my father

no matter how much i try not to think about this, it always does keep cropping up... i can't seem to forgive or forget... was talking to Kritika in QD's that day and all this came out and so did my tears...
y is my father the way he is? does he not realise the amount of damage he's done to me? all those years under his roof made me become such a different person as compared to maybe, Kriti, who comes from such a happy family... y cant my dad be like hers?
he's got so many lakhs selling the house... did he ever think that it was mama's and my house too... did he even offer to give us some part of the money? n it isn't about money really... it's the thought... he made himself a 57 thousand rupee gold chain... got his mother gold stuff too... did he get his wife anything??? or even his daughter? I'll bet my life on it that he doesn't even know that his daughter doesn't like gold... the yellow variety at least...
did he even ever ask me if i needed money to pay my fees for college... i don't have the money to buy "the Golden Notebook"... i keep making excuses in class that it isn't available... but what if it comes to the store? do i have the money right now to buy it? no... does my father even care to ask? no.... does it even strike him that maybe i do need money for all this? i don't think so...
it gets hard for me to forgive him when all these bitter thoughts enter my head... and yet, when i think of whether I'll be left with a guilty feeling all my life if i don't forgive him and he dies, i get scared... it eats me up inside... i forgive very easily... even if he realised... but he's too fucking busy in his own world of make believe... when i try to make him understand, he just doesn't get it... he acts like nothing's happened... it just doesn't penetrate his thick skull that we have a problem here!! what do i do? i can't tell ma about this, it'll upset her and the Lord knows that she doesn't need all that in her life after 20 years of marriage to him... Pramod can sympathize but not empathize... i have no friends who would care enough to understand or wipe the tears away when they flow so freely...
it scares me, not being able to forgive...

tears...

I stared at the trees blowing gently outside the thinly veiled window and sighed, wondering what new scene my father would create tonight in his drunken state. I cringed at the memory of the previous night, when the fiend has threatened to hit my mother if she didn't comply with his wishes. My eyes burned with angry tears at what my mother and I had to suffer every night when Papa would sink to new levels of cheap behaviour and torture. My mother withered away, some part of her dying every time her husband abused her in all the ways he could. It seemed as if he had fine tuned it into an art- the art of making his wife stoop in front of him. It was as if it brought him sadistic pleasure. My mother toiled the day away, waking up at 5 am in the morning, getting breakfast and tiffin ready, rushing to catch the school bus, teaching all day long, coming home at 2 pm and then taking coaching classes from 3 pm to 8 pm non-stop, all in a bid to run the house, a job that my father absolutely shirked. He was not educated enough, he was ill most of the time, no one would employ him- all the various excuses that he used, to stay at home and spend my mother's money like the clichéd water down the drain- no matter how much he spent, it was never enough for him. And the most ironic part was that my mother never did say a word- she was always ready to give him the heavens, the stars and the moon if only he would be the ideal husband and father. But it was as if more money drove him to higher levels of frustration and he came home to abuse my mother and me even further. My mother lived in eternal hope and I, in eternal despair.

I remember this one night when he came home, completely drunk, and started arguing with my mother over trivial matters. My mother knowing better, kept quiet. Most nights, this would work in calming him down, albeit, just a little. That night though, he seemed furious and kept hurling accusations of my mother cuckolding him. My mother was way too busy seeing to the fact that we were all properly clothed and fed, I felt like telling him. Ma knowing my volatile nature, kept a restraining hand on me and I was forced into submissive silence. One thing led to another and despite my mother's silence, we were suddenly running away from the house, with Papa chasing after us with the Kirpan that his Sikh friend had gifted him. I distinctly remember looking back and seeing the light of an overhead street lamp glint off that malevolent sword. That night, we took refuge behind the high staircase of a neighbour's shop and as soon as Papa began to look in another direction, we ran through the dark night and stayed at my mother's colleague's house. This is one of the many times when my mother tried to leave my father and the handcuffed relationship, that she was forced to call her marriage. My father always brought her back with empty promises of a willingness to repent. As I mentioned, my mother lived in eternal hope of saving her marriage that was a love marriage no more.    

My childhood was peppered with situations like this. But nothing halts time and it glides past on silken wings, irrespective of whether Adam is joyous or Eve is shedding tears copiously. As the seasons passed and the years went by, the time came for me to shift to another city to complete my senior secondary education. My parents wanted to see me in the “Army School” uniform and subsequently, I shifted to the only city in Assam, Guwahati, to my first experience in a hostel. I was happy to get away from it all, but felt a strange and claustrophobic sense of foreboding when I thought of my mother and what limits my father would cross without his daughter’s scornful eyes on him.

