Life Imprisonment
16:47 - Posted by Shilpa K - 0 comments

Memories of his inglorious past erupted in Chris’ head again. This time more strongly than any night before. The helpless cries of the victim, the piercing sound of the breaking glass on his head, the blood that splattered on his face like a Holi of a different kind; the kind that had destroyed faith and instilled fear. He woke up once again fighting those flashes that were as good as real, wiping the beads of sweat that had lined his forehead with his trembling fingers, fleeing his mind from those images like how he had fled after the act that night; that night of the Twenty Fourth Day of the month of October, Year 1991.

It was their night of graduation from St. Lauren’s College of Arts; the night when the two fraternity groups, in their last attempt to establish their supremacy over the other, engaged in a brawl that ended in a brutal fight. About 40 young men in their mid-twenties, with fire raging in their hearts, and a sense of belongingness that felt even stronger in their drunken stupor, ravaged the dingy dimly lit pub, arming themselves with anything the place could offer from wooden chairs, to glasses, to bottles, to Swiss-knives that many carried in their pockets, flicking them open and charging the faces that appeared suddenly from the darkness. Swollen faces with bloody distributaries running crisscross on them. But it wasn’t enough. There was much to be done. Much more harm before they proved themselves invincible.

Chris continued too, anger and hatred rushing out in palpable waves through his supple limbs. The smell of fresh blood, mixed with sweat had filled the place. The sounds of destruction and anguish echoed from the walls. Broken pieces of glass and wood lay on the floor along with the defeated souls wincing in pain. The warriors continued though, bravely, determined, with a sense of purpose, as if their reason for existence was that night.

As he stood firmly on the ground, looking out for attackers, his rival emerged in front of him, weak and injured. His eyes couldn’t hold a steady glance, and he kept rolling them. Chris could sense he was vulnerable but had not yet accepted defeat. He kept uttering words that died in the mayhem before reaching Chirs’ ears and he believed they were acrimonies that he hurled in defense. Without a second thought, Chris thrashed a half consumed bottle of bear onto his head, and the victim collapsed. This time his eyes were steady, fixed straight into Chris’ brown eyes. The frothy bear had washed his face that lay on the ground along with his motionless body. With the coup de grace, his blood had splattered on Chris’ face and he could feel the metallic taste of blood on his tongue. Chris stepped back, as his mind comprehended the situation despite the chaos around. He turned around and fled. He ran until his cold feet and shaky legs could carry him.

Twenty two years since that day, Chris still has nightmares about it. For the nation the incident was an outburst of college animosity. Those who were severely injured had long recovered, and were living a life without guilt. The one death which was reported that night was lost in their memories over the years. The cries, the pain, the taste of blood – they didn’t feel it anymore. The newspapers had reported the death to be an outcome of repeated abuse to the victim and had held no single person guilty. Twenty two years later, the truth still was left untold. Twenty two years later, Chris was still battling the guilt, serving a lifetime of imprisonment in his nightmares.





