The Tornado

Gigi giggled uncontrollably at Mummy’s funny faces. She was a happy little child. Her curls evoked memories of those perfectly proportioned, porcelain-skinned dolls with cascading blonde hair. Except that Gigi’s curls were black as the night. Anna fed her precious little daughter, burped her and put her to bed.

Gigi was the answer to Anna’s prayers. She remembered clearly the day she was brought home.

The wind shrieked like a temperamental old aunt as the leaves tore themselves away from their floundering canopies. Doors were blasted open as though with the unwavering hand of a cattle gun. Some roofs sailed into the sky like Aladdin’s magic carpet, only it seemed as if the carpets were in a tearing hurry to travel through time. The streets were emptied of their residents in the blink of an eye: now you see them, now you don’t. Tornadoes leave most places looking like ghost towns, didn’t you know? And this one was just getting started.

The house seemed eerily silent when Anna descended into the basement to escape the fury of Nature. She thought she was alone in the house till she noticed the crib in a corner, and then, as she approached it tentatively, Gigi. The helpless little infant had been wailing in her crib for hours, inaudible to anyone in the din of the tempest. The weather seemed to have zapped everyone who cared for her into thin air, temporarily anyway. Her loneliness was palpable.

Anna took one look at her face and fell in love.

A few days later, as she delicately sipped her coffee in a well-appointed room some five hundred miles away, she read in the newspaper: ‘Industrialist and wife mourn the loss of their newborn daughter in last week's tornado. Her body was never found.’

Flies by night

Appu idly watched the flies knocking against each other in the midday sun. They seemed so stupid, he thought to himself. All they were fighting over was a watery ring on the rickety steel table, a remnant of the unappetizing tea he’d just had at the roadside tea vendor’s. He smiled sardonically. Bloody single-winged insects. Ants were much better. Hardworking little things. What did that encyclopaedia call them? Eusocial. He went home to his dark lair, devoid of any sunshine (he preferred it that way) and gave his little friends a warm welcome. Later, as he ate his dinner, rice with a greenish paste, he read out aloud: ‘Charles Thomas Bingham notes that in parts of India, and throughout Burma and Siam, a paste of the green weaver ant is served as a condiment with curry.’

The Artist

‘Unnuda ponnu romba sowbhagyavathi ma’, the astrologer predicted, looking at her little daughter’s hand. Varalakshmi was thrilled. Aha. Oho. She’d given birth to a girl who would be the recipient of good luck. Who knew, maybe some of it would rub off on her, the mother, as well. Maybe she’d get an excellent job when she became an adult, earn lots of money and give her poor old mother some jewellery and pattu sarees every now and then. After all, she was the one who brought her into the world, illiya. Of course her daughter would be grateful, in addition to being lucky and intelligent and pretty and smart.

Then he added, in Tamil, ‘She is going to be an artist.’ Varalakshmi’s forehead filled with furrows as she wondered what art her daughter was going to be proficient at. She’d get the best bharatanatyam, classical singing and painting teachers for her immediately. The younger you teach them, the better, is what most people said. OK, so it wasn’t going to be a job that her daughter would excel at. Who wanted a job anyway? That Padmavathi Amma’s daughter went to her fancy office every day and look what happened? She married a Punjabi. They all had those big turbans on their heads all the time., and someone told her the men all had long hair! And some of them ate non-veg also. Ayyo! Good thing her daughter was going to be an artist. She would be a world-renowned bharatanatyam exponent maybe. Tour the world and be written about in the papers. And in her press conferences she would acknowledge the hard work her mother had put into making her the star she was. She would win awards and cash prizes. And she would get lots of pattu sarees and jewellery as gifts from her admirers which she would pass on to her mother because she wouldn’t need so many. Varalakshmi smiled proudly.

Yes, that’s what she would do. She had to find the best dance, music and painting teachers for her daughter immediately. There was no time to be lost.

Fifteen years later, Varalakshmi picked up the newspaper that the paper boy had thrown on their doorstep, as he had been doing for years now. She adjusted the glasses on her nose and read slowly.

'Con Artist makes away with jewellery worth Rs. 50 lakhs:
A female con artist succeeded in robbing a jewellery shop today in broad daylight. The woman had been alienated from her parents for the last two years and was living in a hostel in Mandaveli. Her mother, Varalakshmi, is a housewife….'

