Thousands exhult, rejoice, regret. Salman took to the stage, like a fish to water. Crowds thronged the local gymkhana to hear him, with his false promises and what not. Hope is a funny thing. 4 years older, yet babes of infinite innocence. Saman bhai zindabad! Bhai! bhai! Hamare bhai! Voices resonated as Mr. Promise bestowed the stage with his benign presense. Justice to those denied, food for the hungry, illuminition for those lurking in the dark! Mr. Promise grew, upwards and sidewards, in all forms. Arms and knees, knees and arms. Until he grew too heavy and...kapooch.

What happened afterwards, has been subject of a thousand books. All thrilling political satires ofcourse. Critics termed it a catastrophe. And on the auspicious occasion, a struggling shayar proclaimed Kaha woh jannat, aur kaha yeh jahanum? It is not my job to judge, I am simply a story teller. The events are henceforth:

The crowd pregnant with their 12th dose of hope grew restless as Mr. Promise grew. The excited voice of young white kurta-pyjama clad poilition failed to excite. His words failed after the initial uproar that oft follows a grand unveiling.

I'm sure there is a reasonable explanation for what happened next. However, it is beyond my comprehension why somebody decided to reduce the foor fellow to the ground and have him swim in his own blood?

And so writers hurried to there desk. Records were made. Names of all those that perished in the violence that ensued were iscribed. A grand monument erected. I was deeply saddend, but then my wife announced her pregnancy and I was happy.

Salman came out of the safety of his mothers womb 9 months hence. I wasted no time in the removal of his foreskin, bestowing upon him the honour of his heritage. It's a sad thing no-one told me that the absence of this epidermis would one day leed to his unfortunate demise. It's a shame I never got to vote for him.

Inject in my veins a dream, let it run within me, through a struggled heart and around again. Impegranate my mind with the sperms of imagination, let them form into a foetus of what is not and be grown into a babe of awesome illusion, of crazed deception. Allow me, Oh most benevolent, most merciful to gestate what grows within me for the rest of my short life.

I am happy when I am delirious. When I'm injected with dreams, when all of this feels unreal...when I am lost. Ecstasy. I am wrapped in the warmth of belief. There is a second world yaara! I am 110 percent sure of it! You don't believe me? Here, here. Inject, vroom there! Off you go.

It's slow, almost static. But you're protected. This building, sirjee. Absolutely, fire proof. Here, the fierce flames of what actually is, lick along the walls. At their strongest, all frames united, even then, they fail to penetrate into this second world.

I am knee deep in reminiscence today. As I tread deeper, the pains bridled are unleashed in forms of great guffaws of laughter. It's strange, but here nothing is strange. What is and what isn't? I am miles from any traces of reality.

Fuck this. Give me another dream. So really unreal.

The shore is miles afar. And my body is caressing, moulding into the bed of the sea. I wonder why I treadled so far into the depths of my soul? Only wafts of my crackling remain. A dying flame lingers, fanned desperately by the moths of hope.

And just then, a miracle. I am transported with soul, to my beloved second world, and my body finds it place at the bottom of the sea.

A letter to my father.

I remember being perched outside my window, in the chill of winters, watching the world pass me by. I’d be standing there for hours in the evening, waiting for you to come back from work. And sometimes the sun had set and you still weren’t back I’d always wonder what was so important that  kept you away?

You’d always come back though, sometimes later than I expected and I’d have to stand out a little longer. But you’d be there for sure, every single night. I’d run up our corridor and open the door for you and you’d pull me up in your arms. Sometimes, Maria would get there before me. And you’d pull her into your arms first. I didn’t like it when that happened.

And then you’d put you’d look at ammi and you’d ask, koi chitti patri? Koi phone call? And everyday we went through the same routine.

Then one day, something happened . It was strange. I didn’t want to play cricket with you anymore. And I stopped waiting for you to come back. Sometimes, I wished you didn’t come back. You’d just tell me to study right? What was the point of that? I didn’t know what was happening, I didn’t understand these changes. Now I think about it and it makes some sense to me. I grew up.