My two years at Army passed swiftly and happily enough for me. Hostel was fun after I got to know most of the girls and days and nights passed in eating more and studying less. When I look back now, hostel seems synonymous with endless giggling in the middle of the night, “talking” about the unfair warden, yapping for hours on the phone and the endless exploring of the big, bad, new city. When I came back home for the frequent holidays, it was another story altogether. It was like I left the happiness back in the little hostel room that I shared with another girl and returned to the suffocation that my mother was still existing in. I do not say “living” and say “existing”, since I would hardly deem that life as “living”. It was more as if she was willing herself to get through everyday, so that I could be given whatever was needed to give me a strong base in life. Everyday was still the same sequence of drunken events... like they say about a leopard changing its spots... things had still not improved when I came home to study for my class 12 board exams. In fact, things got to a point when I had to go back to the hostel to study, since my father’s ruckus every night hardly allowed to concentrate. It hardly escaped my notice that my percentage had dropped a whopping five percent as compared to my class 10 board exams, from an eighty nine to an eighty five.

I had always dreamt of becoming a chef and after I sat for the common entrance test for the most prestigious hotel management schools in the country, I anxiously passed the remaining days thinking of the result and what school would I eventually have to choose. I was hoping that I would get a good enough rank to qualify for IHM- Pusa, which is considered to be the best Indian school to study hotel management in. I had a nagging fear and almost knew that my father would eventually force me to give up my Delhi dreams and choose Kolkata, but the human heart is such that it hopes even in the absence of any hope. I got one step closer to my dream when I achieved an all India rank 1, which virtually opened the country up to me, in terms of choosing a school. On the day of the counselling, however, when the entire Subroto Park auditorium was applauding my achievement, my father was in the hotel room, saying that he couldn’t stand the Delhi heat and that I was to choose only Kolkata. And that was what I did.

Life is Kolkata started on a cheerful note with the principal referring to me as “The Topper” and with everyone being very impressed with me, my ego was continuously caressed with silken strokes. Pressure however started to build up, when everyone expected me to always be the alpha in everything. I was expected to be the model student and frankly, the person that I am, is light years away from the person they wanted me to be. Days and nights were burdened with heavy college work, giving me little time to think that this wasn’t quite the dream I had envisaged. The holidays finally came and I flew to New Delhi with the money I had saved by not drinking my usually regular cups of coffee in the nearby Cafe Coffee Day. It was my boyfriend, Pramod’s birthday, and I wanted to be with him to celebrate. It had been a while since I had seen him and the celebrating was almost secondary to seeing each other. What creatures Love makes of us. A long distance relationship had taught me many vitals things- the most important one being never to take anything or anyone for granted.

The first glimpse that I got of him, through the airport’s glass wall, was enough to dispel the agony of those times when I cried for him to be next to me, just to make things better if nothing else. It was my first visit to the city without a chaperoning adult and Pramod showed me all the parts of the city that I had missed in my earlier visits. Those three days flew past like a blur and my love for the city only grew stronger. I cried the entire way back, not just for the familiar comforting presence I was leaving behind, but also for the life I was headed back to.

When I arrived in Kolkata and the dreary campus surroundings, everything that I had clamped up inside me suddenly burst. All the pent up emotions of rage, hatred and injustice that I had suffered came to a boiling point. I remembered all the times when I had been blamed by the warden of having led my room mates astray, of everyone expecting me to be perfect and then sneering and smirking at me when I couldn’t match that image. Tears flowed like they would never stop. News from Taj Palace, New Delhi had come, saying that I had been selected for their Internship Programme. This good news made me cry harder. I felt like I was losing myself in this mess that had become life for me in IHM-K. I hardly wanted to spend a moment longer in the “city of joy”, that had brought me nothing but sorrow. Today, when I look back at things, I think that if my father had let me have my way and study in IHM-Pusa, I would have been a professionally qualified chef by now... but what they say about crying over spilt milk is true. Things took their natural course of action and I left IHM-K on the 24^th of January, 2008.

I reached the capital, when the rest of India was celebrating our Republic Day. As the car inched closer to the place that I would now be calling “home”, those agonising knots of tension loosened their grip on my gut and after days of misery, I felt like I was able to breathe again. A wave of serenity passed over me and I realized that I was looking forward to beginning this new chapter in my life.

I had intended to take a room on rent next to where Pramod stayed, since he was the only known face in the wide sea of the Unknown. The first few days were the perfect blend of joy and happiness and relief that God is known to dish out to us mere mortals in His happier moods. I started looking for a separate place of my own, but nothing was available in the modest budget that I had. After a few days, I gave up looking and here on, my relationship with Pramod took on another hue- a “live in” one.