Sunaina
16:42 - Posted by Shilpa K - 0 comments
It was a late sunny morning in October and Sunaina was still in the bed dressed in her pale blue gown. Her sparse silver hair that barely reached her shoulders were spread unevenly on the soft cotton pillow that rested her head. The wrinkles on her face were more prominent around the corners of her deep set grey eyes. The sparkle of her eyes often deceived her age. She was 75. But ever since she was admitted to the Medical Trust she believed she was sixteen. They celebrated her birthday more than once in a year, each time her birthday candles spelled her age as 16. They didn’t know if she could decipher the number on the birthday candle but once when they had put a candle of a different age, she declined to cut the cake.
Her room was tidy, its walls painted in a soothing cream color, that made the room appear larger than it actually was. The tiles were immaculate except when Sunaina came out of the bathroom on her own, when her care-taker Bindu was away. The wall in front of her bed had a large soft board filled with pictures of smiling faces of her family. Her mind carried no memories of those times or the people. Sometimes she had difficulty remembering even simple everyday tasks like having a bath or eating her meals. Her stubborn self had to be reminded and coaxed into doing them. Bindu had mastered the art of cajoling her into doing those tasks. Hailing from the north-east province of the country, she had a natural sweetness to her tone, with tenderness in her words and an aura of calmness that appeased Sunaina when she grew aggressive.
Bindu was of a short, slightly stout built. She always dressed in denims and pastel colored tops that complimented her peach colored skin and blunt features. She had fled from her hometown in search of a different life. The life she led now in the constant company of Sunaina, whom she lovingly addressed as Sunaina Pishi, was different in a lot of ways. Bindu did not know the exact age of Sunaina Pishi but she guessed she must be really old, older than her grandmother who lived back in the village. Her grandmother was the oldest person she had encountered before meeting Sunaina Pishi. That made her admire Sunaina Pishi even more, as if her age symbolized some sort of rarity that Bindu had never experienced in her life before.
Handmade greeting cards made by her grandchildren were pinned on the soft board too. Their open ends flapped occasionally when the ceiling fan rotated overhead on hot summer days. The children had drawn six stick figures that were holding hands and had written ‘Happy Family’ on the top just in case it wasn’t evident from the picture. They had filled the background with multi-directional strokes of their wax crayons. The words inside were unaligned and drifted upwards on an invisible trajectory.
There was a large window beside Sunaina’s bed and when she rested in an upright position, she could see the vast expanse of clear blue sky during the day. On certain nights it used to be studded with stars. Sunaina gazed for long hours into the cosmic hues day or night, and smiled occasionally. She barely slept or winked.
Five years ago her son Sumeet and his wife Prerna had come to have her admitted at the Medical Trust on the advice of their doctor, who had confirmed that Sunaina had progressed into the next stage of Alzheimer and required a full time care-giver. Today, when they had come to bid her goodbye, she didn’t acknowledge their presence like any other day when they had come to visit her. They sat silently, on the edge of the iron bed opposite Sunaina and watched her in equal measures of admiration and empathy.
In her slurred speech she was having an animated conversation with Bindu. Bindu was nodding in excitement, as if she could comprehend the broken words. Suddenly, Sunaina burst out into peals of laughter and attempted to clap. At first her hands met by accident but did not produce any sound. She tried again, this time her hands farther away from each other, swinging aimlessly in the air. By now the doctor had updated Sumeet and Prerna that Sunaina’s motor skills had started to deteriorate. Unsuccessful at her attempts, she underwent a sudden mood change and bowed her head low through her stooping shoulders, as if from shame or embarrassment. But she had forgotten those feelings long ago. She engaged in what seemed like an endless stare at the immaculate tiles on the floor, her grey shadow reflecting from the tiles staring blankly at her in return.
Bindu held Sunaina Pishi by her weak shoulders and rested them gently on the soft cotton pillow, on the incline of her bed. Sumeet rose up, clenching the bag that carried some of the old photographs and knick-knacks that had occupied a special place in her heart a few years ago. She had a story to tell about each of them whenever they had friends or relatives visiting them. He arranged them on the side-table one after the other, each time being reminded of something special that had happened in their lives when his mother was with them, physically and emotionally. Today although she was alive, in her present state their family had already inherited loss. Like a word that has a silent syllable, their family was complete with her, yet without her.
Sunaina was oblivious to the little arrangement that had now occupied the table, or her son who was next to her arranging it. Her eyes were fixed at the ceiling. Her face bore no expression. Prerna walked up to her mother-in-law, and placed a box made of thin cane filled with golden Champa beside her. The moment Prerna opened its lid, the heady fragrance of the flowers filled the room and distracted Sunaina from her gaze in a way that the presence of her kin had not distracted her. Sunaina looked at box and smiled, her deep set grey eyes twinkling brilliantly as she cast them on the heap of the bright yellow flowers.

Sumeet and Prerna walked out of the room, closing the door behind them, contented that their mother had offered them a smile as a parting gift and acknowledged their presence in her own mystical way. That smile was all they had of her to carry with them to the US when they were leaving that night. It weighed heavier than any of their belongings.