Varalakshmi fainted.

Umbrella Love

The door banged shut, forced to by a powerful gale that acted with invisible hands. She could almost picturise him – him as in Mr.Gale – a tall, brooding type with a cape and large-rimmed hat. She wasn’t quite sure why the gale should be a man, but with that kind of brute force let’s say she didn’t feel all that off the mark that blusterous morning.

Koshy’s was almost empty. There was just one couple sitting at the far end, it being the beginning of the week and a terrible morning at that. She was not as wet as she expected – her trustworthy raincoat had yet again lived up to its name. She extricated herself from the dripping coat and slunk into the closest table, because she wanted to be near the windows. Bad though the weather may have been, she still liked the romance of the rain. Call her a soppy fool – she didn’t care.

As she put her backpack down on the floor next to her, she suddenly noticed a funny little enamel face grinning at her. It was the handle of a colourful umbrella, shaped in a most unique way. Two things attracted her to it at once – first, the myriad of colours on it. She liked most umbrellas that were any shade of anything but black. She hated the boring old black umbrellas. They made her want to scream – everyone and their brother had one, and it was boring, boring, boring. Just not her. She didn’t even own an umbrella, preferring the convenience of a raincoat, but if she did then it would most certainly not be black. That much she knew. So the colorful umbrella endeared itself to her on sight. Then of course there was that handle – that weird little grin. Colourful umbrellas were not that uncommon, but one with a face? Now that she hadn’t seen too many of.

She placed an order for a cup of hot chocolate, and began to examine the umbrella. Whose could it be? And had he or she just left after breakfast or was it a remnant of a boisterous get-together at the restaurant the previous night? And where, oh where had they got the umbrella from? She decided she’d go and buy one exactly like that if she ever found out.

The rain continued to pour across the window-pane, tiny little rivulets blurring the scene outside. She counted them slowly, but soon tired of the exercise. There were too many of them. She turned her attention back to the umbrella and decided to ask the waiter about it. He’d know. Her hot chocolate made its appearance a few minutes later, and she immediately asked the waiter whether he knew whom it belonged to. The waiter looked at it, smiled, and said that it belonged to a regular customer, who’d probably forgotten it when he left after his coffee less than an hour ago. He said he’d make sure it would be returned to its owner, and asked for it so he could keep it safely till the owner came by again.

She was just about to hand it over when she looked at the funny face once more and asked whether she could look at it a bit longer since she thought it was so attractive. The waiter smiled again. He knew her also well, after all. He agreed, and left her to finish her hot chocolate in peace.

Just then, the door banged again. She looked up, and noticed a rather intelligent-looking young fellow in a Che Guevara T-shirt and soaking jeans enter the restaurant. Her mind raced. Could it be him? She saw him walk to the waiter. Should she do what she was thinking? She didn’t know. Her drink stood there untouched.

She decided to go for it. She rummaged in her purse quickly, withdrew some money, put it on the table, grabbed her things and ran out.

In her hand, a funny little face gleamed.

The song of the seasons

The seasons were changing. She could feel the nip in the air, ever so slight, that heralded the beginning of Fall. It was Fall when she first set foot in this country, all those years ago. Most people she spoke to liked Fall. They said they liked the colors - the slow change of the falling leaves as they turned from parrot green to sunflower yellow to russet red and then fell, chocolate brown. Lifeless. But what she liked was the crunching of the leaves beneath her feet when she walked among the trees. She liked the way they dropped down suddenly, making her let out a surprised breath. She liked the paper-like noise and the softness of the ground beneath the spread of brown. There was no Fall back in India. No real color-changing of the leaves, at least not in the metropolises she was used to. Delhi of course had a pseudo-Fall - the weather used to have that by-now-familiar nip in September and October, but that was it.

Soon, winter would come. It would be cold and gloomy for days on end. But winter here also meant Christmas was approaching. She loved Christmas, and the fairyland lights strung up everywhere, making her world seem like a dream. She even liked the snow, though it meant that heater of hers would need turning on after all those months of silence. Snow wasn't always pretty though - she liked the drip-drip-drop flakes but she disliked the dirty slush - again in the cities mainly. She sighed. The cities - those agglomerations of people, multitudes and multitudes of them. She hated them and loved their throbbing pulses at the same time.