 One of my strongest beliefs in life is that it is only if one is ashamed of something, does one hide it- if you are not convinced yourself, you can never convince the world, being another. I did not find it necessary to lie to my parents about where I was living and with whom. I am extremely proud of the bond that I share with Pramod and hence, let my parents know about my decision to move in with him. Naturally, I did not expect them to take it smiling and was willing to change my decision if they objected to what I was contemplating. Imagine my surprise when they met Pramod and told me later on, that they were okay with us living together, him being the only one I knew in the city and that they trusted him to take care of me. More importantly, they had decided to finally give me the freedom to choose, since ultimately, I would be the one who would have to live with the choices I made.

Admissions to Delhi University would only take place a couple of months later and I decided to work in a call center, thinking that it would be a proud moment for both my parents and me if I could become a little more independent. Also, I thought that it wasn’t “very nice” of me to be in a live-in relationship and still expect my parents (in this case, my mother), to pay for me. I know that there isn’t any logic attached to that sentiment, but I felt and still feel, very strongly about this. Here began the working phase of my life.

Almost three years later, I can very proudly say that I have had many unconventional twists in life, but have not hidden anything from my parents, unlike a lot of other people I know. I have worked in call centres and put myself through college, a feat, not many can boast of having achieved. Working nights and attending college in the day is tough, but nothing beats the feeling of that small bubble of pride that swells inside you, when you realize that all your three years of graduation tuition fees and books and everything else has been funded through your own hard earned money. It somehow makes me every happy to say that my graduation in English honors, is my own and that I owe it to no one. Of course, I scarcely need to add that I mean no disrespect to all that my mother has done for me. It is because of her today, that I have to bow down my head before no one.

As I write this, life flashes before me and somehow, I feel no bitterness toward everything that has happened to me. This is obviously easy to say when my mother is no longer trapped inside that dreary life but spends her time teaching in a boys’ school in the hills of Mussoorie. Even then, though, I feel that a lot of what happened to me during my childhood was what made me grow up faster than most girls my age. When most females of my age bracket would delight in talking of boys, clothes and the like, I feel like I am far removed from all that. I am hardly trying to be arrogant here, but I’m glad that I am the girl I am now. I believe that God does have a plan in everything that He does, even though it might be very difficult at times to understand what He does. Today, if things hadn’t gone the way they had, I might not have met the people I know and care about, I might not have had such wonderful and terrible experiences I have had, might not have learnt the amount I have... if life had been less terrifyingly amusing, it might not have been this colourful. My tapestry has manifold streaks of blue and black, but also has dazzling shades of gold and purple. I have learnt not to judge people, not even by their actions, since no matter what, one can only comment if one is in the person’s shoes. In any case, who are we to comment on anyone’s life? No one has appointed me as the moral guardian of society and unless I am getting hurt, I believe that my nature is highly tolerant of most things. I think I have made the most of what I have been given and though I may regret a lot of actions I have taken and a lot of choices I have made, I don’t think I would exchange what I have for anything in this world. As Pt Nehru once remarked, “Life is like a game of cards. The hand that is dealt you represents determinism; the way you play it is free will.” If I die this very moment, I will be happy and secure in the knowledge that no matter what I have done, if it was good, it was wonderful, but if it was bad, it was experience.

itz been a long time

i know it's been a really long time since i wrote here. so many thing have happened since i last blogged...
I've bought an HP mini and i use that now, not the desktop... gives my back a real rest. I've also got the highest in the presentation for Anwer Sir... till now that it... Mahima's yet to go... all the brighties have got less than me and boy, are they pissed about it... i love it when pple get pissed but try so hard not to show it... they're behind by just 1 mark or even 0.5... but then a 17 is a 17 and a 16.5 is a 16.5 na?
sometimes i wonder why I'm so obsessed with getting ahead like this... i was never this bothered by the rat race in Carmel.... is the world getting to me?
i spoke to Durga today... not really spoke... but more like a written facebook conversation... its strange but so relieving to know that there are others who feel like me... she talks about how college isn't what she thought and how you need to become so fake to fit in... also about how Anglican everyone's become but that isn't an excuse not to disrespect others' tastes.. to quote from her blog at http://thesubconscious-d.blogspot.com/, "

BTW, have you guys ever wondered how Delhi's Uber Urbane youth is so Anglacised? Hey I have no issues with what you guys wear, or watch, or listen.. but that doesn't mean you get the access to mock my interests.

