A Bowl of Elusive

Jab bhi tujhe dekhoon, ankhon mein fariyaad si rehti hai, Hazaron khwahishen hoti hai, aur ek muraad si rehti hai, Tujhe maangoon ya tujhme kho jaaoon yahi sochta rehta hoon, Kyun na jane dhadakte dil ko teri firaaq si rehti hai. Teri berukhi ke charche bhi kar chuka aur misaal bhi de di, Shabdon mein likha dil ki majboori ko, aur labon se guhaar bhi de di, Bas tu kahin kisi ke dhyaan mein baitha hai aise, ki meri dua tujh tak pahunchti hi nahi, Dekh na kaise dil aaj zakhmi hai mera, aur uski pukaar tujh tak pahunchti hi nahi. Ab ummeedon ke jharokhon se jhaankte hai mere armaan kaee, Tere khwaabon ke idgaah mein goonjte hain mere azaan kaee, Aks-e-aarzoo ko tu parakh le ik baar, shayad samajh aayega tujhe, Kitne sooni, kitni banjar reh jaye tere bina ye dil, ki inme koi shaqs na reh paye kabhi. Main har roz teri aane ke intezaar mein raahein taakta hoon, Hawa se teri khabar poochta hoon, fiza se teri khairiyat maangta hoon, Musaafir tu bhi malaal k

Back in 1998, my father used to work for a company called IMFA (Indian Metal Ferro Alloys Limited), as a Security Supervisor at their ICCL campus. ICCL stands for Indian Charge Chrome Limited. Charge chrome of Ferro-Chrome (FeCr) is an alloy of Iron and Chromium with 50% to 70% chromium content. Ferro-Chrome is used in the production of stainless steel and is usually more expensive than silver. The ICCL campus, being a production unit, usually had heaps of Ferro-Chrome store in the open which needed security. Usually, thieves would strike a deal with the security personnel and steal the alloy from the company premises, but my father brought their operation to a halt when he joined. There was even an attempt on his life due to this, which he escaped narrowly.  So, the ICCL factory had this tall chimney kind of a thing which would usually be on fire. It was quite a sight. This one time, my father, my uncle and I were taking a stroll in the colony premises which were adjacent to

My dear readers, I managed to write yet another one of these. This is the sixth chapter of the Siddhant-Ishika story, and I think you’re fed up with it by now. Still, the story continues. Here are the links to the earlier episodes: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 . I would suggest that you go back, read the earlier chapter, if you haven’t already done it and then come back to find out what happened next. Ishika and Siddhant had reached an impasse. Like any great story, theirs had a big conflict in the plot and yet, they weren’t fighting about it. They were calm. A certain routine had set in between them. They kept in touch, neither of them going back on their stance. Ishika, still pining for the man she couldn’t have and Siddhant pining for Ishika, it was like a neatly tied bow tie where Ishika and Siddhant were two ends of the leaf.  More than a month had passed since they first met and Ishika had gone back to her hometown for a week, during which she couldn’

In one of Shah Rukh Khan's older interviews, he said, "I am Allah's chosen one." Was that arrogance? Or was it just confidence? He did go on to become a star. I am not sure how important a role the fact that he considered himself special played in his stardom, but I'd like to believe that it was one of the factors. When I was five years old, I was admitted to a nursery near our place. I was named Abhishek initially. During the roll call, I realized that I was the eighth Abhishek in my class. The obscurity didn't sit well with me. So, I threw a hissy fit when I got home and forced my father to get my name changed to Ian (which was my nickname) on the school register. Ever since, that was something I felt special about, my name, which isn't very common in India. I also felt special about my height because all through school, I was the tallest kid in class. Even with the various hardships that I faced in my young life, I never stopped believing that I

When I woke up in the morning, I was ‘feeling low’. I didn’t feel like going to work. I couldn’t get out of bed as much as I tried. So, I texted my boss that I wasn’t well and I couldn’t come in. He didn’t read the text right away and every passing moment scared me some more. I dropped a few more texts in my team Whatsapp group asking for certain reports and stuff, things I do every day. And then kept staring at the phone waiting for that text from my boss. After a while, his screen indicated that he was typing. I started panicking. What if he asks me to give more details about what was wrong with me? I was bad at lying, I had always been bad at lying. The phone pinged and he’d sent an “ok”. I breathed a sigh of relief and collapsed back on my bed. An hour later, I woke up from a bad dream. That’s when I got a call from one of my stressors. “Stressors” are people/things that invoke anxiety in me. A term I learned from my psychiatrist back in 2015. I suffer from an anxiety disord

My dear readers, this is the fifth chapter of the Siddhant-Ishika story. Here are the links to the earlier episodes: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 |  Part 4 . I would suggest that you go back, read the earlier chapter, if you haven’t already done it and then come back to find out what happened next. Siddhant, like a secure modern man (that he was pretending to be), gave Ishika her space. But inside his heart, not hearing from her was wreaking havoc. Whatever happened between them that night, was haunting Siddhant and Ishika had just withdrawn herself. He was thinking about the promise she had made to him, that she’d never leave. “What happened to that?” he asked himself? And soon, his rampant low self-esteem kicked in. “Have I managed to drive another person away from my life?” he asked himself, with a sense of dread creeping in the back of his mind. That’s when he received a text from Ishika in reply to the one he’d sent. It read, “I just have been busy. I am not going anywhe

Disclaimer: This story contains explicit description of sexual acts with characters of the LGBTQ spectrum, and might not be palatable for all audiences. If you can keep an open mind towards that, read on. I have never written on this topic (LGBTQ) before but I tried to handle it with the sensitivity and the respect it deserves. If I offend any sentiments, it'd be unintended and I would like to apologize in advance. Rishabh had promised himself that he’ll be open to new experiences. He had always had a very high sex drive and an open mind to go with it. His approach to sex could be described as hedonistic and carnal. Fortunately, his partners in the past had shared his knack for wild and exploratory sex. But as anyone who’s ever been addicted to anything, Rishabh needed more and more of it to feel gratified. And after a while, his partners just couldn’t keep up with his escalating need for new and different experiences.  Lisa, his last girlfriend, had walked out on him w