A Bowl of Elusive

If you reach a certain address at the Greenfield School Lane in Sambalpur, Odisha, you’ll come across a big green walled house. That’s my house. My permanent residence. Even though I haven’t lived there for over twelve years now. The earliest memories I have of this house is from 1996 or 1997 when I would come here for the holidays. It was my grandparents’ place back then. And my father would get me here whenever he could. Of course, I’d been here before but that’s only as far as I can remember. I loved coming here because it was a break from my otherwise troublesome life.  And I remember the house being very different from how it is now. The architecture didn’t change but the house’s identity did. For example, when my grandfather was around, the central hall always had this smell of Colgate tooth powder that he used to clean his dentures with and even now, that smell invariably reminds me of him. And the kitchen used to be my grandmother’s kingdom. The kitchen, with walls c

A strange thought cropped up on my mind today. What if humans didn’t need sex? I know the whole purpose of sex is reproduction, but what if human beings didn’t need sex to reproduce. What if they just grew people in labs? Or what if people lost the urge to have sex one day? How would that change the world? What started as a random weird thought took the form of an anthropological debate inside my head. Would romance even exist if sex didn’t? There’s parental love, there’s love between siblings and friends, but would there ever be the romantic love between couples if sex wasn’t in the equation at the first place? For that matter, would couples exist if not for sex? People woo each other and court each other because there’s that sexual tension, that chemistry which comes from the potential of sexual congress. Wonder what would be the base of relationships if the sexual tension was eliminated completely. Would relationships even exist or would people just live alone in single pers

Ever since I was a little kid, I faced a lot of hostility at the hands of a lot of people, be it my own mother, the bullies at school, my abusers, bullies at college or several other nameless individuals. But I rarely retaliated. I internalized the whole experience and made myself impervious to hurtful things. And I did that with the help of defense mechanisms. Now these defense mechanisms vary in size, shape and nature. Let me dive into a few of them today, to give you a beginners' tour into the dark twisted alleys of my mind. A colleague recently told me that my boss was taunting me about something during an official con-call. And I had completely missed it. You see, that's not me being naive, it's my mind filtering out negativity. This started out when I was younger. After my parents went through a pretty long and scandalous divorce, being from a small town in a relatively backward state in the country, my folks and I had a lot of people randomly saying derogatory

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