If i listen to mohit chauhan instead of chris daughtry, it may just be cause chauhan sings well too. ever thought of it?

if you don't know a certain character from a certain television sitcom you become "un-real", and if you haven't read a certain book, "what the f are you doing in eng hons DUDE?"."

reading this post of hers almost brought me to tears coz there is so much of me in it... i mean when i walked into SVC, i thought that it was okay... almost 3 years later, i can't wait for it to finish... i have no friends... oh, i do have acquaintances... Vidushi, Amrita, Mahima... all of them are friends... but not pple i could give a piece of my soul to... Durga also mentions this certain phrase/ sentence that i love- " i saw people mock me, disrespect me, ignore me or worse pretend to be friendly"... i know the "pretend to be friendly" so damn well!!! to all of my "friends", I'm more like "refer to Debashree when in doubt about anything concerning English hons"... barring Vidushi who does call or text or ask me whether in college just becoz she wants to c me, hardly anyone calls when they don't need something from me... is that all i am to them? and it's not like i don't or haven't made an effort to be friends... but i simply CANNOT mold myself to become the ""party hopping, cute, pink, i listen to songs u haven't even heard of" type of stereotypical female.... i just can't be that, no matter how much i try... maybe it's becoz of the so many many restrictions Papa put on me when i was growing up, but I'd choose watching a movie at home or curling up with a book any day!! maybe I'm being mean about the entire thing, but i can't be like the F-bar late night partying Kartika or Yashika or being snob like Hina... i can't and don't want to be like Sam, who says "chill" but actually is, i don't even have words for what he is... I'm just this normal girl who's a little different. I'm not dumb like Surbhi... not tantrum throwing like Nisha... i can't dance... i don't want to put my face close to someone and take "oh so cute" pictures.... i don't want to get sloshed or high... i mean, why should i? just to show the world and my "friends" that I'm like them? am i intimidating when i am "me"? am i anti-social??? can't my classmates accept me the way i am??? y am i just the girl they can call when they need to know if their assignments are okay or when the exams are near and they need to know what to study and how to write an answer to XYZ question? and honestly, don't they have any shame when they do that? not even an iota? don't they realise that beneath all my polite and calm exterior, I'm asking for more than the status of the girl who's the answer to all your academic problems?

getting all this out of me, after 3 long years, or 2 and a half to be more correct, leads to me ask myself, why do i hate my class so much? so much hatred spewing out of me towards them... i am not like this with the rest of the people in my life... if you ask my mom, I'm a wise and mature girl who wouldn't give in to trivialities like this... and she wouldn't say this just because I'm her daughter... my boyfriend would say that I'm a little kid, very untidy, careless with money, but a good soul in the end... D would say that I'm his "darling" and I'm a sweetheart... why am i like this, then, with this set of people? why do they bring out these base emotions in me? hell, i wonder if they even know that i feel like this about them? would they even care? i don't think so... why would they? why should they? who cares what Debashree thinks about me? but i care what i think about them... i don't wanna feel this way... but i do... and that's what i hate... this raging internal conflict... this trivial, insignificant matter taking so much prominence in my life when i actually choose to bring it to the foreground and think about it... did i jump from the fat into the fire when i left IHM and came to DU? did i? sometimes, i think so... most of the times, i don't know....

my resolution

dear diary,
today i made a very important decision.... i've decided to finally start work on my novel... mama is right... i shouldn't waste my talent... if i can write well, i shouldn't be lazy and not write... so well ya, i've decided... and i'm thinking i'll base it in Assam, at least a good part of it... a little of it will be in Delhi too.,.. coz these are the two best places i know... i bounced around a few ideas with Lindy and got a good enough base storyline to work with... i've decided to consciously plan out stuff before i begin... coz i don't get my flashes like i used to before... and in any case, this isn't a short story i'm attempting... so for a novel, i can't just expect to get a flash of a picture and base my story on that... so i think planning everything out beforehand is a good idea... i don't know how Stephenie Meyer and J.K. Rowling got their ideas... i mean they say they dreamt about it and stuff but i really wonder if that's possible... i mean, to dream up a story is fine... but to dream up an entire novel?? and that too have three parts after that? sounds highly unlikely that that will happen to me... anyway, i want my novel to be one of those "coming of age" type novels... wonder what it'll turn out like but no one should be able to say that i didn't try... now, i'll get some of the details out properly and then will start actually writing it... i'm thinking i can include a lot of parts that i've just written and not continued with... i have a lot of spare stuff like that, that didn't turn into stories and stuff...  i want the novel to have a love angle in it too, but it didn't pan out in the ideas that Lindy and i talked about... i'm not sure what kind of an ending i want the novel to have though... i mean i'm okay with happy endings or sad ones or the ones in between... i call them the hopeful endings... the ones where there is a possibility of happiness but the author doesn't actually come out and say it... i like those kinda endings... i think my novel will have one of those... leaves the reader to think... doesn't give like a definite end to the story, you know... also, i want to be able to strongly describe what i talk about in the novels... so that's why i'm gonna base it on familiar ground... i know Assam, i've grown up there... so when i talk about Assam, i won't have to bullshit my way through... i also want to have strong bonds in my novel... not necessary of the usual friendships and all that... but whatever bonds are formed in the novel should be very definite... as in, not the black or white type of definite but the bonds should be there for the reader to make out... i'm so convinced about what i want and what i don't... i'm just hoping it comes out well... just praying to God that i have the strength to see this through... pls God, don't let me abandon this halfway like other stuff that i've taken up!!!!

just something i wrote in the dead of the night....