She moved on to spring....

Just then, the doorbell rang, its familiar sing-song tone announcing his arrival. He was home. She shook herself out of her reverie, gave one last longing look at the ant-people scurrying about 40 floors below her and slid the window shut.

Loved for a moment

Her heart jumped. She could feel the blood rushing to her cheeks. He sat staring at her. She didn’t know what she was feeling, or why. Worse, she didn’t know what he was thinking. She didn’t think she wanted to. What a fool she was! Why did she have to say it after all? That she loved him with every inch of her being – always had, ever since she knew him. He reminded her of Prince Charming in those fairy-tales she used to read in primary school. What would he think? He - the smart, intelligent, funny, entertaining type. He - also the brooding, dependable, sensitive type. He – her type. A person like him could have anyone he wanted. Why would he want her? She stood thinking all these thoughts without really being in the present. She was in the past – remembering those books, and her thoughts when she used to read those books. Anne of Green Gables. She’d always loved the series. The mischievous good-looking Gilbert who becomes the even more good-looking, sensible and serious Dr. Blythe, who always was moved by Anne, the fiery, tempestuous, rebellious Anne. The other way around actually. It was the story of Anne, and not Gilbert… She wasn’t paying any attention to him anymore. She didn’t notice his eyes lighting up when she said it. She didn’t notice the happiness on his face. She was too lost to notice anything. Berating herself, she started to turn away. She started running out. They’d been in Barista, on the high street. As she ran onto the street, a car came at her honking madly. The lights blazed in her face. He ran behind her, shouting her name. She froze, framed in the lights. He dropped at her side, the single-stone diamond ring clasped within his wrist. He’d had it ever since he knew her. He’d waited for this day forever, being too shy to muster up the courage to tell her what he felt. The ring fell on the paved road, now smattered with her blood.

The colour of her eyes

Writing is panacea for the soul. It is therapeutic – this is what I’ve always believed. It’s just that in this day and age, with SMS and e-mail making things so much more convenient – not to mention quick – writing often takes a backseat. Sitting in a train on the way from Calcutta to Kanpur, however, I took out my stationery and began to write. Its something I planned to do, and the absence of any irritating co-passengers helped. The continuous rocking motion of the train didn’t, but that’s another matter! _______ The colour of her eyes. Dark chocolate-brown. She looked unblinkingly at the two children begging opposite, a short distance away, as she waited for the bus. The younger boy was looking to the older girl for a signal on whether to touch the man’s feet for money or not. The girl, dirty and clad in a short polka-dotted dress, was standing passively, her hips thrust out in an almost disturbingly evocative manner for a child her age. She’d seen similar enough scenes enough times in the past, when she used to travel by train to go home from college. She’d wanted to work for the underprivileged then. But that was before she got accustomed to the coke at the parties. Her life spiralled out of control and she was on the verge of dying when she was pushed to the AA meetings by Varun, who finally discovered her ugly secret. He was so proud of her for coming back to his life the way he’d known her before it all happened. And she was going to marry him in a few months. She didn’t want to do social work anymore though. She believed there were people who could do that better than her. ‘Know your strengths’, someone had once told her. She wanted to be an author now. She went quietly back to reading her book. _______ The colour of her eyes. Soot black. She was tired of this rigmarole day after day. She longed to run and play in the fields she knew when she was younger in rural Bihar. She longed to study in school again and learn about planets and the moon and the pretty shiny lights in the sky. Moving to the city had made her life awful. Her family didn’t even earn enough money to have food three times a day, forget becoming rich like they said would happen. Papa hadn’t been able to get a good job as easily as they thought. The lady who lived next door to them in the slum had told her mother to instruct her to stand like that, jutting her hips out, so that they could get some money to ‘help the family expenses’. She hated it. She looked at the fair girl in the pants and long T-shirt reading a book nearby. She wanted to be like her. She decided with renewed determination that she would study. She would study at night and pay for it by doing something else during the day – not this horrible work. A bright smile played on her face as she had the idea. She shook her head to say ‘No’ to her little brother, who was looking for the signal.