You handled it with an air of indifference. You gave me my space. Surely, it must have been difficult for you? But you were composed. You let me make my mistakes but you were sure to make sure I learned from them.

I read somewhere that by the time a man realizes his father was right, he has son who thinks he is wrong. I still have 10 years at least before I’m a father, so I guess it’s safe to say I realized just in time.  

Love, Ahmar.

Ps: Thanks for the two best gifts you ever gave me, words and a sense of humour.

Dear Life,

Yield point is the maximum amount of load a material can take before fracture and Elasticity is the ability of the material to regain former state of being after load has been removed. In any situation, if you are able to remove the load before the cracking and consequent snap, life will go back to it's former state of being.

But there are times, more often than not where you take it just that little too far. And by the time you realise, the damage has been done, y'know? Done, donna done. Wipe the blood off your hands and run. The damage has been done.

Fatigue is when the material is fractured before the yield point due to constant load that is applied. Or in simpler terms, everything has a shelf life. Basically, say you're really smart. You're not like the other idiots who go that one step too far, you know where the line stands. So every time you apply a force, you stop JUST before this imaginary red line. And in you're head you think you think you're genius. What you don't know is that a point will come where it won't be able to take it any more and it will snap prematurely. So, again. Done, donna done. Wipe the blood off your hands and run. The damage has been done.

Recently I have faced two very similar situations, both of them involving women screwing me over. And I felt like a beam, if you may. A dark brownish, polished teak beam supported at it's two ends. In mechanics, it's referred to as a simply supported beam. God, I really wish it was simple. With you, I think it is safe to refer to it as a fucking complicated, mid air suspended beam.

So, I am a beam. A beam with emotions. A beam who is confused when it feels new emotions. I feel anger. I am furious. And it's an emotion that is completely alien to me. I don't know what to do with it. And I just know. I know I am so close to breaking. I just need that little more and Kaboom, I will explode.

I should have exploded a long time ago. I keep telling myself, Oh suck it up big boy, you can take just a little bit more, right? But this time I'm fatigued. I'm going to break before I'm expected. And when I do, just please don't say I didn't warn you.

You probably won't know I've broken though. I'm not one to make a huge racket. It's when you come to load me once more with your utter bullshit and I won't take it anymore, and you wont have any support, you will realize I am gone. So, just please. Tread carefully for a while and give me time to heal.

Thanking you,
Fucked up beam.

I lie atop a hill, stretch my arms out, press my legs together and smile inwardly, marvelling at the prefect contours of a perfectly streamlined machine. With the comfort of a bulging stomach to cushion my fall, I press the imposing red button in my head and prepare for flight.

 Altitude 20 metres, temperature 22 degrees, fasten your seat belts ladies and gentleman and prepare for landing. Descending, 1,2,3. Ouch. I cocoon myself in layers laughter, it is my protection from the world that has enveloped me. I'm not ready to break out and yet my hysteria is short lived. 

I climb back up in silence. It takes hours, and by the time I reach I'm drenched. Perhaps it's the sweat induced by the harsh sun that beats or perhaps, tears of the sorrows that weigh me down? Uncertainty grips me as I prepare for flight once more. 

And so, there we go again! Hahaha. Smiles and laughter. Jack and Jill went up the hill and came rolling down with laughter? Wait, that's not right. Or? I don't know. Uncertainty, It's everywhere. Shh. Enjoy the ride, yaar. Roll, roll, roll. Haha. 

And, with that I hit rock bottom. But, everything is uncertain. Can I go further down still? The highs are always well defined, it's how low you can go that you never know. It's all a hill, isn't it? In this silence, ignorance is almost wondrous.

Questions surround my existence. Hope this is as low as it gets.

Jaane kyun log pyaar karte hein?
Jaane kyun woh kissi pe marte hein?
Jaane kyun?

The radio on the black marble kitchen slab throws at me a series of question and waits for my reply as it is disturbed by static. I fiddle with the knobs on the side, adjusting the frequency, wanting to progress with the interrogation but the static only rings louder in my ears. I slap the noisy plastic, hoping whatever it is that has budged will hear it's calling and make it's way to wherever it is meant to be. For it too, is destined for greater things than to sit in an odd corner of a box and rust. But I guess, today is just not it's day.