She sat on the sidewalk, the tears falling down in a constant flow, the ground soaking them up as soon as they hit the surface. She did not look up as she felt the stares of the world, drilling into her. There wasn’t much left to her in any case. She felt torn, humiliated and there was a big gaping hole where her heart had been.

He sat on a bench nearby, looking at her and wondering who had had the heart to make such a pretty girl cry. He cursed silently, when he saw another of those drops running down her pale cheeks, wishing that he could go and wipe them away. But he knew that the world didn’t work that way anymore, no matter what his Moral Science teacher back in school had tried to teach them.

Days passed into weeks and months. The seasons changed but the look on the girl’s face didn’t change. She hardly noticed it when the dry leaves fell to the dusty ground and swirled around her feet. The breeze blew through her soft tangles, wisps of hair on her forehead, near her eyes. She sighed softly to her self sometimes, as if unconscious of the world around. 

He gazed on, her dazed look only sinking him deeper into the melancholic mood he was in. He looked at the way she sat, looking for a distant sign in the faces of the strangers who passed her by. He noticed beauty in the dark circles beneath her eyes, marks of another night she had spent staring at the ceiling. He saw strength in that frail frame that looked as if a gust of wind could blow her away. He saw life and hope in those dull and dead eyes. He saw the nobody she had become and longed to be able to bring her back to the somebody she had been.

She brought a book with her sometimes, hardly reading more than a line or two though. She often wondered why he didn’t return. Was it her or was it him? and then she would sink back into the thoughts that she would awaken from, to read the line that she had been reading for the past week. She would brighten when she saw someone with a familiar hairstyle or similar features, thinking it was him and her eyes would become dead again when she realised that it wasn’t him, coming to take her back with him. And then evening would come and she would get up, to walk the lonely way back home once more.

He often wondered why he wasn’t able to muster up the courage to upto her and talk to her. He watched as another day ended and she got up to go home.

She sat in the park today, closer to him. as she watched the children swinging with glee, chasing each other and taking full advantage of the cloudy day, realisation began to dawn on her that a chapter of her life had ended and that life was moving on without her, even if she didn’t want to move on with it. Her life was a mess and she knew that she would have to build another ship if she wanted to withstand the many other storms that life would throw at her.

He could bear it no more. As he watched her eyes begin to come alive again, he walked upto her and sat on the bench she was sitting on. He said, “The clouds will part one day and the sun will shine.” As she looked at him startled, she saw an average looking man, whose eyes were filled with relief for her that made her realise that maybe physical features weren’t everything. They began talking and he told her how vulnerable and tired she had looked eight months back. And then she spoke and he listened.

And when the sun came out from behind the dark clouds and began to shine with cleansing warmth, she knew that she had moved on. 

Death or Mercy...

The cat slunk around the corner, its green eyes glowing in the dark. The wind blew, scattering the leaves lying dead on the ground into the late night. Hardly anyone was awake and about. Halloween was nearly over; most kids were lying exhausted in their beds, hands curled possessively around their bag of goodies.

Mr and Mrs Davis were dressed for bed, just waiting to get into the covers and cuddle up to each other. Ah, the joys and bliss of a suburban life... no worries of kids growing up the wrong way, hardly any crime, wonderful neighbours to share the latest juicy Hollywood scandals with, a serene lake nearby to fish in, a beautiful cosy home and a golden haired ten year old son to be proud of. What else could anyone ask for?

Upstairs, the golden haired boy, Scott, was lying in his bed; eyes wide open, listening to the creaking of the floor boards as his parents got ready for bed. Twenty long minutes had passed since his parents had tucked him into bed... each second of those twenty minutes like an hour in itself… sleep wasn’t coming to him today. He was tired, exhausted with the day, to be true. But instead of his eyes drooping with sleep, he was wide awake, rest being the last thing on his mind.

Because every time he closed his eyes, he saw the old woman, creaking in her rocking chair, on her face, a dazed expression. He saw her neck tilted to an obscene angle, half of it not connected to the body anymore, her blood running down her arm- tiny rivulets, staining her crinkled skin and finally dripping down to the floor… collecting in a still pool, only disturbed by more blood falling into it… enlarging it.

