A Bowl of Elusive

पुराने खतों में... पुराने खतों में तेरी मजबूरी के अल्फाज़ देखता हूँ, मेरी ज़ुल्मों की दास्ताँ बयान करते पन्नों में तेरी आंसूवों के दाग देखता हूँ। मैं पलट सकता वक़्त को तो शायद हमारी कहानी किसी और तरह लिखता, बहुत दूर निकल आया हूँ सफर में, तब भी कभी कभी तेरे ख्वाब देखता हूँ। वाकिफ़ हूँ इस बात से की अब उन यादों का कोई मोल नहीं रहा, मेरे संगीन ज़ुल्मों को तू माफ़ करे ऐसा मैं बोल नहीं रहा। वैसे गलतियाँ तो तुझसे बिछड़ने के बाद भी हुई मुझसे कई बार, मैं सोचता हूँ की मेरे अच्छे और बुरे कर्म क्यूँ कोई तोल नहीं रहा। मैं नास्तिक हूँ वैसे तो जन्नत और जहन्नुम को मानता नहीं, पर अगर वह है भी तो मेरे हिस्से में क्या आएगा मैं जानता नहीं। तेरे बद्दुआओं का हकदार तो में हमेशा से ही था लेकिन, कभी कभी आईने में जिस शख़्स को देखता हूँ, उसे में पहचानता नहीं।   सोचता हूँ तेरे बाद के फैसले इतने नापाक थे कैसे, हाथ पकड़ के संभाला था तूने, मेरे बेअंग जीवन की तू बैसाखी थी जैसे। तुझसे जुदा राहों में खुशियों ने दामन ऐसे छुड़ाया, मेरे ज़िंदगी की किताब कोई और लिख रहा हो जैसे। 

Up until last year, we had employed a cook, whose cooking left a lot to desire. So we ended up ordering a lot of food from restaurants as we were unhappy with the food she cooked. After a while, we compared the expenses and decided it would be better if we let the cook go and ate outside or toggled cooking ourselves and eating out. So we gave her a month's notice and then I started cooking for two. Now my approach to cooking is simple - I follow recipes, which means I like things the way they should be. For instance, if I am making noodles, my carrots would be cut into super-fine juliennes and that is a time-consuming process of cooking. My wife insists that she would be happy with a lot less and maybe she would be, but I just can't get myself to compromise on my process.  It usually takes me whole afternoons to cook these meals - it's a lot of work, but I love it when a meal turns out well. I don't make very fancy stuff, just usual Indian dishes but the way they are tr

For all the fans of romance out there, I am back with the fifth installment of the Angela & Eric saga. We go beyond the mushy and romantic in this one - into one of those testing moments that pave way for the time to come. For people who just landed on this page, here's the link to Part 1 , Part 2 , Part 3 & Part 4 . Go play catch up and come back to read this one. I know romance sells. I know that when you write romance, you write about the happy stuff, the relationship milestones, the first kiss, the first time they make love, the confession of undying love. Yet, in real life, the fights a couple has defines the mettle of their relationship. To reach the point in time that Eric and Angela are at, they had to navigate several serious fights which tested their intentions and eventually made them realize what they meant to each other. Angela and Eric loved to talk to each other. They could just sit there discussing this and that – their work lives, their life experiences, t

Towards the end of her life, my grandmother was barely the person I once knew. Years of suffering and pain, having lost her oldest son, followed by her husband and then her last son had left her a hollow shell of the person she was when I was five or six, when times were happier. So many things plagued her in the last of her days – she often asked herself why God had let her live for so long, while all her loved ones succumbed before her eyes. She not only had her own sorrow, but she had to live through the sorrows and pain of all her loved ones. Dementia started setting in towards the end and she barely recognized me the last time we met and maybe I was relieved. She deserved the much deserved detachment from her reality. You see when I look back at my folks and the people that they were, I often judge my grandmother  with the harshest set of ideals. She was deeply flawed, as compared to my grandfather or my father and uncle. She had a temper. The caste based biases were deeply ingrai

I know I have been missing in action for a while and that's because I was dealing with some personal crap. For the four or five people who read the shit that I write, I am back with the fourth installment to the Eric and Angela story. And for those who are joining just now, here's the link to Part 1 , Part 2 and Part 3 . Go play catch up before you read this. Or not. I can't tell you what to do.  *** Eric lay awake in his bed, reminiscing the events of that fateful night that he spent with Angela at that hotel. Had he been “just seeking sex”, he could have chalked that night as a win and moved on to the next conquest, but this guy wanted more, he wanted her heart and that’s why the following day felt more like a win than the night before. She was leaving, feeling dirty and repentant about their night together and Eric had broken down. Eric knew he had at least some claim to Angela’s heart when she decided to stay when he promised to keep it platonic.   Moreover

