Dud Sea Scrawls The Writing, clearly, is not on the wall!

The story of Manohar and his son Rohan is also the story of the Indian middle class renaissance, a transformation that happened between three to four decades. Manohar was in his teens at the height of the Naxalite movement. He observed from the sidelines but never participated - he did not buy into the ideology.

The house was was dark except for the living room. Sheila could see a flickering television screen through the window. Vibha answered the door right away. “Come in” she said as if they had met last only a week ago. It was a tastefully furnished home without any ostentation. The smell of spices wafted in from the kitchen. Setting the cake on the dining table, Sheila followed Vibha into the kitchen “Smells lovely. What are you cooking ?” she asked. “Nothing much. It’s chicken dhansak and rice”

When he had asked her if she had read The Rocking-Horse Winner, she had said “Yes, it was a nice story”. She had read it at least fifteen years ago and did not remember much except the ambiance being dark and intense. He said “It is one my favorite stories. I saw myself in Paul the very first time. I still can.”

Trying to break the block and the pattern. Here is my latest
short-story

Ganesha Goes to Lunch by Kamla K. Kapur is a collection of twenty four stories drawn from the oral tradition of mythical tales in India. The stories are retold in contemporary language, and maintain the essential structure and characteristics of the folklores. Kamla’s choice of stories ranges from tales about why Ganesha has elephant’s trunk, to the marriage of Shiv-Parvati to the creation of Brahma and universe. The story of the friendship of Sudama and Krishna is retold as is the tale of Vishwamitra-Vashisht rivalry.

What she lacked in looks, she supplied with her taste. Bold like a mushroom growing on a garden track, she called for attention at places where none of her kind could venture. Spilling skin like cracked shells of peanut, she sashayed through the malls, the local trains and poorest sections of the city. Her boots cover more legs than her skirts. Her shirts tested the bulging ability of eyes that followed her like dogs wagging tongues and tails. She was protected by her own wantonness. Her beauty was not of a well-designed nose or a nicely chiseled body.

{Each chapter is complete short story in itself. Present chapter narrated by Suryakant Tripathi, who sheds some light on his own childhood and life. Janki and Tripathi alternate as narrators}

(Suryakanth Tripathi)

EACH CHAPTER IS A SHORT STORY IN ITSELF>

(Suryakant Tripathi)

I was telling you about Janki and Mansoor story. They call it my greatest hit. As if a case is a song. Maybe it is.

dosto (friends)

I continue my experiments with prose. I am posting a new series titled Janki and Mansoor.
It is an exercise in multiple narratives. It will be served episodically for next few months.

I am posting first three parts together here.

For chapter wise updates, read here: http://viveksharmaiitd.blogspot.com/search/label/Janki%20and%20Mansoor

Prologue

Miracle Unvisited

(I cannot figure out how to format italics and paragraphs breaks simultaneously. Bo hoo! Can't this be made simpler?) Read the story here: http://viveksharmaiitd.blogspot.com/2007/08/you-killed-alex-short-story_08.html

I know I am going to die. I wish I would die soon and without this much pain. But, I know that is not going to happen. I know it; some things you just know, like you know you can die for a woman but unfortunately she is just being nice to you. I exhale and a stream of my urine hits the metallic bedpan. The sound is accompanying it is oddly satisfying. Did you cringe on reading that?

When it just doesn’t come, you force it out. Let’s call it literary c-section. But what the hell, you gotta do what you gotta do:

And here is the latest baby: Gossamer Tales

I usually say: US started as the country of Indians, and it will end as the country of Indians. Jokes apart, the question is a very precise question, but the answer is quite ambiguous. The reason why I bring it up is because of something I witnessed in a Subway train in New York recently.

Prose..
http://terminal-moraine.blogspot.com/2007/06/retrograde-glances.html

It is a simple love story. Kalpit fell head over heels for Kavita. Or to put it without the cliché, I pushed him into a highly crowded DTC bus and he fell as he was scrambling to get in. He found his nose on her toes with florescent green nail polish on them. The world stopped for an eternity for him and unfortunately for me. For me as Kalpit was delaying my entry into the bus, while I was being squeezed by smelly, disgustingly sweaty bodies from all angles.

Once upon a time, when there were just tales and no fairy tales and none of them ended with “they lived happily forever”, there was a kingdom so poor and wasted that no one wanted it. As a model of early communism, the lord and the peasant looked and lived identically. With the passage of time, we would come to learn of the same kingdom as very powerful with a just and wise king.

At 9 am, a final year graduate student is the only one awake, and present in the lab. He has spent all his life as a slave student. In last few years, he has become a champion of human rights everywhere. He knows about the laborers and farmers in China are barely managing to survive. He knows the weavers in India, in spite of the price of their carpets, are facing extinction. He suffers like the Chinese laborers, and when his adviser presents his work, without crediting him, he raises a toast to the Indian weavers.

The conversation is a tale

I
“There was not a photograph of truth
in the image you saw. My lips
were whispering over his cheeks like strangers.
His arm chained my waist with ties
I never desired. We came close only for a snapshot.”
Her new testament was unfolding in my hands,
her neatly written letters composed to belie
what I had seen in a folder she forgot at my house.

II

“See this photograph, for example. She loved me.
She had doubts, (who hasn’t?) was afraid of failure.
I didn’t imagine that after I entertained her from such closeness,

Its nothing, I just had a bad day at work He said, quietly. Are you feeling better today? I got you some coke

But you know I don’t like coke so much! She protested. Did they give you the report? Do I need more blood transfusions?

Tomorrow. Come, have this He insisted.

With a stony face, he watched her drink - as charming, as sweetly yielding as ever.

Coke is always bitter She said, making a slight face.

Can you…? He began.

What? She asked him.

“Hello..”

“He got me Sheetal”

“NOOOO!”

”I am sorry! I should have been more careful”

“How could you fall prey to him after I warned you about what he did to me”

“It just happened! What do I do?”

“Don’t ask me!”

“Please. Please!”

”You can’t do anything. He is merciless.”

“This is hell.”

“Hold on for a few minutes. It will be all over.”

“The wait is killing me. I hope he lets me go.”

“Not before he is done with you!”

“Here he is!”

“Good Luck!”

“Bye now!”

“Hello…”

Once in a while, I have to tell myself, that I’ve not entirely forgotten writing fiction. When it comes down to that it doesn’t matter that it’s forgettable:

Myriad Hues

I feel like Indian cricket team.

I felt like a car backing out of a driveway. I rather felt like a car that was parked in the garage of a stranger, had overstayed there and was making its escape. Her nails had clawed multi-laned freeways in my back, my teeth had plowed fresh pink wounds on her pale yellow Chinese flesh, and yet as I backed out like a car, my only though was to accelerate away. I felt like my ancestors, the notorious Japanese assaulters who had raided Mainland China and left as many corpses behind as their abacus counters could visualize.

Once upon a time, not so long ago, there lived three frogs in a well. They lead a life of peace and contentment. Mornings were passed away in feasting upon insects and algae in the well, afternoons in play and nights in predator free sound sleep. It was the monsoon season and the rains brought two more frogs into the tiny well. The resident frogs did not like this invasion of space and privacy.

“Murder is the end of the ecstasy; the real pleasure is in the foreplay.”