Scott jerked back to the present, when he heard the bathroom door shut. That was an indicator that his father was now shuffling across and getting into bed. Sure enough, his parents’ bed soon emitted a loud groan. Scott suppressed a feeble smile, his mind momentarily distracted from the horrible scene he had witnessed, late that afternoon when dusk was settling its cloak around the sleepy little suburb of Hazel Lake.

He had kept his mouth shut and not told his parents because they had warned him beforehand not to go into that part of town, when he had waved and left to go trick or treating with his friends. He had nodded absentmindedly at that time… now, he was regretting not listening to them. He had wandered off when his friends had insisted on going and ringing the bell of the Simons. He had never liked the Simons and especially not their daughter who thought she was the smartest thing around. Girls disgusted him anyway, something his mother found exceedingly cute and amusing. When he went looking for his friends after a while, they weren’t anywhere to be seen. Unfamiliar with the routes in town, he had landed up in the same part that he had been warned away from. When he saw an old derelict cottage nearby, he decided to go and ask for a glass of water. As he peeped in, he was met with a sight that he was probably never going to forget all his life, a sight that was going to come up at various moments in his life, a sight that would make him wake up drenched with sweat while his wife slept peacefully next to him, a sight that would haunt him till his grave. 

Tired of thinking, Scott finally closed his eyes and was consumed by a sleep that wasn’t refreshing but intensely disturbing instead… vague and multi hued images came and went, all leaving him tossing and turning and muttering incomprehensible words.

  

                                                ******************

He stroked the slouching kitten, as he watched the dark house, the only light now emanating from the purring cat. Strange how animals always responded to him; humans on the hand, shied away from him, preferring to stand a safe distance away, he thought to himself, with a wry grin, his eyes darkening with a maniacal gleam. He continued to pet the cat that was now pawing at him, as if urging him to stop staring at the pretty little single storied house with the neat garden outside. His thoughts went on, leisurely as if he had all the time in the world. He had thought the same thing when he had walked into the old lady’s meagre hut.

  In a flash his musings about the day gone by flew away and he was left furious at the way he had to crouch behind the old woman’s torn couch, dusty and dark in its solitary corner. He hadn’t been able to even behead her properly and he hated leaving a job undone. It was like being well on you way to constructing a masterpiece and then being swept away when you were two steps from completing it. Intense fury and hatred washed over him, leaving an acrid bitterness in his mouth as he thought of the way he had hurriedly left, scared that the boy would call help and melodramatically try to take the lady to a hospital.

But the boy was wise. He hadn’t told anybody. Should he go to the boy and ask why he hadn’t told anyone? Curiosity overwhelmed him, as he sat in that dark corner, the cat long gone, in pursuit of helpless mice.

******************

Scott woke up with a feeling that the day was not going to be a bright and cheerful. For one, he had decided to tell his parents about the old lady, even if it got him into trouble. His eyes had dark circles under them and he was as tired then as he had been when Sleep had overtaken Consciousness in the race to drain him of the last vestiges of energy.

He tip toed down the stairs, looking for his mom. He finally found her in the kitchen, flipping pancakes and looking her usual efficient self. He went up to her and said “Mom...”

“O hi kid! So you finally decided to wake up, huh?! Good job. Your father sleepwalked again last …” she began cheerfully, but stopped midway through her sentence when she saw the desperate look on his face. “What’s wrong? Do you feel sick or something?” 

Scott shook his head miserably, held her hand and pulled her to the island in the kitchen that the family also used as an informal eating place. He poured out the previous day’s entire course of incidents and continued to hold her hand -something he had stopped doing since he was seven.

Mrs Davis listened, her eyes growing larger as her horror mounted. She did for a brief second remember that her husband had forbidden Scott from venturing that way, but then she was more aghast at what her little boy had seen and what he must have felt. The Lord knew that she herself would have run a mile in the opposite direction if she had witnessed something like that, and Scott was just ten. She couldn’t even begin to imagine the scars that would be left his delicate mind.

When he was done, she got him a glass of milk and a pancake and after he was sufficiently fed, she picked up the phone with a slight tremble and placed a call to her husband, the assistant detective at the Hazel Lake Police Station. 

“Hello… Sarah, is that you? Is Detective Davis there? Yes, this is Mrs Davis. Could you transfer the call to his desk please? … Yes, I’ll hold… Thank you Sarah”, she held the phone, waiting to hear her husband’s voice, a voice that could comfort her in any situation. She trusted him to make it all right and he had never broken that trust…. Never ever.

“Hello, Jessica? You okay Jess?” her husband sounded a little confused- his wife hardly called him at work.

“Honey, there’s a problem. I think you should come home…. Yes it’s urgent and no, I can’t explain it over the phone…”

“Your father is coming home, Scott. He’ll make it all okay sweetie”, she soothed her son.

Scott heaved a sigh of relief. Like his mother, he too had an intrinsic faith in his father’s abilities to make all wrong things right.