This is the second part of the “Eric & Angela” series. Click here for Part 1 . A million thoughts ran through his head when Eric drove six odd kilometers to meet Angela. She had mentioned that the café they were meeting at was pretty close to where she lived, she preferred to walk. That is why she had chosen it for their first meeting. He had seen her pictures and he had heard her voice and they had talked to their heart's content but the two had not met yet. This was the fateful day, Eric thought to himself. The voice in his head often became a pompous news anchor and started narrating his own life to him when Eric got nervous.  “Eric being the neurotic son-of-a-bitch that he is, doesn’t want to be late for the first date. As Angela has reminded him thrice now, it isn’t a date. However, he is excited and has butterflies in his stomach, more than he had ever had before. In his excitement, Eric is trying to imagine what Angela looks like when he should be concentrating on the ro

Just when you think you know yourself, just when you feel like you’ve seen and felt it all, that nothing could surprise you, something comes up and it changes the whole dynamic. Describing Eric as a cynic would be the understatement of the century. He was a caustic, bitter, and sarcastic thirty-year-old going about his life like a clumsy fool, tripping on the various hurdles that life’s journey threw at him. In his three decades on this planet, Eric had seen various facets of the drama that life offered – death, grief, love, heartbreak; you name it, he had seen it. Eric was someone who had very rigid notions about the world, which he believed to be absolute truths because they were based on his real-life experiences. But as I mentioned at the beginning of this paragraph, some things just change the game. Angela wasn’t a stranger. Eric had known her for over a year, having connected with her through a dating site. She was someone who’d fascinated our protagonist right from the beginning

My dear readers, this is the final chapter of the Siddhant-Ishika story. Here are the links to the earlier episodes:  Part 1  |  Part 2  |  Part 3  |  Part 4  |  Part 5 | Part 6 . I would suggest that you go back, read the earlier chapters, if you haven’t already done it and then come back to find out what happened at the end . In his endless pursuit of love with Ishika, Siddhant had laughed and he'd cried. And Ishika had been there with him, merely in spirit. Because it was clear that her heart wasn't available for love. But Siddhant persevered with an indomitable resilience, which was kind of pathetic actually. Siddhant was hungry for affection like so many of us are and in his hunger, he couldn't see that what he perceived as affection was just Ishika's 'altruism', for the lack of a better word. This was a house of cards and it was destined to tumble down. This is that story. Ishika had been in his arms and in his soul and yet, for all intents and

Akriti shivered a little as a gust of Ryan's warm breath hit the back of her neck. She had no clothes on. And neither did he. The room was cold and every touch was magnified in impact as Ryan's inquisitive hands explored Akriti's  delicate curves. He alternated between his fingers and his palm, moving them in a symphony of sorts over her naked and thirsty skin. And as he did so he buried his face into her luscious bunch of hair and sniffed in the perfume in it. His heartbeat rushed as he felt her back touching his bare body. He placed a light kiss on her head, and then another one. Even in the lust of that moment, there was a certain wide eyed honesty in Ryan's movements that was making Akriti go weak in her knees. And that was so unlike her. You see Akriti wasn't born yesterday. She'd seen her share of broken relationships and lying men to trust someone so easily, and yet, here she was, hours after meeting this guy, in his arms, feeling vulnerable an

I have been feeling lonely lately. Let me rephrase that: I have been pretty lonely lately. And this isn't just any loneliness, it's existential loneliness. In simple words, I've been feeling like I have no one and nothing to live for. Just today, after many days of hectic work, I found some time to sit back and relax, and I found myself searching for the purpose of life - on YouTube, like the lost millennial that I am. I came across some videos by Sadhguru and the like, but they were way too vague for my taste. You see, my question isn't existential or figurative, its more literal. I am looking for a reason to live, and I don't see one. I am just curious to know, what do people live for? What is the whole purpose of us being here? See, I have always been a bit of a skeptic, never bought into the concept of a deity or a higher power. And in the last few years, I lost most of the people I felt connected to. Wasn't all to Death, so don't be sorry for me.

I was returning to Mumbai after having lived in Singapore for nearly seven years. The connecting flight through Chennai was late by two hours, so I was listlessly wandering around the airport, browsing through the plethora of overpriced food and merchandise at the outlets, when I noticed her, a blast from my past. A vaguely familiar face, bright and shimmery, crimson lips so full of life. The years had no effect on her appearance, Sumiran looked just like she had the day I first set eyes on her. You know the kind of beauty that renders you breathless? That’s what Sumiran was like. And it wasn’t just the flawless skin or the golden complexion, it was her eyes and the way they nestled on that elusive form. I took a deep breath and changed my course to avoid bumping into her, praying she didn’t notice me. I know what you’re thinking. No, she wasn’t an ex. But we did go way back. And the history we shared wasn’t the most savory one. Back in 2006, Shreya, my girlfriend had complained