I rub of the orangey-yellowish stains of last nights butter chicken, the clitter clatter of my fidgeting around the sink drowns out the static and the music that decides to make guest appearances in between. I smile as I put the last of the dishes to dry on the sill and make my way towards the living room, stopping only to stare and admire my beauty at the mirror that hangs on the parting wall.

I roll my eyes in the mirror and smile. He used to love it when I rolled my eyes at him. It would light him up instantly, as if he were a bulb and I was the switch. He would laugh and clap his hands in approval, all the while struggling to sit up straight, in the way young babes do.  But that was years ago. 40 years at the least.
He's all grown up now, with a French beard and a French wife and their little French kisses. I wonder if he ever remembers how I rolled my eyes, or if he ever remembers me?

I can't help but stay at the mirror a little longer, and cover my eyes, cover them with my hands only to strip them the next minute, with a countenance of total surprise and mouth Peekaboo! My memory brings to me fresh wafts of his laughter, and I let out a little laugh myself. It doesn't really hurt to be silly does it? Besides, his laughter was always infectious. It would ignite the whole room into fits.

But he's caught up in his web now. He doesn't have time to laugh for me any more. Oh, well. I don't have much time for him either. I'm a busy woman. Last night I cooked his favourite sort of chicken and sat beside him and he laughed and again the whole room was in fits! And today I'm going to make mutton biryani and raita, and sit next to him again. There is so much I have to do! He's going to be here any moment.

And with that I make a Ding-Dong sound in my head and rush to open the door. Oh, Mama! He says, the kitchen smells wonderful! Oh lala! I smile inwardly at his frenchness as I sit him down as I sit next to the void beside, and ask about the wife.

Today as I find myself in the solitude of my room, I find myself passenger on a train of thought, of new and old, of thoughts I wish to retain within me, thoughts I want to be mine forever and of thoughts I wished I never had. As I cast a glance around my 10X10ft abode, the gutka stained walls and the storm of Desi sharab bottles strewn across are a painful reminder of a reality I wish were a nightmare from which I could awake. In all honesty, the room I call mine is shared between the 5 of us. Allow me to enlighten you about my happy family;

I am the youngest sister to 3 alcoholic brothers and toy to a sexually frustrated father. The woman who brought me among you was lost in the process and took with her the comfort of her arms that never held me, her breasts that never fed me, her love that never warmed me and a myriad of memories which I can only imagine and wish to experience. It is in these circumstances that I have aged into a young girl of 13 and into a woman much beyond these years.

The glass factory I toil in has done little to aid me in my beauty, but that's a small price to pay for the meals it has earned me, and of course every now and then the set of occasional bangles I am provided and allowed to decorate my now built wrists. Their clinking as I muscle my way through my chores helps pass the  time. Today, I've been let off work early and been allowed to remain solitary in the 4 walls I have for so long now tried to accept as my home.

And, so on my train of thought I am lost. Today, I am Queen to a palace. Master of my own will. Yet, I cant help but wonder, if there is another palace in the world where the Queen is famished because she is duty bound to feed all the men that reside in her compound? Is there a another palace where the Queen is touched and tortured by the very men she shares her blood with? Another palace on this Earth in which the Queen herself is slave? And with these thoughts I glance at the clock that has aged with me and watch the seconds tick by. The passing of seconds has brought with them tears, for these thoughts pang my heart and plague my existence. Yet, I comfort myself in my palace and smile at the clock that has been a faithful companion through the years, never failing to remind me of my impending imprisonment.

As the first of the occupants walks in, his breath screaming of filth, I retreat to corner in my cell, and glance one last time at the clock on the opposite wall and plead for the rays of the next mornings sun. Till then I will sell my body to my father and to my brothers if they so please. And when they are done, I will lie in this very same corner, wipe my tears and with my thoughts I will build my palace. Brick by brick, I will build it. For thoughts are all that is mine in this world.