Half an hour later, Detective Davis walked into his living room and said, “Okay, where’s the fire? You guys need to give me a real good reason why you called me home!”

His wife poured out the story that she herself had heard only a few minutes ago. Her sentences were short and her tone betrayed the kind of emotions she was feeling. Scott merely held his hands in his lap and sat quietly on the sofa. He was relieved that he had told the grown ups- they would definitely catch the bad guy who did it and his thoughts were considerably brightened when he saw that his parents were not going to scream at him for disobeying orders.

His father heard everything without saying a word and then when his mother was done telling him everything, Detective Davis pulled out his mobile phone and barked out a few orders to someone to go to Mrs Jenson’s home and check if there was a dead body there. He left shortly after that and Mrs Davis knew that he had gone over to the old lady’s house to investigate himself- her husband was never one to sit back when there were things to be done and actions to be taken; he always led his men from the front. She was scared to her wits right then but very proud that her husband was the old fashioned hands on types of man instead of the delicate darlings most men were today.

Over the next few days, Detective Davis was hardly ever home for dinner on time. Mother and son knew that he was trying his hardest to solve the murder that had rocked the entire sleepy suburb. Hazel Lake was buzzing with rumours and gossip about old Mrs Jenson. Wherever Jessica went, she only overheard stories of how poor Mrs Jenkins had had sorrows piled on her. Stories about how her husband died of a heart attack and then how her husband’s son from a previous marriage had run away were rekindled and Hollywood sex scandals were forgotten as the local crime took the limelight. “She loved her step son to death you know” and “the poor thing got absolutely crippled when he didn’t come back, almost half mad…” replaced the “you know who that actress is dating now” and “guess who got divorced recently”.

Agreed that no one actually went to meet Mrs Jenson and keep her company; but no one also had anything against her. The town was just waiting with bated breath to see who had committed the heinous murder.

 ******************

And he was waiting with bated breath to see whether the police would actually eventually catch up with him. “The idiots haven’t had a murder case in, probably, a decade”, he thought to himself with a short laugh that almost sounded like a bark. This cat and mouse chase thrilled him, almost like a sexual arousal. It gave him immense pleasure to see them floundering about, in their desperate need to catch him. So, the boy did open his mouth. “Should he be killed or should I show him mercy?” -he slowly thought it over.

******************

The police had given up. They couldn’t find any clues to the murderer’s identity. Although they weren’t ready to admit defeat, every single person in town knew that it was becoming useless and hopeless to chase a criminal who had apparently, left no clues behind and had got almost a day to cover his tracks and get the hell out of Hazel Lake. The police department had begun to consider calling the state guys in and were waiting for the head Detective, Detective Davis’ boss, to finally take the call. The department of the Hazel Lake Police Department was low and the atmosphere was tense. They had given their hundred percent into the chase, no one could deny that. But no one could also deny the fact that the killer was going to get away a free man.

Scott had stopped thinking of the old lady and though he did occasionally get short nightmares, he seemed to have regained his sunny disposure to life. Jessica had watched him closely and had also asked if he wanted to sleep in their bedroom but he had refused. Her son was a brave boy and would grow up to be just like his father, she thought as she saw him happily playing with a cat at the gate to their home, a cheerful smile on his fair face. 

******************

So, I was right- they weren’t able to catch me. Not that I ever expected them to. You might have guessed my identity by now. Or you might not have. Let me make it easier by telling you why I killed her. You see, this old lady, Mrs Jenson was, you guessed it right, my step mother. I’ve been hearing people say that “o, she loved her step son so much”… absolute hogwash! She never loved me. After my father died, she did everything to make my life miserable in Hazel Lake. I was just a little boy, just six years old. What could I have done to make her life uncomfortable, as she regularly claimed? She used to lock me up ain the dark attic and keep for hours without food. I never complained. At seven years of age, my body was around as thin as the two arms of a well fed boy of my age, put together. Yet, I never said a word. She beat me, thrashed me so hard that I couldn’t walk sometimes and yet, she was such a good actress that everyone in Hazel Lake thought that she loved me to death… what a joke… and so I ran away.

I worked in factories, carried sacks of sugar on distant dockyards and put myself through school. I worked all through the day and just managed to drag my weary bones to night school. Some days I went hungry; some days only managing on a dry piece of bread someone had wanted to give to the dog. People made fun of me, my ragged and torn clothes- but all that just made me stronger. Time passed and gave me courage to deal with my life. That I wanted to make something of myself was crystal clear to me. I saved up every penny and dime I could.

And then I realised, that I wanted to see her again. See my step mother who caused me to mature before time. She was the demon I could never exorcise myself of. No matter what I did or where I ran, I caught myself thinking of why she had hated me so. And one inevitable day, I decided to go back. I was a strong lad of twenty five and I could deal with anything that was thrown my way.