The Little Secret
16:39 - Posted by Shilpa K - 0 comments
The Little Secret

Reena was a housewife, mother of two and a graduate in science. It had been about fifteen years since she last woke up to the sound of an alarm clock. Every day since then her eyes bid goodbye to her dreams before the break of dawn. Today was no exception.  In an instant she sprung up from the bed and placed her hand confidently on the snooze button of the alarm clock and deprived it yet another opportunity to chime to life, almost triumphantly. The milky white marble floor was still cold from the nip in the night air, as she placed her bare feet onto it. She coiled her hair into a bun and knotted it dexterously without the need of a hairpin to hold it up.

An hour later Pratik, her husband, woke up to his cup of tea by his bedside and a copy of the newspaper – news of murders, rapes and accidents making gory headlines, the colorful supplements brimming with discounts of the festive season offering a stark contrast to the realities of the world. The thick dark velvet curtains were drawn far apart, and tied together at the end of the French window with handmade tassels, allowing the first rays of the sun into the room. They rendered a touch of fiery gold to the henna streaks in Reena’s thick hair. The room was filled with the scent of her sandalwood bath soap. As she scurried around the room she left behind an exotic mix of fragrances stemming from her hair, body and the soft cotton saree that was draped hastily around her slender built with its loose end tucked neatly at the waist. The bright red vermillion in the partition of her hair added a dash of color to the pale facial features and the dull shades of her cotton saree. The usual morning orchestra continued to play in the kitchen, the pressure cooker hissing and whistling, the metal utensils clanging, water gushing, the microwave beeping and the mixer roaring as it grinded tiny pieces of coconut into a fine paste. As he watched her multi-task, Pratik imagined her to be the Goddess Durga with twelve arms from the photos of deities that hung in various corners of their house. She exhibited the same level of energy and confidence. It was only unfortunate that she was human and a woman and that made no one regard her as highly or worship her like the Goddess.

After the morning cacophony ended, when the kids were off to school and the husband at work, Reena found her piece of solitude. She looked at the watch strapped to her wrist, flakes of leather peeling off from its skin. She reminded herself to drop by the watchmakers shop over the weekend to have it replaced. Secretly she hoped her husband would surprise her with a new one. She had hinted at it in more than one ways. The clock read, 12:29 pm. It would be an hour and a half before her daughter Shreya would be back from school. She tuned into the radio to listen to her favorite radio show. It played soft music interspersed with some easy-to-cook recipes which Reena experimented with for the children’s evening snack. She pulled out the drawer of the old walnut almirah that was heavy with stacks of unorganized photos of numerous occasions or no occasions at all, some of them already having borrowed a yellowish tinge from the slightly damp air, some others marred with fingerprints left behind from not holding them gingerly at the sides as Reena had always insisted. Reena sifted through the pile of pictures trying to arrange them chronologically, preserving some special ones on the empty leaves of an old album. The photos carried her back to a world that now seemed to have been left far behind, light years away! The pictures of her uncle who had passed away unexpectedly, her friend from college who had battled cancer, her cousin who hadn’t called her in three years after a petty argument they had had, her granny who had not lived long enough to see her great grandchildren…memories kept flashing back and tears surged in her eyes, her throat choked as if it had just ended a long conversation, and her head felt heavy like how her husband sometimes complained when he returned home late from office parties. She dumped those pictures in a box, shut it close and hid it in the farthermost corner of the drawer. The radio hummed the song “Yaadein” in the background.

She decided to treat herself to the happier times captured in the photographs. She was amazed at how quickly time flies. She wondered if her son would choose to be an engineer like his father, or would he follow his passion for sports? She mulled over the thoughts of her daughter who was growing up to be a pretty lady. Would she sacrifice her career to look after her family, or would she be more ambitious and pursue it alongside? She wondered if a few years from now, would the children still be around or would they be traveling the world to follow their dreams. She shuddered at the thought of going to bed for days on end not having heard their voice, of living on the other side of the world, in two geographically and culturally estranged countries.

