own thoughts. Thinking about the days gone by, thinking about ‘him’.

5 and half years ago, when he proposed her in front of the whole batch; it felt like the happiest day of her life. She too loved him but never knew that the person she used to stare through her classroom’s window since her first day in college, would echo the same emotions. She had found a perfect lover in him, as she always wanted. College became an excuse to meet him, late-night phone calls  took place of her dream to be a designer; her grades dropped but their relationship grew from teenage lovers to fiancés.

She remembered the nights that she spent staring at the diamond ring he placed on her soft and slender fingers; everyone said that her fingers made the ring look even more beautiful. She also remembered the nights that she spent staring blankly at the ceiling after she found him in someone else’s arms, a month before their marriage.

Few more tear drops rolled down her cheek; they reflected the sunlight like a pearl into the eyes of the guy sitting nearby. He wanted to approach her, but something stopped him. He decided to observe the girl; he wanted to witness where the next few moments would take her.

She wiped those tears and continued staring at the caterpillar. It had encountered a stone in its way, just like the one she had encountered six months ago. As the caterpillar desperately tried to cross the stone unsuccessfully, her gaze became even more intense. She thought about the five years with her ex, when like an idiot, she threw away her dreams.

The caterpillar took notice of its surroundings, and realized crossing the stone was its only option, or else it would deviate from its path. It started crawling over the stone, again but unsuccessfully and fell down. She almost removed the stone but something stopped her. She decided to observe the creature; she wanted to witness where the next few moments would take it.

Caterpillar stayed immobile for few seconds, as if it was nursing its injuries and repeated the procedure. This time the tiny creature was successful, a faint smile appeared on her lips.

It was her 23rd birthday, as she closed her eyes and took a deep breath. On that December morning, she felt alive once again as the sun had covered her in its warmth; she had finally freed herself from the shackles of his memories but most importantly she felt like smiling for the first time in last six months. Her bangles clinked, producing a beautiful sound as if to celebrate that moment.

She got up, and started walking towards her home. She took a few steps forward and glanced at the boy sitting nearby her. He was reading a book, A thousand splendid suns; it was her favourite novel and something she always wanted her ex to read. She knew that he was staring at her from past few minutes. Suddenly, his face appeared from behind the pages; it was sporting a charming smile. She replied back with one from her side.

“Home and birthday party can wait a bit more,” she thought as she walked towards him with butterflies in her stomach.  She was in love with herself, with the surroundings and I guess with the book reading guy as well. They were happy,

The caterpillar and the cutest girl I have ever seen.

 

Photography by: Sarika Gangwal

Written by: Abhinav Chandel