As I stood on the familiar porch, memories came rushing back at me with back breaking force. I stood still, trying to get my equilibrium back. I knocked and waited. And when she came to the door, I got the shock of my life. She had shrunk into an old woman I could not recognize. Her hair had whitened and her skin had become like parchment. Nowhere could I see the dominant woman who had so tortured me. She looked at me and said, “Yes, what do you want?” and then I realised that she did not recognize me. I fumbled through my words and said “Nothing ma’am. I must have come to the wrong house” and I fled from there.

I decided to stay back and build my life in the same town that had once felt like a curse to me. No one remembered me or asked any awkward or suspicious questions and slowly, my fears dissolved. I got married and my life was filled with both the important and the trivial delights that I had once thought to be eternally denied to me. And yet, those demons still refused to go away. I ignored them initially, but then found that these strange feelings receded when I saw my step mother living life in her crumpled ways. Seeing her in pain and poverty brought me a strange peace that I couldn’t even find holding my newborn.

Years passed. That year had been particularly sweet because I had been promoted at work and the entire town had been of the opinion that it was well deserved and a little late in coming, though better late than never, as they say. My child was growing up to be a delight and the love between my wife and I was everything dreams were made up of. And then it was Halloween; and as I passed through the town, watching kids go trick or treating, I remembered all the bitter times when she would never even bother to sew me a costume or even let me dress up to go out on my own.

I drove to the ramshackle cottage in a crazed frenzy. The door was open and she was sitting in the rocking chair and muttering to herself. I stormed inside and demanded if she recognised me. She shook her head in mute horror. When I told her who I was, she only remained silent. Her silence incensed me to levels of rage I did not know I was capable of. A black cloud of semi consciousness took over and the last thing I remember was sawing through her neck with a blunt knife. And then I passed out. When I came to, I saw that it was late evening and a pool of blood had collected on the floor. I hadn’t been able to behead her totally and was just going to take sadistic pleasure in doing so, when I noticed a shadow approaching. Swiftly, I went and hid behind the ragged couch and prayed that whoever it was, was alone and did not shout for help. I peered around the corner of the bedraggled thing and saw the boy and his dismayed expression. He turned and ran away in revulsion. I decided that this was no time to be artistic and try to finish the beheading of my personal monster. The boy might be back at any time with a host of other people. And I was not sure how I could explain my presence if I did get caught.

I escaped, washed myself and felt a calm aura about me. The giant had been slain and Jack was free again. Even though I knew that the boy was a potential danger, I felt that he was a minor problem that could be easily swept out of the way.

And now, as you can see, I’ve escaped. My past demons are gone, my life is free, although the small problem of the boy does remain. Maybe I should do something about him.

As I walk towards the boy’s house, again, the question I’ve been toying with comes to my mind…. Be practical and kill him or be generous and show him mercy?

As he sees me walking towards him, I look into his face and choose mercy. I yell, ““Hey Scott! How’s my kid doing?”, and I pick him up in my arms swinging him into the air.

******************

Scott, glad that his home was early that day, yelled for his mom. “Mom, Dad’s home!!!!!”

Jessica hurried to the door, happiness and pride showing on her face as she looked on at father and son playing in the yard.

******************

… And I smiled too.

3 new CDs...

bought three movies yesterday when i was out with Ranveer, my ex... we're studying Frankenstein this year, so i bought the movie... also bought S.W.A.T. and Apt Pupil... SWAT is for Pramod but i watched it just now... not bad... it's an action movie with a lot of gun fights and stuff... the Avatar girl's there in the movie... Michelle Rodriguez... i liked her, both in Avatar and in SWAT...  i haven't gotten around to doing much today... oooo, i ordered two Twilight related books this afternoon... a scrapbook full of pics of all the Twilight guys... and another one called "The Twilight phenomenon"... got them from Flipkart.com.... looking forward to getting them... i saw lotsa Twilight stuff on flipkart... i especially liked the journals that had Twilight covers and quotes and stuff inside... i'll get them next month... i wrote down my list of stuff that i want... Pramod wanted me to do that so that he knows what to get me... i want him to think about it himself but then if making the list means that i'll get what i want, i guess it's okay... i saw Lafangey Parindey that day... on the 20th i think... okay movie... can watch it a couple of movies i guess... i ordered a pair of bangles and a shirt from fashionandyou.com today... i couldn't resist the bangles... there was a suit piece that i liked too... but it was too expensive... i wrote a story that day... i'll post it here... i'd like to keep a record of the stuff that i write... will do that on this blog from now on... n i think they'll remain private coz no one knows that i'm keeping a blog...