Just as she had started to drift in the thoughts, she glanced at her watch. It was past 03:00 pm and her daughter had not returned from school. Panic gripped her momentarily, until she reached out to her dairy of telephone numbers. Little glossy tags carrying the alphabet stuck out from the right border to form an index. She ran her thumb down as if she was mentally rehearsing the alphabet until she reached “F” for Friends and opened the leaf that carried about 10 numbers in order of decreasing amiability. She dialed the numbers frantically, one after the other, redialing the ones that were busy, asking the same set of questions on every call, but garnered no clues on her daughter’s whereabouts. After 20 minutes of the relentless phone calls, the doorbell buzzed, a quick sequence of three, a signature way in which the kids and the husband announced their arrival.

Reena rushed to the door, flung it open and barked.

“Where’d you been? All your friends have been back from school more than an hour back. Riya tells me you didn’t leave with her. Look at me, will you?

“Why did you have to call up all my friends? It’s so embarrassing. I would have been home anyway”

“Now will you please tell me what took you so long? It’s not easy to be the mother of a 14 year old daughter, with the kind of things that are happening in the city. You read the newspapers don’t you?”

“I need time to talk about this. But I assure you there’s nothing to be worried about.”

With that her daughter left a furious Reena with an obstinate silence and a mind clouded with wandering thoughts that fluttered like wild butterflies of what her daughter could have possibly been up to in those sixty minutes. A woman in doubt paints some of the most complex of images; churns out some of the most forbidden thoughts and plays them repeatedly in her head to satiate the hunger of her ravenous mind. The thoughts that floated in her mind made Reena feel queasy and restless. Her pale face which always seemed flushed of color suddenly turned crimson. As she frowned, the skin of her forehead wrinkled like the creases on her cotton saree. She walked around heavily from one room to another finishing her chores, thumping and banging whatever she could so that her hysteria doesn’t go unnoticed. Her lips quivered in fury and she pursed them together, lest they let out words sharp as a blade that could slay and ravage a little heart. She sank in her bed and with it in her quagmire of hassled thoughts.

She could feel her heart pump blood vigorously through her body; she could feel it was warm. She could hear herself breathe, faster than when she climbed the flight of stairs with bags of vegetables clubbed in one hand and the pleats of her saree in the other. She could feel her body tremble and shiver more than when she had to step into the cold shower early morning. Even with her eyes closed she could sense Rhea had tip-toed into her room. She resolved to keep her eyes shut and ignore the presence of her daughter who by now had crawled next to her into the bed, until she felt the soft, gentle touch of her hand on her cheeks. She opened her eyes that were sore from fighting back tears. Through her blurry vision she could see the little hand sticking out close to her reindeer nose, holding a box wrapped in cellophane and tied with a lovely pink bow. It read ‘Happy Birthday Mommy!’

“This is why I was late from school!” she exclaimed with a wide smile drawn across her face!  “I went shopping for it with Dad. He dropped me back home. You were so upset; I couldn’t keep it from you! It’s a wristwatch.” With those words she wrapped her arms around her mother and buried her head in the pillow next to Reena’s.

As the words fell on her ears, Reena regained her poise that had been strewn in bits like the shards of broken glass that cut some of the deepest wounds never to heal. She shut her eyes tightly and let the tears flow incessantly; this time out of relief. She felt the peace of a thousand splendid sunsets and her heart felt light and free like a thousand doves that headed into them. She hugged her daughter and whispered, “I was so scared!” She felt miserable for having forced her daughter to reveal what was otherwise a well-planned surprise.

“It’s okay! But just don’t tell Daddy that you know yet!”

“I promise!”

The following Sunday, the kids gathered around her wearing colorful birthday hats, singing the famous Happy Birthday song, clapping and doing a little Macarena to their own tunes and yelled “Surprise!” Out came the familiar box wrapped in cellophane with the pink bow, the words ‘Happy Birthday Mommy!’ written in Shreya’s bold cursive handwriting, the Titan Logo visible through the translucent packing.

“Thank you so much! It’s what I always wanted” Reena smiled gratefully.


“Dad and I picked it up last week after my football classes,” chirped little Riyan innocently, forcing a big piece of the chocolate cake in his tiny mouth, crushing Rhea’s alibi and stealing the happiness that they had just gifted Reena.